Bad Shining Hearts review leaked, producer goes on the defense

Shining Hearts is coming out this month in Japan on the PSP and the first review has already been leaked online fromDengeki PlayStation and it wasn’t very positive, highlighting that it had bad load times. What is a producer like Tsuyoshi Sawada to do? Sit in silence with his game gets trashed?

You don’t know Sawada.  He updated his twitter saying that the reason for the load times was the memory stick the reviewer was using was faulty. How did he know this? Does SEGA Japan send reviewers memory sticks? Faulty sticks at that?

Makes you wonder, I guess we will find out when user reviews and Famitsu reviews pop online. If you are wondering the score they gave the game, it was 75, 70, 80 and 60.

[Source: AndriaSang]

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13 responses to “Bad Shining Hearts review leaked, producer goes on the defense

  1. Sharky says:

    Good now stop making shitty Shining games and go back to making classic Shining Force games in the classic SRPG style with the classic art.

    HELL, they already have the Canvas engine which would be perfect for a brand new Shining Force 4 after a couple of tweeks.

    What are they waiting for… I swear they are doing everything with this bloody series BUT what the fans want.

  2. Truesonic says:

    I'm honestly hoping this game bombs and that Sega just drops this new Shining series. Whatever happened to the REAL Shining Force games? Not just that, but what about the Shining in the Darkness, the Holy Ark etc.? Why do they continue to ruin the Shining name with these horribly generic and cliche anime junk?

  3. upsidedown fuji says:

    Maybe they should stop focusing in on cashing in on Lolita Force and actually make a good game with solid story and believable characters.

    Go back to your roots and figure out what made the originals more popular than the ones that are out today.

  4. Aki-at says:

    "What are they waiting for… I swear they are doing everything with this bloody series BUT what the fans want."

    Because what they are currently doing with the series has sold three times the stuff the fans wanted.

    "I’m honestly hoping this game bombs and that Sega just drops this new Shining series. Whatever happened to the REAL Shining Force games? Not just that, but what about the Shining in the Darkness, the Holy Ark etc.? Why do they continue to ruin the Shining name with these horribly generic and cliche anime junk?"

    Two things.

    Firstly sales, below are the lifetime sales of several Shining games in Japan;

    Shining the Holy Ark: 83,641

    Shining Soul: 72,997

    Shining Force 3 (S1): 67,516

    Shining Force 3 (S2): 37,592

    Shining Force 3 (S3): 38,382

    Shining Force: Resurrection of Dark Dragon: 34,794

    Shining Soul 2: 13,928

    Shining Force Neo: 96,013

    Shining Tears: 104,762

    Shining Force EXA: 130,763

    Shining Wind: 126,561

    Shining Force Feather: 62,907

    As you can see, the best selling Shining game in the series is actually one of those anime junk ones, so is the second and third best selling one. And as for SRPG, the best selling one (Shining Force Feather) is only half of the first and second best selling ones. SEGA also make a great deal of money of off the models of characters from the series. And the one with the most "Classic" style of all of them (Shining Soul 2) absolutely bombed in sales.

    Second point, SEGA have asked Camelot a few times to develop a new Shining game for them, alas to no success.

    "Go back to your roots and figure out what made the originals more popular than the ones that are out today."

    It's expected from a number of retailers that Shining Hearts will become one of the best selling Shining games, so unfortunately, it currently enjoys more popularity now than prior in Japan. A true shame.

    I should clarify that I prefer the original Shining style (Although I only liked the Force series, the rest I could care less about) but the sad truth was that it never sold as well as the series is doing now in Japan. I doubt Shining Force 1 or 2 sold a great deal either, considering SEGA's success with the Mega Drive in Japan (Which it was not, sadly)

  5. upsidedown fuji says:

    Hmm. Interesting points Aki-at.

    I guess some of us here have just hit that generational gap. 🙁 We're too old for trendy games perhaps.

    I wonder how well Shining Force 3 1-3 sold in Japan compared to the newer Shining series. I'd love a nice deep strategy RPG in the SF universe. I'd even be fine with the newer art style as long as the story was good enough. 🙂

  6. Truesonic says:

    Aki-At I'll give you that but it's just frustrating is all I am saying. I still feel the older games were just better as a whole then these newer ones. Sadly sales are the best way to speak to a company and what sales is what is what will be made. I'd just love to see Camelot take another crack at the Force games. They must still really hate Sega after that whole SF3 fiasco.

  7. Sharky says:

    I see that the more shitty the better it sells. I've seen this before. However…

    Valkyria Chronicles has sold better then a lot of those combined. As a new IP… Why? Because it was a great game! It looked as though it would bomb hardcore but word of mouth made it sell far better.

    I think they can make a new Shining Force and appeal to BOTH old and new fans alike. By making an AAA Shining Force game in the style of the old games using the beautiful Canvas engine while keeping some of those horrible big titted 11 year old girls that the Japanese seem to love so much as characters you can have in your force.

