Recently I tackled my first long form playthrough on stream
with Shining the Holy Ark for the Sega Saturn. It’s a Japanese RPG done through
the style of Wizardry or Might and Magic. Grid based movement, predetermined characters,
and a story that somehow ends up with the entire world’s fate in the balance. I
love this stuff.
The graphics look just as good as any other game from 1998.
The walls and buildings are made up of pixels that remind you that not
everything has aged poorly from the Playstation 1 era, but the character and
monster models were done in the style of Donkey Kong Country. It is clear that
they were created them in another program and imported over as images for each of
the frames of animation. This wasn’t a widely used technique and creates a
unique visual style. The only real problem I had was that if there were too
many characters on screen there could be some massive slowdown; the castle town
of Enrich and magic heavy battles really dragged down the pace of the game.
Gameplay wise I am not the person to ask. I loved
every second of it. Stomping around dungeons while a mini map fills in where
you have been is one of my favorite RPG types. The dungeons start out simple
and get more complex as you progress with my mind being blown by the South
Shrine and its all the sudden doubling in size because you must walk on the
ceiling. The sound effects are satisfying and the battle music never got old. You
never see the main character aside from the intro because everything is seen
though his eyes making this have parallels with Half-Life. There’s a lot going
on here in a game that hardly anyone played due to it being released in the
latter have of the Saturn’s US lifespan.
There are things hidden all over the game. Walls,
jars, chests, and even some specific sections of floor contain items and pixies.
The pixies are a unique feature of Shining the Holy Ark. When an enemy attacks
you it may come from one of five different directions: front, top, left, right,
or floor. There are five different selectable fairy types that you have a
second to send out before a battle begins, if you pair the right direction they
attack the enemy once and give you more gold and experience once the fight is
over. It keeps you on your toes while dungeon diving. “Hey there are a lot of
alcoves to the left in this hallway, better ready the left pixie.” Everything
controls like it should, one grid box at a time. You can also swap out party
members (except the main guy) every round of battle once you have more than
four, even dead ones. This feels unbalanced in the player’s favor because that
massive heal you need is always in reach. The only gripe I came up with is if
you hold the “B” button and press left/right the party with strafe. It’s been
over a decade since I read the manual, but that would have been really useful
mapped in a more intuitive way.
Shining the Holy Ark’s story seems straightforward at
first. Wandering mercenaries, a king who’s acting strange, and aliens. Yeah, aliens
possess three of your characters after they fall victim to a mine accident in
the beginning. Then it’s a McGuffin search until you make your way to the end.
The characters are much more interesting than the story. A dragon knight, ninja
fox, lady paladin round out your silent protagonist, sassy cleric, blue haired
wizard, and pair of human ninjas on a quest to right the world’s wrongs. One of
the pluses about playing this on stream was one of my viewers knew a lot about
the lore in the Shining universe and pointed out how Holy Ark is connected to Shining
Force III in ways that really need to be dug for. This kind of trivia makes any
experience seem deeper and is always welcome in my book.
Shining the Holy Ark is the definition of an
overlooked classic. Is it as timeless as Chrono Trigger…no, but if you dig this
style of game it should be on your “I need to play that!” list.
