The Spectral Force series is not related to Shining Force. It was made by Idea Factory, a company whose other games include Hyperdimension Neptunia, Record of Agarest War, and Trinity Universe.
I was rather floored that PvZ2 got Game of the Month this month from them over so many other more deserving games like SMT IV, Tales of Xillia, or Dragon's Crown. I thought that at least SMT IV would carry it off, even though my personal favorites this month were Xillia and DC.
That said, I think it's a shame the industry revolves around Metacritic aggregates like it does, especially when games journalism is so spurious to begin with. I've seen games with 90 MC averages that I thought were ass, and I've seen plenty of great 75-80 games that were largely brought down by one or two obscure websites whose 50s and 60s trashed all the great reviews the game got from more respected outlets (relatively speaking, of course).
Lunar is still one of my favorite games of all time. My PS1 version is still proudly on display, I have Silver Star Harmony, and I even downloaded Lunar for my iPhone (it's one of the very few games I find remotely playable on a mobile platform, I otherwise hate phone/tablet gaming with a passion). Likewise with Lunar 2. However, I have never had the opportunity to play the Sega CD versions.
The first game I ever "beat" was probably Necromancer, a game by Synapse Software from the early 1980s that appeared on the Atari XL and XE computers. The first video game I ever played was Donkey Kong in the arcades back in 1981.
EXA is good, but don't go into it with the expectation of playing Shining Force IV, the SRPG. It's more of a Zelda-style game. That said, it is the best of the three Shining Force games available for the PS2.
What I liked about the Genesis/Saturn Shining Force series was the fact that, unlike other SRPGs, you could explore the world when not in battle, just like in a regular RPG. In other SRPGs, everything outside of battle is navigated by point-and-click menus and such.
What I'd love to see, although it'll never happen, is a Shining Force for PS3 or PS4 done using Valkyria Chronicles' Canvas engine.
I have Shining Force III on the Saturn (and the European version of Panzer Dragoon Saga!). I really enjoyed that game and I wish the second and third parts had been localized. Of course, we were lucky any of it got localized at all, what with the Saturn circling the drain at the time and Bernie Stolar's militant anti-RPG attitude. I'd bet that if he'd stayed with Sony we'd have never seen Final Fantasy VII in the US.
I was introduced to the RPG genre at the age of 9, and simultaneously to both Eastern (Dragon Warrior) and Western (Ultima, Alternate Reality) RPGs. Since I had a PC at the time and had to go to friends' houses to play NES, I was more acquainted with Ultima and Wizardry than with Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy. That changed somewhat with the SNES, the first home console I ever owned, which had The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Final Fantasy VI. I also drooled over Working Designs' ads for Lunar, but I didn't get to play those games until their PS1 remakes came out since I didn't have a Sega CD. The Lunar games remain among my most prized gaming treasures.
FFVI was a great game, but it was FFVII, still my favorite video game of all time, that really ignited my current love for RPGs, and hence I don't think I mind Japanese RPG tropes as much as other people do. I bought every RPG I could find from Square, Enix, Capcom, and Namco on the PS1, along with another perennial favorite o (I didn't get into Konami's Suikoden series until only a year ago, surprisingly). I still own almost all of them. The PS2 didn't have quite as many incredible RPGs as the PS1 did, although the PS2 is still perhaps the finest console ever made, but Final Fantasy XII inspired nearly the same amount of awe and wonder in me that Final Fantasy VII did.
I've actually been buying more Japanese-made RPGs (I hate the term "JRPG", it's all too often a pejorative term, as far as I'm concerned, Japan's RPGs are as legitimate to the genre as those from Bioware, Bethesda, or CD Projekt) the past couple of years than at any time since the RPG glory days of the PS1. And no, I don't mean buying stuff like Time and Eternity because I'm starved for RPGs. My favorite game this generation is Valkyria Chronicles, which is a magnificent evolution of the tactical RPG. I think Square's stumbles have unfairly colored the genre. Namco's Tales series, for instance, has been better than ever, and they're one of the few RPG makers in Japan that still heavily supports consoles as opposed to handhelds, which is something I appreciate - I like handhelds, but honestly I'd rather play on a big TV screen any day. Tales of Xillia has surpassed Symphonia as my favorite from that series, and it's actually a surprisingly dark, mature story compared to people's stereotypes of anime and RPGs. There's also Ni no Kuni, which I thought was amazing inside and out, as well as the Project Rainfall RPGs.
I also think that part of the reason Japan's RPG makers haven't been as prominent on the PS3/360/Wii generation is pure economics. None of the 7th generation consoles were big sellers in Japan. If the PS3 had the same sales numbers as the PS1 and PS2 in Japan, I believe that Square Enix would be devoting more resources and manpower to the PS3, and that companies like Capcom and Konami that have abandoned RPGs would likely still be making RPGs for consoles.
If you get out of the Navy, make sure you put your Montgomery GI Bill to good use. That is all. :)
Izumicon is held in Oklahoma City (well, Midwest City) every November. The OU Animation Society also used to hold Ronincon every year at Dale Hall on the OU campus in Norman, but I think that disbanded a few years ago.
