Shiness - Review @ Gamezone

Gamezone has reviewed the action RPG Shiness:

Shiness Reminds the RPG Genre How to be Original

A colorful world injects new life into a familiar genre.

Introduction

Shiness: The Lightning Kingdom is an action-RPG that was funded partially on Kickstarter. Developed by Enigami, it was released on April 18, 2017. Initially, when it was announced, Shiness comes across as a bright and vivid RPG with interesting and original races and characters. With a nice roster of characters to play as the game looks like it calls back to the old days of classic RPGs with varied personalities.

As it turns out, aesthetically speaking, it did just that. But the gameplay was something refreshingly new. Fights take place in an arena, which is basically just where you were on the map with a bubble around the boundaries. The controls aren’t monstrously difficult, and fights can go pretty fast if weaknesses are taken advantage of.

Combat includes combos, dodging, parries, and spellcasting. Teammates can even be swapped out on the fly. Each character can be equipped with different equipment and fighting styles as well as spells, allowing players to custom build different characters with different strengths and weaknesses. Each character can only have four types of magic equipped at a time, but being able to switch out characters so easily allows for great strategies.

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Overall, Shiness was an enjoyable game.

At a price point of $30, it’s absolutely worth the price despite its shortcomings. With how dense the world seems to be, many sequels could be spawned from this title, and perhaps even alleviating the previous complaint of unanswered questions.

Shiness: The Lightning Kingdom is a breath of fresh air, while also reminding us what made the PlayStation 2 era so great with its originality and narrative decisions. Many RPGs today resemble movies, leaving no room for the player to just feel the world out. Shiness encourages it with its dense and color packed environments and keeps you coming back with its fun combat.

Score: 8/10