Shining Resonance Refrain Switch NSP Free Download Romslab

Shining Resonance Refrain Switch NSP Free Download In 2014, Sega released Shining Resonance on the PS3 exclusively on Eastern shores, much to the chagrin of many overseas fans of the company’s long-running RPG franchise. Given the long history of Japan-only releases in the series, Shining Resonance seemed unlikely to receive a localisation, which made it all the more surprising when the company unveiled Shining Resonance Refrain, a current-gen remaster which would be receiving a worldwide release. The question is, has the wait for a new Shining game on western shores been worth it? Well, kind of. ROMSLAB.COM BEST SWITCH GAMES

Shining Resonance Refrain Switch NSP Free Download Romslab

The story opens with a prologue that’s as bombastic as it is derivative, foreshadowing much of the narrative elements that will follow over the next several dozen hours. An amnesiac main character with god-like power and a low sense of self-esteem? Check. A hot-headed warrior princess with a heart for helping the weak? Check. A conniving and impish mad scientist with a penchant for torture? Check. Just about every possible cliché anime trope you could think of is present and accounted for and seldom are these tropes presented in any memorable way; there’s very little to this story that you haven’t already heard or seen done elsewhere.

Story

Yet despite the campiness, the story still does a decent job of building a convincing and detailed world that adds much-needed context to the gameplay. The wartime setting and the cultures of various races and religious orders are well thought out and consistent (if not very original), and party members have strongly defined personalities and organic interactions. There’s even a dating sim element to the plot, in which you can have optional late-night conversations with other characters to reveal more about their backstory and sometimes receive certain gameplay benefits, too. It’s all satisfactory, then, but there’s little to the plot or character interactions that sticks out as being truly memorable; it’s done well. Tropico 6 – Nintendo Switch Edition NSP

Shining Resonance Refrain Switch NSP Free Download Romslab

Combat drops turn-based action in favor of a more action-oriented setup, much akin to the Tales series or the recent Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana. Upon engaging with a roaming enemy, a light blue ring encircles your party and your enemies, and everyone draws their weapons. You can control any character in the party and each one has two primary forms of attack: a basic attack and a break attack. The basic attack is exactly what it sounds like, while the break attack assists in building up an enemy’s break gauge, which disables the enemy and doubles the damage they take if it’s filled. These two basic attacks are governed by an AP ring that encircles your character’s feet; each attack takes a few AP points to use.

Gameplay

Fortunately, the AP gauge fills up almost immediately, and but if you don’t want to wait to continue your assault, you also have a series of up to four Force Abilities that can be deployed at any time, at the cost of MP. These are more specialized attacks that can hit multiple enemies, imbue attacks with certain buffs or debuffs, or directly support allies with healing and other effects. Though it’s rather easy for MP to run low if you abuse these too much, it can easily be gained back by hitting enemies with normal attacks, which makes for a nice loop that encourages you to use all aspects of combat equally. Later on in the narrative, a certain team based attack is introduced called B.A.N.D. Truck and Logistics Simulator Switch NSP

Shining Resonance Refrain Switch NSP Free Download Romslab

Each character wields a weapon (called an Armonic) that resembles a musical instrument, like an electric guitar that doubles as a battleaxe, and characters can come together for a team attack once a special gauge is filled that sees them using their instruments in concert to cast a team buff. This can do things like boosting critical hit rates or physical attack damage, and the effect is decided according to who you set as the ‘Center’ in the setup menu. Though it can seem rather overpowered at times, B.A.N.D. is a lovely inclusion to the combat system that helps break up the repetition a bit, while offering players more strategic options for harder battles.

The main character

There’s another super attack option available to the main character, Yuma, which allows him to unleash the power inside him and take on the form of the Shining Dragon itself. As long as Yuma has MP he can unleash this power whenever he wants, and it slowly saps away at MP with each passing second. Though the additional firepower offered by the dragon is welcome, it’s balanced by the danger of the dragon becoming unstable, and the chances of this happening increase as Yuma’s MP lowers. If Yuma loses control, he’ll suddenly go on a rampage that can also damage party members, which can have catastrophic consequences to a fight that was otherwise going swimmingly. Truck Driver Switch NSP

Shining Resonance Refrain Switch NSP Free Download Romslab

This ‘beast out’ mode is yet another welcome way to break up the repetition of combat, but once again, it feels like overkill for most of the fights that you’ll encounter and seems like a rather tacked on (though seriously cool) feature.Refrain takes an interesting approach to leveling characters, offering up a slightly more dynamic means of character progression than rote level gains. Each characters Armonic can be given a certain ‘Tuning’, which levels separately from the character, and each Tuning gives certain percentage buffs to different stats, with these percentages being boosted higher by leveling the tuning.

Add-ons (DLC): Shining Resonance Refrain Switch NSP