    In the old games you could have 12 characters in your force at once but there was far more possible characters you could swap out. All they need is 12 big titted loli characters and 12 classic style characters and we can pick and choose who we have on our force.

    There, best of both worlds.

  8. Aki-at says:

    "I wonder how well Shining Force 3 1-3 sold in Japan compared to the newer Shining series. I’d love a nice deep strategy RPG in the SF universe"

    If you have a DS Fuji, I'd tell you to try Shining Force Feather, appearently the closest to a proper strategy RPG we've got in the longest time.

    "Aki-At I’ll give you that but it’s just frustrating is all I am saying. I still feel the older games were just better as a whole then these newer ones. Sadly sales are the best way to speak to a company and what sales is what is what will be made. I’d just love to see Camelot take another crack at the Force games. They must still really hate Sega after that whole SF3 fiasco."

    SEGA have asked Camelot a few time to make a new Shining game, they've turned SEGA done time and time again. SEGA did get the original art team back for the Shining games on the Gameboy Advance, however, they all bombed hard.

    "I see that the more shitty the better it sells. I’ve seen this before. However…

    Valkyria Chronicles has sold better then a lot of those combined. As a new IP… Why? Because it was a great game! It looked as though it would bomb hardcore but word of mouth made it sell far better."

    Valkyria Chronicles has a much larger marketing budget than any of these Shining games though, from TV spots, large floor space at TGS, anime series, tie in comics etc and it's not like the Japanese sales of Valkyria Chronicles 2 was massive either, it stopped at 150k.

    Yes you could argue SEGA should use the CANVAS engine, but that would mean making it for PS3 and 360 and Valkyria Chronicles did not sell well at all, MadWorld has outsold Valkyria Chronicles in America and MadWorld is hardly considered a success either.

    I would state also that in Japan, Valkyria Chronicles did not look like it would bomb.

  9. matty says:

    Are the Shining series the new Sonic series?

    They don't do patches for PSP games, do they? If it's just the loading issue then that could be fixed. Easily and a int a timely manner? Hmm…

  10. CosmicCastaway says:

    @Sharky

    Shining Force EXA is actually quite good.

  11. Wilhelm says:

    well.

    All they really did was use the Shining name and whip on a completely new idea to it…

    What they should've done was left Shining alone and added something else

    Like

    umm..

    Sparkling Hearts

    Sparkling Winds

    Makes just as much sence as Shining lol.

  12. Kaihaku says:

    Eh, Shining Force Feather was a pleasant surprise but Shining Hearts is continuing the tread towards alienating most old fans of the series.

    Far more promising for old school Shining Fans are some of the fan projects coming together at Shining Force Central. Some creative peeps have put together a Shining Force II editor, which has lead to the creation of fan editions of the games and there's even a completely new game in the works using the Shining Force II engine. There's also a very ambitious Nintendo DS remake project for Shining Force 2 and, of course, the Shining Force III translation project. None of those are a new game by Camelot but, for many old fans, they're far better than what Sega's been doing with the series lately.

    Of course, as already reported here at Segabits, there's the Save our Series campaign that's trying to convince Camelot to return to working with Sega for Shining Forces' 20th anniversary.

  13. Phill says:

    If I recall correctly Shining Force II sold over 190,000 units in Japan alone.

    The Golden Sun games outsold all of them.

    Golden Sun 1 (GBA)
    JP: 401,527
    EU: about 410,000
    US: about 860,000

    Golden Sun 2 (GBA)
    JP: 273,641
    EU: about 290,000

    It should also be mentioned that they have been working with Atlus. Disgaea titles have outsold anything in the Shining Series significantly.

    Also when comparing statistics you should take into consideration the number of actual consoles sold. The launch version of the Sega Megadrive/Genesis for instance sold something like 35 million units, where as the Playstation 2 sold over 100 million.

    None of these statistics mean anything. You really can’t compare a past market with a present market based upon past and present sales statistics of the same series without comparing the sales of similar games in the current market.

    I mentioned Disgaea. How about Disgaea 4? It sold 80 thousand units in the first week of release in Japan alone. There is certainly still a market for SRPG’s and it might actually fair as well or better than what they are doing now.

    This is also coming from someone who has every North American release of a Shining Title all the way back to Shining in the Darkness I got when I was 7 years old.

    I would love to see a US release of Blade, Ark, Hearts, or Feather. Unfortunately they don’t seem to be interested.

    As far as Camelot not wanting to play ball with Sega. Look at the level of respect they were given while they were working on the series at the height of the series popularity prior to the Tsuyoshi Sawada series (Which again, I enjoy. No Mr. Sawada, I’m not a troll.), and it’s fairly understandable why they aren’t really interested.

    Why I’m replying to two year old comments, I’m not sure.

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