Shining The Holy Ark

Review

Published by:Sega Of America
Reviewed by: Kelesis
System: Sega Saturn
Genre: True RPG

Shining The Holy Ark by "Sonic Software Planning" is one of the better and more impressive RPGs released for Saturn since its release in Japan on late 1994.

Story:

As the capable mercenary Arthur, you must lead your comrades on a do-or-die hunt for the kingdom's sacred artifacts, in order to be able to beat the Vandals: Rilix and Panzer, and prevent them from opening the "Holy Ark"!
You begin the adventure in "Desire Mine", with a small mission from Sage Sabato, to capture Rodi, from unknown reasons. But soon, your enemy becomes your ally, and one of your allies becomes an enemy.
The storyline is original, and you won't have a feeling that you're doing something you've already done on other games. There are several plot twists, although the story is somewhat predictable.
Rating: 8.5/10

Graphics and Control:

The whole game, including the battles and the dungeons, is in 3D, and darn well-done 3D, for a change!
The battles are the same as on other traditional RPGs (Phantasy Star and Vay, for example), where there's also a noticeable strategy element, which adds spice to the battles, unlike the boredom and pain battles in some other games cause. You see the enemies in front of you, and you see the characters' backs when they attack or cast spells (excluding the leader, something which is supposed to give you the feeling of actually being inside the game), and all in great 3D animation!
The spells are on Shining Force's style, where you have few spells for each character, and as the character gains levels, he also gains levels for each specific spell. Some specific spells were taken from the Shining Force series, such as Blaze, Freeze, Antodite, and more.

The towns and villages are in a pretty standard 3D mode, ressembling to the ones in Might & Magic. The dungeons are really fun, comparing them to their not-so-good 2D brothers on the Genesis Phantasy Stars, Luanrs, Shining Wisdom, and many others. The dungeons in Shining The Holy Ark become pretty sophisticated towards the middle of the game, and it'd be pretty difficult to beat them without the AutoMap feature.
Another nice feature of the game is the puzzles and riddles, out of which, some get really annoying, although they really add to the game.
The only real flaw on this game is the speed. The game is very SLOW, but it seems it's the better alternative. Sonic Software Planning probably decided they want to cut on loading times, so each time you enter a dungeon or a city, the Saturn will load the whole thing, including monsters, people, items, shops and everything else into RAM, something the Saturn doesn't have too much of to begin with. Therefore, the game is very slow in times, but I wouldn't even want to imagine my suffering and frustration if before and after each battle, for example, it would start loading everything from the CD.

A "meeting" outside the inn

A battle scene

Rating: 9.5/10

Sound and Music:

The music in the game is defienately good. It's not too catchy, yet doesn't require getting used to. Each dungeon has a different theme, so it doesn't get boring at all, unless, maybe, you spend a lot of time on a certain dungeon, building levels, something which, IMHO, is not required at all. The sound effects are pretty good too.

Rating: 8.5/10

Overall:

Overall, the game is not a masterpiece, but it is indeed a great game. If you like RPGs, it is a MUST! If you want to get into this genre, this game is a good opportunity, since besides the annoying speed, the game is pretty easy to play and understand.

Rating: 9/10

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