Shining Force - When to Promote

[@KingdomWarrior3]

I am 44 years old, and just love this game.

[@JD..........]

Hell yeah brother.

[@freddyvidz]

Same here

[@mark6302]

43 here, still playing it

[@alexmorpheus6762]

Started playing this game again after 2 decades. ❤️❤️

[@clintonsarfo3409]

please is there a link to download the game

[@JackieM00se]

@@clintonsarfo3409 I played it on the SEGA Genesis collection on Nintendo switch, which is how i recorded all my footage. There's also a sega collection on Steam

[@mb6229]

its 1$ on steam@@clintonsarfo3409

[@arlensandinobarrameda8108]

@@JackieM00se also available in the App Store

[@beowulf848]

As a kid, I always promoted at 10 and never had any real trouble beating the game that way. I didn't learn about people promoting at 20 until years later and wondered why the end game needed to be even easier.

[@JackieM00se]

whoa, almost 500 views, I thought this was gonna get like... 10 Edit: and now we’re at almost 20,000 views, one of my most viewed videos, check out my Zero Death play through of Shining Force if you haven’t

[@lightdrgn20]

You have gotten quite a few more since then

[@Zafersan]

righton bro, lots of us SF fans

[@wayatvideos2142]

Gonna watch it

[@zidanetribal7701]

They got to bring shining force back the way it was meant to be. This game still look good.

[@kaptainKrill]

Always love seeing more SF1 content! There’s a community that’s “cracked open” the game if you ever want to dig in on the guts of leveling up. I’m sure they’d be happy to share what they know.

[@DrJambonius]

Speaking of Thorasu, he has a game record breaking for me in my first playthrough ever... He was struck for 152 damage by Ramladu (Critical strike), setting him at the highest damage my character ever got in 1 strike.

[@LetsPlayRetroRPGs]

LOL Torasu btw, no "H"

[@MrResille]

In the GBA remake, I was using zuika in last battle. He hit two critical hits in a row, first 98 HP Damage, second 99 HP damage against one of the heads

[@gunsharck]

Many many moons ago I one shot Mishaela

[@Urbrainongaming]

I play through this game once every 2 years or so and I love it every time.

[@LetsPlayRetroRPGs]

I'm let'splaying a game similar to it if you'd like the same sensations from an indie game! ^^

[@Urbrainongaming]

@@LetsPlayRetroRPGs which game?

[@CasperInkyMagoo]

@@LetsPlayRetroRPGs anime PFP, ignore them

[@germanicusternus1982]

Just finished a play through. Arthur was my best character from mid to late game. He is the only character I got to level 20 before promoting. I never grinded or repeated a battle. Bleu was number 2 then Guntz with a mobility ring.

[@sheldonzs]

When I play, I generally promote mages and healers at 20, everyone else I promote as soon as they need to for their next weapon.

[@zhawkmoth3653]

Every Time I've played... Anri had stupidly high defense for a Mage. That woman is a tank. It's practically unfair... breaks the rule of Mages being glass cannons. She's just a cannon.

[@joncliffmckinley5868]

Same! Kris and Anri always end up so tanky for me, and I dont mind at all! I always end up benching Tao because shes too much of a squish

[@magacop5180]

I think “Babysitting” is the correct term for Level grinding. Some characters are meant to play the background.

[@Meshric]

On my first playthrough, I googled when to promote and everyone said 20. But I didn't realize everyone who was saying 20 meant that they grinded to 20. So I didn't promote until Zylo and Diane hit level 20 in the third battle of Chapter 6, and then Mae and Ken in the 4th battle. Afterwards I said screw it and just promoted everyone. With the only character who even hit 20 twice being Diane, and no one else was even really close to that level. A lesson to be learned though.

[@phychmasher]

You know what I learned from watching this? Sometimes Amon and Lyle actually hit the enemy.

[@solarus2120]

One of my top mega drive games. Love this game. Currently doing a modded playthrough which changes who joins when, and I was in two minds about promoting at 10 or 20. This is helpful.

