Shining Resonance Refrain

Sega's Shining franchise is one that has piqued my interest time and time again over the years with my first experience coming from Shining in the Darkness, a first-person dungeon crawler RPG that was the very first game in the franchise, as part of the Sega Mega Drive and Genesis Classics collection. This franchise has gone through numerous transformations and dramatic shifts in gameplay with easily the most famous being the Shining Force games which are tactical turn-based RPGs reminiscent of the Fire Emblem franchise. However, Shining Resonance was originally released in Japan in 2014 before being released worldwide as an expanded edition called Shining Resonance Refrain. As far as I can tell, Shining Resonance is the most recent entry in the franchise with all releases afterwards merely being ports of older games or rereleased expanded editions. With this in mind, how does Shining Resonance Refrain stand as both an entry in the venerable franchise as well as a JRPG.

Set in the world of Alfheim, the story opens with a prison escape in which a boy named Yuma Ilvern is rescued and brought to the kingdom of Astoria. As part of this escape, it's revealed that Yuma is the vessel for the Shining Dragon, a near godlike entity who can manifest himself with Yuma's consent but whose power can overwhelm Yuma and cause carnage to ally and foe alike. Despite this danger, Yuma is recruited to assist Astoria in its defence against invading imperial forces and is assigned to fight alongside the Dragoneers as well as the princess of the kingdom.

This type of story is pretty typical with readers perhaps being reminded of Naruto or Valkyria Chronicles as they read that premise but that doesn't necessarily mean that the story is going to be bland or uninspired. However, the story of Shining Resonance Refrain is bland and uninspired. Any potential that the story had to develop interesting characters and worldbuilding is squandered on awkward interactions and unsatisfying attempts to provide plot twists. It took me a little while to figure out my biggest issue with the cast but I finally decided that it was down to the lack of character conflict. The characters of Shining Resonance Refrain seem to bond instantly and any issues that they may have with each other are so minor that it's played for laughs such as one character's hatred of carrots or another's horror that his cartography may be wrong. The villains are also particularly flat with most of their motivations being simplistic lust for power. The storytelling of JRPGs are often held as one of their most important factors and it's sad to say that Shining Resonance Refrain leaves a lot to be desired in that regard.

As for the gameplay, combat is typically triggered by running into an enemy and features a light attack, a heavy attack, a dodge as well as a guard. These attacks and actions cost AP, which you should think of as a more basic version of stamina from souls-like games, but using special abilities, called Forces in this game, doesn't use any and actually lets the AP recharge during the animation. Thus, combat mostly became using light attacks until the end when I would use a heavy attack, followed by a Force that let my AP recover so I could do this again and again. This battle system is fine but it quickly grows repetitive against standard enemies and even some bosses throughout the game. When enemies guard or begin to cast their own Forces, they become vulnerable to heavy attacks which eventually allows them to break. When broken, they become more vulnerable to attacks and are stunned. While this is good, it's also a clumsy system which all too often doesn't allow you to respond in time and takes too long to break an enemy. 

Besides this, other components of the combat system that attempt to insert variety to these encounters are the Dragonshift system as well as the B.A.N.D system. Dragonshift is when Yuma releases the power of the Shining Dragon and goes on a rampage against enemies. His attacks are notably stronger in this form but I would lose access to my items as well as being able to change my Forces mid-battle and, while the Dragonshift system becomes more beneficial as the story progresses, I found myself rarely using it except for occasions where enemies were so numerous that using the AOE attack was my best option. The dragoneers use weapons called Armonics which function both as tools to fight with but also musical instruments. As part of this, you are able to charge up a gauge for B.A.N.D and then activate a song mid-battle which provides various benefits to your party until the gauge is drained. While this can be quite helpful, I found the fact that you must set a centre of the band prior to battle to be extremely limiting early in the game and, while you learn new songs throughout the game that give B.A.N.D a bit of variety, I still found the B.A.N.D system to be too restrictive in how I could respond to certain shifts in battle.

Characters develop through gaining experience through battle which levels up their stats and grants them access to new Forces. Players are able to affect the character's role and capabilities in battle through some very limited systems. Firstly, each character's weapon is able to be switched into different modes called Tunings which are unlocked through the game and grant different bonuses as well as having a different number of slots for Aspects. Aspects are bonuses that can be slotted into weapons and provide stat bonuses and other benefits such as HP/MP regeneration or attracting more of the enemies' attention. These Aspects can be bought from a merchant or, if you want more complex varieties, can craft them using materials found throughout the world, from fighting monsters and completing quests. These Aspects are quite reminiscent of many other modern JRPGs but I do find myself longing for more ways to develop the characters more intricately and they don't do enough to make combat significantly different or more engaging. 

Speaking of quests, I think it's about time I address the hub area of the game, the Astorian capital of Marga. Throughout the game, various NPCs will offer side-quests for you to fulfill which typically involved either gathering a certain number of materials, killing numerous monsters of a particular type or facing off against waves of enemies. None of these are particularly inspiring, perhaps being excellent examples of cookie-cutter filler content, and I was surprised to see that they are repeatable, which certainly helps when it comes to gathering particular materials but makes the content feel even more basic and bland. There is also a social element in Shining Resonance Refrain where you can hang out with a party member at night and eventually go on dates with them around the city. These are painful from a mechanical perspective as you must constantly rest at the inn to trigger these and the dates remove your ability to run, making wandering the capital even more joyless than it was before. Your reward for going out on several dates with a character is that you are able to talk with them before the final battle of the game which grants you a very brief epilogue with them after the credits. 

The game has two difficulty levels, a casual mode where the game is easier and the normal difficulty. As you might expect, I chose the normal difficulty but I soon realised that the game was laughably easy. Even when I was fighting monsters over twice my level, I found that I could often take them down with little trouble. The only times that I recall struggling was one boss fight early in the game and a wave attack later where I had to use two characters which were underdeveloped compared to my chosen party members. Besides those instances, I often found battles to be a joke where I could mindlessly hack away at the enemy and, during those rare times where the opponent put up even a modicum of a challenge, I could often make use of the various game systems to wipe them out relatively quickly. This resulted in my relative lack of engagement with most battles as my brain would switch off and think about other things instead.

The Refrain edition of Shining Resonance allows you to play two characters that were previously restricted from you but it does create quite a jarring narrative experience as they seem to be non-canonical as their real selves continue to harass your party. You can also play the original mode which lacks these characters as party members but be aware that this will restrict you from three achievements which can only be unlocked in Refrain mode.

Graphically, Shining Resonance Refrain is exceptionally average and quite typical of many JRPGs developed for PS3. The character's models are decent while their designs are pleasant albeit tropey but environments and monster designs are of significantly lower quality with many proving to be incredibly generic. Animation is alright with fluid movements but they often had a poor lack of impact and response, further contributing to the mindlessness of battle.

The soundtrack was also very forgettable, ironic for a game that seems to revolve around music as a theme, but the voice actors did try their best with the material they were given so I have to give them credit for trying to elevate the poor dialogue and character interactions, even if it doesn't amount to much in the end.

Shining Resonance Refrain ended up being one of the most generic and uninspired JRPGs I've played in recent years and for every aspect that they manage to do competently, there's another that proves to be painful and mind-numbing. The Shining games used to be so unique and stand out against their competitors and it's tragic that the most recent entry proved to be a poor man's attempt at a modern action JRPG. While I can imagine that some people may find enjoyment somewhere in the experience, there are a myriad of better options to consider before resorting to this game.