Shining in the Darkness

1991 · Dungeon Crawler · Genesis

About Shining in the Darkness

Shining in the Darkness (1991) is Climax Entertainment's first-person Genesis dungeon crawler, made on Sega's minimum budget, that started the Shining series and sold over 300,000 copies in its first months.

Shining in the Darkness in Depth

The hero and two friends, Pyra and Milo, explore 3D first-person dungeon mazes, fighting random monsters and set boss battles in turn-based combat much like Dragon Quest or, more specifically, Wizardry. Between descents the party visits town to talk to people, buy equipment and visit priests, who save the game and revive fallen characters, all through an icon-based menu system that the game used for battles, equipment and conversations. Three characters are trapped in the dungeon, and rescuing any or all of them is optional, with the story changing depending on who is brought back.

In the Kingdom of Thornwood, the king's daughter and the hero's father have vanished, and the evil sorcerer Dark Sol threatens the land. The hero is charged with finding the Arms of Light, rescuing the princess and his father and stopping Dark Sol. A later game, Shining Force Gaiden: Final Conflict, revealed Dark Sol to be the son of Shining Force's villains Darksol and Mishaela, placing this game after Shining Force II in the series' timeline.

Making Shining in the Darkness

Sega gave Climax Entertainment the bare minimum budget it offered outside developers. Takahashi said the aim was a continuation of the excitement of moving through dungeons in older games such as Wizardry, making the player feel they were really in a fantasy world. Sega published it for the Genesis in 1991. Sega Pro gave it 93%, calling it "superior to all other RPGs of this style" and praising its scaling sprites, sound and icon menus, while Computer Gaming World called it a "hack-and-slash adventure" that was not the full CRPG many hoped for but "a decided step" towards one. It sold over 300,000 copies by late 1991. Historians see it as a pioneer of Japanese console RPGs, especially in Europe, which waited more than six more years for a Final Fantasy. It was re-released on the Wii Virtual Console in 2007.

Shining in the Darkness Trivia

Producer Hiroyuki Takahashi said that apart from programming and graphics he did nearly all the work himself because the budget was so tight.
Takahashi said its core concept was "realism": the feeling of really moving through houses and dungeons.
Dragon described it as combining Phantasy Star III's icons and combat, the first Phantasy Star's first-person view and Phantasy Star II's close-up graphics.
Its success paved the way for Shining Force.
Spells, menus and the use of priests for saving carried through the series up to Shining Force III.