Shining the Holy Ark - Sega Saturn - Gameplay chat, Enrich Dungeon, Rilix unpromoted & Recruit Doyle

Dungeon crawler RPGs don't really get much better than this and Shining the Holy Ark really is one of the best in the genre. It's such a shame few people ever got to play this follow up to Shining in the Darkness. Ark took the core gameplay of it and completely refreshed the design improving on it in ever way. It would also lay the ground work for Camelot's Software Planning later game Golden Sun. After Sonic Software Planning was merged into it.

At it's core is a classic dungeon style gameplay unlike Darkness, however this expands into the open world with you exploring forest, caves, shrines, towers, crypts and more. Combat is classic turn based battles with the player characters and enemies attacking in a set order based on the characters speed. The party is made up of eight characters in total, Arthur, Melody, Rodi, Basso, Akane, Forte, Lisa & Doyle. You can have four players in active battle, but can swap in the four reserve characters in at any time.

Riven provides an overview of the game at the start of the video, which he is currently streaming on twitch. So this video is just past the halfway point in the game and gives us a chance to show a later section in the game where we have access to five party members and a number of weapons and skills. We show a bit of Enrich town, the return to Enrich Dungeons the battle with Rilix which is done unpromoted and means Arthur can't equip the Scared Sword in the battle.

Finally we show you how to unlock and recruit the secret party member Doyle, who can be unlocked after Rilix is defeated, by visiting Far East Village chief and then searching the new tree that has appeared in Desire Village. Interestingly the order you can get certain party members to join you. As after you gain the Sacred Sword you can sequence break, by doing the west shrine and even the east shrine. Before visiting the Enrich castle to defeat Rilix this mean Lisa can be obtain even before Akane if you don't return to Far East Village after getting the sword.

Finally we have an unreleased in English cheat / hint for you if you enter your name as "ZX-9R" ignore the quotation marks and use capital letters Arthur and Melody will start the game with a large number of the item Quick Chicken in their inventory, confirmed working in the PAL version. The Hyphen used is the one next the the / and & signs. Someone at Sonic! Software Planning was a fan of the Kawasaki Ninja ZX-9R motorbike it seems, downside is you have to put up with a joke name for Arthur for the whole game. We have two other name cheats we are currently checking out. but we suspect they may only work in the Japanese version.

One of the best RPGs on the Sega Saturn made by a team that really knew what they were developing and finished off with a superb Motoi Sakuraba music score. While a few elements have dated slightly, the frame rate is somewhat up and down and while the game is locked at 30fps some parts run at 60fps and others at a much lower rate between 15-25fps. Enrich Town is quite bad for slowdown. Shopping menus can also be rather slow to navigate. Still this is a must own for Saturn fans and RPG gamers.

Shining Trivia wise this game takes place in the timeline after Shining in the Darkness at least over a thousand year and around 10 years before the Shining Force III trilogy. Twitch playthrough highlights is available here:   / vg59nzu5mhetww  

Time stamp and chapter details:
00:00 Game Details, Introduction & discussion
01:33 Enrich Town
04:49 Enrich Dungeon
26:42 Evil Spirits & Rilix Battle
45:25 Rilix Defeated, Castle and Forte joins
57:53 Journey to Far East Village and finding Doyle

Also known as: シャイニング・ザ・ホーリィアーク

Year: 1996
Developer: Sonic! Software Planning
Publisher: SEGA
Genre: RPG
Players: 1
Version Shown: PAL
Format: Sega Saturn (SS) / セガサターン / 세가새턴

Shining the Holy Ark remains SEGA Saturn exclusive to date.

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Footage is captured directly from a SEGA Saturn using a RPG Scart cable connecting to an OSSC via an Elgato Game Capture HD60 Pro. Upscaled to UHD 4K to improve the video bit rate, watch in HD or UHD for best video playback on YouTube.

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