[Aki-at]

And I've just recieved confirmation that Shining Hearts has done at least 80,000 day one sales.

That means it outsold Valkyria Chronicles 1 week one sales (80,000) Valkyria 2 week sales are probably going to be overtaken (100,000) Golden Sun 3 week one sales (47,000) and could very well over take End of Eternity PS3 (120,000)

Here's something else to think about; Shining Hearts, a generic looking traditional RPG on the PSP (15 million sales in Japan) is set to become the most successful Shining game that we have any recorded data for. Whilst we have Shining Force Feather, a SRPG on the DS (30 million + sales in Japan) the closest Shining game we had in a decade, not only failed to get anywhere close to 100,000 (Something that the series established doing on the PS2) but it sold so poorly that it put the developer out of business.

So there you have it folks, the Shining series is set to stay like this for a long long time. I suppose you can take comfort in knowing at least one of the original race is in Shining Cross, but that's about it I'm afraid.

[Sharky]

There aren't any dragonites or centaurs in cross.

[Aki-at]

Sharky wrote:

There aren't any dragonites or centaurs in cross.

I'm talking about these guys;

[Sharky]

Ah for some reason I read what you said wrong and thought you were saying ALL of the classic races were in it. never mind.

As for the Shining Force situation, thats fine and dandy that they sell so many copies, but since they have the Canvas engine already made. Which would be perfect for a new Shining Force game... It wouldnt hurt to throw us a bone as well as making the flamboyant crap.

If they can make games as different as Cross and Hearts at the same time they could make a classic too.

[Truesonic]

At this point the most we can hope for is a centaur, wolfman, robot, dragon etc. class added in Cross.

I think as Aki-at has said before, Sega probably believes this is the right direction for the series to take. I personally wish they would change the name of this series to something else. To call any of these games a 'Shining' game is an insult to the original series. I guess the rest of us are either going to have to accept the change or continue to whine at the lack of Camelot's influence. :<

[Aki-at]

Sharky wrote:

As for the Shining Force situation, thats fine and dandy that they sell so many copies, but since they have the Canvas engine already made. Which would be perfect for a new Shining Force game... It wouldnt hurt to throw us a bone as well as making the flamboyant crap.

They did, that was Shining Force Feather, yeah the characters still looked generic, but otherwise, it was a SRPG, had centuers, machines and a few other races too;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6Gugfl2_EQ

However, as I said, the game sold so poorly that Flightplan effectively went bankrupt. Yeah SEGA is coughing up the cash at the end of the day, but it tells you how bad the game did that it causes the developer to go bankrupt.

Right now, the games are cheap, SEGA make money off of the models they make off of characters and they sell. The remake on the GBA, the return of the original artists to work on Shining Soul and a game that has SRPG have all resulted in financial losses for SEGA.

Unfortunate, but what you going to do?

[Skateboard]

Thanks again to you all.

@Team Andromeda: I see. So there are a few more details in the magazine. I hope I can read it for myself someday. I didn’t know that. I thought someone at SFC mentioned only minor/non-essential things were missing (like pictures with description and such…). However, I could imagine as Camelot/SonicSP never was part of SEGA and they also had produced games for other systems at this point (hence they already had turned away a bit) that SEGA simply had no plans for collaborating with Camelot at the DC’s start. The poor sales of the Shining series on the Saturn would go well together with this.

@Sega Uranus: Thanks for the hint. ;)

@CrazyTails: Thanks, you really want me to give it another chance. ;) The thing is, I have watched my younger brother playing it a few times back then and I just didn’t like it as much as I had wished. It’s not that it seems to be produced with kids / teens in mind alone. BTW the childish German translation adds a lot to this. I also get easily annoyed by random battle encounters with the typical RPG battle system where you end up “disabling your mind” because it’s so repetitive. ;) Nevertheless, I believe the game has still enough to offer to make it worth it.

@Aki-at: I took a closer look at the figures and noticed a few things. I just hope I read your file right:

1. A game like SF3 Scenario I drops out of the charts after 2 weeks. But just because it is no longer under the top 30 doesn’t mean it stopped selling, right? Which would mean the figures are not accurate and only represent the sales as long as a game was selling (very) well and was therefore still in the charts? I think I have seen weeks where place 30 was still 10K+.