[@rowdyoutdoors5397]

As soon as you said RuneScape, I knew I clicked on the right video 😏

[@lightdrgn20]

I don't remember if it is exclusive to the GBA, but Turosu's shield spell breaks the Colusosus fight

[@Dagothdaleet]

I always promoted right away. Both in this game and in Beyond The Beyond

[@luthe25]

This is one of my favorite games I played as a kid, and still one of my favorite games to this day, but as for when to promote, that is an interesting debate. While you can argue that every character does have slightly better stats, certain characters are only a difference of 1 or 2 points in things, while others 15 to 20 points. It does really make this debate harder, as you know which characters need to grind the most to really receive their true potential but also make you wonder if it's truly worth the time and effort to grind these characters out. I guess it all depends on how you play this game, to which I can say there are plenty of ways to play this game. If you're trying to play through and get to the end as quickly as possible, then promoting characters early will not hinder your progress, but if you're trying to go through the game quickly with characters at their best potential, then it's a debate of whether they're worth the time and effort into doing extra grinding. I guess you can say that this game has an ingenious idea behind the whole promotion gimmick as even to this day people argue when it's best to promote, because some people say it doesn't matter, while others disagree. Heck, I've been replaying through the Shining games, and I'm currently replaying through Shining The Holy Ark, a Sega Saturn exclusive game, and it too has this very same mechanism of promotion at a particular level, however, unlike in Shining Force where you lose stats during promotion, that's not the case in Shining The Holy Ark, but still, almost every play through I've looked up on the game has everyone promoting their characters at the earliest moment possible. And while they are still able to beat the game, I wonder how much stronger you can be by promoting them later, or if you can have a challenge and beat the game unpromoted. People do acknowledge this stuff on forums and other things, but nobody has video record of this yet for Shining The Holy Ark, but your video here, as well as my play through of the Shining Force I did years ago, before stopping making play throughs, I did this exact thing, but yet it still doesn't feel satisfying because of the factor of how different people play through this game. The evidence is clearly here to show the difference between waiting and not waiting, but it's still a debate because it's clearly not worth it for a lot of characters being so minor in Stat point difference, but also just how certain characters are in general knowing you have to babysit these characters in order for them to become incredibly good. I will say, I admire this video and would like to see other videos like this in other Shining Games...particularly the one I'm currently working on, Shining The Holy Ark, and I'm surprised there's not much put out there on that game, but I'd really like a Shining Force 3 version of this because if you play through all 3 games of Shining Force 3, and push things in all those games vs promoting early, what is all three of those games drastic difference...

[@germanicusternus1982]

Arthur is the GOAT! 🐐

[@SNKManiac]

Great video. I still don't get why Sega didn't made a proper Shining Force IV yet... or just port all the Shining Force III games on modern system. A 2D-HD upgrade of episodes 1-2 would also be great!

[@nicholaschisholm7018]

or steam ports at least... they aren't exactly intensive games to emulate so even a slapped together 'collection' would sate some of the fans desperation

[@GruppeSechs]

RNG is fun and all, but when a character levels up and gets literally no bonuses, it just feels bad.

[@annapierce8666]

which is why i save almost every single turn.. No Stat boost at level up, np reload game!

[@GruppeSechs]

@@annapierce8666 Best use case for emulators ever, yup.

[@JD..........]

Save states

[@GruppeSechs]

@@JD.......... Obviously.

[@metalgamerjonny6410]

The level ups have rng? Ive been playing this game for 13 years and i had no idea

[@Mbenham04]

Thanks for that. I always wanted to see the difference but never had the time.

[@guruthosamarthruin4459]

I always heal even when it's not really needed, just for the exp. I never really have a problem keeping my healers leveled. Plus, once you get Aura 2, you get TONS of exp. One time I was trying to get my whole army leveled up in the Ramladu battle, and at the end when everyone else was level 20, Khris was level 52 from all of the Auras she was casting. In the final battles, I basically just use Aura 4 occasionally as a "free" shower of cure.

[@JackieM00se]

I've always found myself going out of the way to level up my healers, but I've enjoyed exactly this same thing with Kris in another playthrough, and same goes in SF 2, I don't remember who the character was though

[@DrJambonius]

@@JackieM00seYou are probably refering to Karna (Maybe spelled wrong) , she can just cast continuously Boost lv 2 in her early levels and gets 51xp at a time. She is the only character able to reach lv 99 with very little efforts. Nice video btw!

