
	Platform DS Genre Action RPG Publisher Blueside Developer Blueside ETA TBA
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Shining Legend

Before going any further, let's make it perfectly clear that Shining Legend is not a new installment in Sega's Shining series. This is a new action RPG from Blueside, the South Korean studio that brought us the Kindgom Under Fire games. Looking at what's in store for players in Shining Legend, it also quickly becomes apparent that this is going to be quite the interesting experience, as players work to help a prince pay off his kingdom's debts, all while flirting with eight princesses that have all suddenly become his travel companions.

Harem stories have been popular in anime for years (Tenchi Muyo, Love Hina, Infinite Stratos, etc), so it's not surprising to see such a setting come to video games from time to time. As mentioned before, the game's main character is a prince (named Luchs). After spending some time traveling abroad, he returns to his kingdom to discover that his father, the king, has racked up some colossal debts and fled. Now it's up to the prince to find a way to make enough money to pay back all of this. At the same time, eight princesses from neighboring kingdoms have had falling outs with their families and come to hang out with him, which means players will have to find a way to romance one of them while sorting out the kingdom's finances.

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And what better way for the prince to get to know these lovely ladies than to go traipsing around the countryside together beating the tar out of hordes of monsters? By the looks of things, battles will involve Luchs and one princess that players can choose to tag along when going on adventures. Combat is planned to be more action-oriented, keeping the pacing of fights fairly brisk. It also appears that Luchs will take on fairly large

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numbers of enemies at once, which could further add to the battles feeling intense as players run around bashing these beasts. As one would expect from an action RPG, there will also be a lot of leveling up, and gaining new abilities as players progress.

As players try to pay back all of the debt, they will have over 400 quests to do, taking place in about 40 different areas. All the while they will also be helping Luchs get to know the princesses better, and try to figure out which one they want the prince to hook up with. With there being eight princesses, each with multiple endings, this opens the door for a lot of replay value with Shining Legend.

We're still a ways off from even seeing a release for the game in Japan yet, so there is still quite a wait ahead of gamers for it. Moreover, we don't even know for sure if the game will see a release in the West. Hopefully we will, as these sorts of games have slowly been gaining popularity in this part of the world (just look at all the gamers who keep replaying Mass Effect and Dragon Age simply to shack up with different party members). We'll just have to wait and see if any publishers bite for a North American release.

Mr. Nash
March 18, 2011