Shining the Holy Ark

Longplay Information

Author(s):
R
Reinc
System: Saturn
Region:
Language:
Subtitle Language:
Additional Info: No information available
Publication Date: 11/10/2021
YouTube Release: 31/12/2034
Duration: 26:31:59
File Size: 11015.54 MB (11279908.69 KB)
Downloads: 431 downloads
File Links:

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Player's Review

Shining the Holy Ark takes place 20 years before Shining Force III. Mercenaries Arthur, Melody and Forte are hired by the King of Enrich to hunt down and capture a renegade ninja Rodi. The group pursues Rodi to the nearby mines where, after a brief skirmish, an unidentified flying object crashes through the roof…

Shining the Holy Ark is a first-person dungeon crawler developed by Sonic! Software Planning and published by Sega for the Sega Saturn in 1997. It is a part of Sega's Shining series.

This game marked a new direction for the series, utilizing polygons as well as sprites for the visuals and a story intended for a more adult audience. It introduced the concept of the Vandals and the Innovators, abandoning the concept of the Devil Kings which was present in the previous installments of the series.

Overall, this is a good game in its genre, which does a good job of keeping the dungeon crawling entertaining by having many critical attack and critical spell animations. However, I really wish there was an option to skip some animations. This could save players a ton of time. There is also the frame rate issue, which I think is uncharacteristic for Sega games. It emerges whenever the game needs to load multiple buildings/dungeon walls.

I had to grind for XP in order to get all spells. There are two grinding sessions, each approximately 40 minutes long, which I did not edit out because I wanted to show on which levels you get spells and how I got some rare equipment. Unfortunately, this resulted in me coming into the final battle overleveled, so it is a little anticlimactic.

I think I managed to show everything. The game says at the end that I collected 102% items. I do not know what is the maximum amount.