New Shining Game announcement soon

[A screenshot from the most recent Shining release, Shining Hearts]

Speaking in a recent Famitsu interview, Tsuyoshi Sawada, the man directly in charge of the direction of the Shining series, has revealed that a new title in SEGA’s long running series is in the works, read the full quote after the break;

“It’s been ten years since the Shining series was re-invented,” he commented, referring to 2002 GBA effort Shining Soul, developed by Grasshopper Manufacture.

“Currently, we’re preparing a title that sums up the whole series and should provide an answer to users’ curiosity. I can’t give details yet, but I’d like to reveal it before we go too far into the future.”

First popularised on the Mega Drive back in 1992 with Shining Force, the last game in the 28 title-strong franchise to see an English language release was Shining Force EXA on the PlayStation 2 back in 2007.

“Shining is a long-running series, but development work largely stopped on it for a period of time,” Sawada explained.

“We redeveloped and resurrected the name as SEGA shifted from hardware to software, and the goal for the games I’ve worked on is to target a large swathe of the userbase and do something that hasn’t been done before with the series. That’s still the direction I take today.”

The reinvention of the series has been often criticized by most fans of the series, it will be interesting to see if SEGA will take any particular notes from the highly successful Shining Hearts, which went on to become the best selling Shining title since the original Shining Force games on the Mega Drive. With the appearent 20 page spread in this week’s Famitsu, covering in particular SEGA’s history and new announcement, I doubt Shining fans have to wait long.

[Source: 1up]

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7 responses to “New Shining Game announcement soon

  1. Sharky says:

    I would give an arm and a leg for a new Shining FORCE SRPG built on the Valkyria Chronicles CANVAS engine.

    Man that would be hot.

  2. TaroYamada says:

    hot, hot, sexy.

  3. George says:

    Sums up the whole series? I don't know how Shining has 'mainstream appeal' in the west. At least the new shining does, the characters are all really bad anime characters…

    I wish they would just let Camelot 'return the franchise' to its roots. Can't we have one Shining Force game like the old ones? If we can have retro Sonic return….

  4. CosmicCastaway says:

    I hope this title gets a Western release. I've been a bit bummed that the last few Shining games were only released in Japan.

  5. TaroYamada says:

    Camelot isn't as good as they used to be, I have not played the new Golden Sun, but the reviews weren't fantastic and the second Golden Sun was pretty average feeling.

  6. CosmicCastaway says:

    I haven't played it, but Shining Force Feather was supposed to have some SRPG elements. What I saw in gameplay videos looked really good.

  7. TaroYamada says:

    I want 7th Dragon…. >.>

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