2. Shining Wisdom is a strange example. (Release in file: 11.8.1995 / at SFC: 21.07.1995??)
The initial weeks are missing and the game seems like an unusual looooong seller in the series. If I consider Shining Force 3 Scenario I could have sales like this in the months after it droped out of the charts it would make its figures a lot higher.

These are the weekly figures of SW covered in the file:
25.09.95 - 01.10.95: 13.184
02.10.95 - 08.10.95: 4.716
09.10.95 - 15.10.95: 9.144
08.01.96 - 14.01.96: 8.523
15.01.96 - 21.01.96: 5.814

These particular sales also “behave” strange (down and up). Is this normal?
So much for the sales figures for now.

It’s nice to see Shining Hearts doing well. According to the Media Create site it sold “106,733” in the first week. You might be right. As long as people don’t buy SRPGs we will barely see any.

@Sharky: I would like to know how you imagine a Shining Force with the BLITZ engine, because I’m not so sure about that. I think it would have to be heavily altered, unless you give nearly everyone ranged weapons and introduce “capture the flag” to SF. If the engine has to be heavily altered you might even end up with an engine closer to SF3 than VC.

@Truesonic: Instead of whining we might join the SOS Campaign at SFC and write a letter to Camelot. ;) At least we tried. Effort = minimal.

[CrazyTails]

You should give it a try if you can. Amidst the more kiddy nature lies a well polished game made with a lot of care, camelot style. About the frequent battle thing. It's hard to explain but it's as if the game is programmed in a way that they know when it's anoying and when it's not. For instance in puzzle sections, there are few to no battles at all. The battles overall don't occur that much, and the best thing is that battles don't take that long.

As you may know, the 2d golden suns on the GBA HIGHLY ressemble the style of shining force 3, minus the 3d environments.

Battles SF3
Battles GS

evironment sprites SF3
Envronment sprites GS

I might be stating the obvious here since you might be a much bigger "shining" fan than me , i'm just trying to say that if golden sun was called, shining sun for instance it may have caught your attention a lot more.

[STORM!]

I would love to see Camelot working again with Sega, but at this moment, I believe there are no chances to see this happening.

In Japan, at the most popular online thread about Sega, people are "fighting" about the Shining series. It's the hottest theme since last years about "Sega". It's hottest than Bayonetta or everything else.

But you know, Sega users and old Sega users are minority in Japan.

I am one of the people who are defending the classic style of the series, but we lose the battle completely when Sega has shipped 160/180k copies of Shining Hearts in the Japanese market.

We know that Sega has shipped 300k copies of Shining Force(MD) in Japan in the past, and have sold -/+ 150k copies of Shining Wisdom(SS) here, but they have never sold that ammount since then. This is the first time the series sell more than 150k in 15 years.

If you count all the rereleases, collections, convertions... yes! Shining Force is the most successful title in the series worldwide without doubt! However(the series alone), it's not a huge success even in Europe or USA (I believe that Sega has never put big efforts to make this series huge though...).

I don't believe Camelot is coming back simply because they have made one of the worst game of 2010 in Japan. The last Golden Sun is hated everywhere here, people are complaining about everything on the title.

But... who knows. Shining Hearts producer has said last week (on his Twitter account) that "there could be something" this year to commemorate Shining series anniversary. However, he or Sega has not confirmed nothing about it.

And I'm playing Shining Hearts without pause. It's a fun game and the story this time is a bit better than Tears and Wind. People who has finished the game can not explain what's the truth behind all the characters, the island, plot, etc... but there are some facts that made us believe everyone there are already... dead!

[Wilhelm]

I remember this site/platform called BYOND.
Build. Your. Own. Net. Dream

Fairly simple game engine design..thing..site... I Can't explain it
Anyways this guy made a Online Turnbased-RPG in tribute to the original Shining series..
Did a sweet job.. Brought back memories.
And I remember him constantly hating on Sega for using the Shining name with the new games. Ahh yes..
My point is:

IF you dont like the new ones, whine about it and fix it yourself: FAN GAME!~