Best Saturn Shining game

[Milkymagic]

I'm probably too much of a Sega fanboy, but I liked all three games.

Granted, Shining The Holy Ark is my clear favorite because the game has a great sense of exploration, as every corner reveals a new secret you didn't think was there the first time. Combat is exciting visually, the soundtrack is great, and the storyline is very interesting in my opinion. If you like First-Person Dungeon-Crawling RPGs, then this game may be your choice.

Shining Force III would be my second favorite, and it's still a strong representation of the beloved franchise with a team chemistry element and a variety of different characters and fields to traverse. The battles run at a surprisingly fast pace and nothing misses a beat, and the story is fantastic to boot. If you love Strategy/RPGs, then this game may be your choice.

Shining Wisdom loses out with inferior gameplay to the other two titles, but by no means do I dislike it. As a matter of fact, I find it a nice alternative to Zelda-style games with its variety of items and dungeons, though the only drawback is its fairly stiff combat, but by no means does that mean the game is bad in my opinion. If you like this style of game, the game isn't too hard to find for cheap if you're persistent (got mine for $25 CIB, which was reasonable).

For the record, if you're ever looking for good Zelda-style games on the Saturn, I find that Legend of Oasis and Magic Knight Rayearth are two other titles worth checking out (though the latter is rather pricey).

Hope this helps!

[Knuckle Duster]

I thought it was one of the best RPGs of the 32-bit console era.

Yeah, and your praise made me buy it a few months ago. Best JRPG I played in a long time.
This theme is instant nostalgia:

[The Coop]

Shining the Holy Ark.

While Shining Force III is a good game, and plays like a strategy RPG, it's only 1/3 of the whole experience. The second and third games never came over, leaving it incomplete. Shining Wisdom is OK, but it's pretty unpolished, slow thanks to an unusual amount of slowdown, and rather dull at times (in part thanks to a story that's pretty uninteresting, and the aforementioned slowdown). Shining the Holy Ark is a dungeon crawler like the original Shining game was, and it's quite fun. It looks good, plays well, sounds good and is complete (no parts left out/untranslated). It's got a good challenge level as well, making it the best of the U.S. Saturn Shining games IMHO.

[InfraMan]

Shining the Holy Ark is easily my favorite of the Shining games on the Saturn, and actually one of the best entries in the entire series. It's a shame this style of gameplay is all but extinct nowadays... the Nintendo DS still gets one on occasion, thankfully (The Dark Spire in particular is awesome).

Also, it's not exactly on-topic, BUT... I really thought Shining Force NEO on the PS2 was a ton of fun despite being about as far removed from the original Shining Force series as it possibly could be (at least without being a kart racer). It's just a straight-up hack 'n slash, but damn it's a good one! The game revels in throwing an obscene number of enemies on the screen at once, and there's a bunch of loot to, umm.... loot. It's good, stupid fun with a surprisingly deep upgrade system, and well worth checking out if you aren't a purist.

[gamevet]

Yeah, and your praise made me buy it a few months ago. Best JRPG I played in a long time.
This theme is instant nostalgia:

The music was outstanding. The battles were in sync with the tunes as well, which really propelled this title to another level. It's a must play for anyone that owns a Saturn.

[Thenewguy]

Shining Wisdom would've made a really excellent Mega Drive game, its a shame it was carried over in my opinion.

[sheath]

I could not do without Shining the Holy Arc or Shining Force III. I'm not sure how Shining Force III's graphics could be considered dated when it was released, I didn't know of any fully 3D PS1 RPGs at the time in 1998. The overhead graphics are only bested by Grandia on Saturn and the fighting scenes make excellent use of the Saturn's 2D and 3D capabilities, complete with transparencies.

Shining the Holy Arc is a work of art, just don't expect angsty characters and tons of dialog. Oh wait, it actually does have a good deal of that too. Do expect to be able to do College Algebra for at least one puzzle though.

[Thenewguy]

The only problem with Holy Ark is that the plot/character development is very barebones for an RPG.

Personally I think Panzer Dragoon Saga is the best RPG on Saturn by quite a good margin.

[Team Andromeda]

Shining The Holy Ark

[Melf]

A Freudian error. What you basically want to say is that naturally the Genesis games are superior anyway.

Lol, I meant Shining the Holy Ark.

[Clessy]

I've been playing the shit out of Holy Ark. Its a shame I don't own a saturn. I'd love to be experiencing it on real hardware since, saturn emulation is lame.

[Zz Badnusty]

I haven't actively (like besides to test a random game or peripheral) had my Saturn hooked-up for what seemed like a number of years.
At the beginning of the summer I specifically got it out of storage to give Shining the Holy Ark a playthrough. I'd only played it back before I used the internet, so I was psyched to use a faq to get all the fairies and troll and whatnot. I was taken aback by how long the play sessions were between save points - it seemed any "modern" rpgs I've played provide save points at briefer intervals.
So, anyhow, loving it and completely psyched on every chance I had to make more progress.
...then a rude awakening
I'd completely forgotten about the vulnerability of the Saturn save-game memory. Went to play one evening and was greeted with the Saturn's "Set Language" screen. "Fuuuuuuuuck." damn back-up battery!
Over 20 hours in on a 100% allies collection attempt - deleted. Will likely be another decade before I try it again.

[sheath]

Ick, what a drag. I've had all of my important saves backed up on my PAR 3 in 1 since 2000 for this very reason. I still haven't gotten around to finishing Panzer Dragoon Saga or Shining the Holy Arc since I lost those saves. Actually, it was my Saturn battery and my Gameshark backup that failed that time.

[Baloo]

Ick, what a drag. I've had all of my important saves backed up on my PAR 3 in 1 since 2000 for this very reason. I still haven't gotten around to finishing Panzer Dragoon Saga or Shining the Holy Arc since I lost those saves. Actually, it was my Saturn battery and my Gameshark backup that failed that time.

You guys should definitely invest in the official Saturn Back-Up cart, mine hasn't failed on me once yet. The most that's ever happened were my NiGHTS A-Life saves got corrupted and somehow ended up on the internal memory, so I copied the files back on and presto, good as new.

Also, Panzer Dragoon Saga is a pretty short game, I wouldn't let lost saves stop you from going back and playing it, it's really good! Shining Force games on the other hand, are pretty long and understandable if you lose interest after being halfway through and the save craps out on you.

[gamevet]

You guys should definitely invest in the official Saturn Back-Up cart, mine hasn't failed on me once yet. The most that's ever happened were my NiGHTS A-Life saves got corrupted and somehow ended up on the internal memory, so I copied the files back on and presto, good as new.

Or at least a Pro-Action Replay Plus, that you can use to backup your system save files to. I save everything to carts, because you never know when the system battery will die.