[@MrResille]

​@@DrJambonius Master Monks are way too broken in SF2

[@mrwednesdaynight]

I love Shinning Force. A lot of this stuff I didn't know.

[@Schwaby69]

Thank you for confirming my suspicions I've had since I was five 🤣. I was always like "Why are some units getting better stats on levels than others?" Now I know.

[@WahrerKuroKiba]

I had never heard of Shining Force until last year when I read an article about it in a retro gaming magazine. Long story short, I put it on the Steam Deck and have been loving it since. Though I gotta say I wasnt even sure you could promote past Level 10 (as in, I kind of assumed the level would be capped there until you promoted lmao) Ken is a monster in my current (first) playthrough :,) And Gort and Tao kind of too. I love them.

[@johnolmos8670]

When I played the Game Boy advance remake I waited to promote at lvl20. After you do that your characters seriously become indestructible Demi gods.

[@JoeFpoc]

i remember there being a lot of randomness when your characters level up. Sometimes you would gain a level and get zero gains at all. So kinda wonder what the differences are between 2 different games but using the same characters and taking a record of their stats. SF2 seemed to be a little more giving with the stat gains

[@jordanadams7856]

If I remember correctly SF2 it was actually random. Meanwhile SF1 was set in stone. If Max got +2 attack on lvl 3 it would happen every playthrough.

[@nahueltaccone2121]

Thanks for the video, I'm about to replay SF1 and the tips help me. Greetings from Argentina.

[@Alurith]

I would really like to see this same video, but for the GBA version, since some of the Characters are so different.

[@HeWhoQuacksss]

LOVE THIS GAME! Great stuff!

[@HamsteroidOver9000]

Kokichi with his 2 best spears and also both mobility and evil rings. Death from above... literaly.

[@dexterallengalvez]

Started playing this again.

[@magacop5180]

What team did you finish with?

[@TSD4027]

Balbazak battle is the best place to grind characters out to 20 and then promote. Sea Bats give great xp.

[@axel8406]

Its been a few years but i find the best area to grind at is in the fight against balbazac. The fight is quick and gives good experience. You dont really have access to promoted only weapons so its not much of a slog. It usually only takes an hour or two to get my core team to 20. Character i get aftewards, i just feed kills to get up to. Its definitely overkill. When you can beat the game in under 10 hours, is adding an hour or two of grinding really worth it?

[@gunsharck]

Valid point!

[@sixshooter500]

I grind up Gong pretty hard, because he's the only healer with defensive and offensive strength to speak of. He's no Luke or Gort, but he does better than all the other healers and some mid guys.

[@killerb255]

Honestly Gong ends up pretty weak for me. He should have much higher attack than Lowe/Khris/Torasu, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

[@roderickwilson6806]

This was great, you're awesome.

[@lovethatdarkness]

Been grinding Balbazak's level, Amon and Balbaroy are still around level 9 because they never hit anything. Lowe did deal nearly 20 damage in the same map, so that was funny.

[@germanmanuellopezdurazo3579]

I have expirience in playing with no promoted characters When i was a kid, the first time i played, after promoting my team at 10 the next battle felt awful, for the stat drop, so i reset the game to have unpromoted units and cotinued until the Kaine battle, my units felt weak, and they cant be more powerful, so i finally understand the promotion, i restarted a ton of times that battle, until my unist dont felt like weaklings.

[@matrim6563]

Can you make a Tier list video please? Love your content, and love this game! I play it in the winter pretty much every year for the past 20 years lol

[@lightdrgn20]

SF1 has a lot of jank, but it is still one if my favorites.

[@matrixmaster9616]

You can have a secondary attack with The Chaos Breaker Sword? Cool!

[@dimmufan88]

i had no idea!

[@gunsharck]

Are you kidding??? How did you NOT know??? Nearly all high tier weapons have secondary uses but they will break

[@matebeeba3985]

Chaos breaker cannot break. Infinite uses :)

[@Hilipinapixili]

I'm actually playing this game for the first time right now. I found the video because I was kinda wondering when should I promote the characters. I'm currently right after the fight with Kane, I have no promoted characters yet (which might explain why the dude was one-shotting everyone with his basic attacks) and most of my team is around level 15-17. Main exception being Bleu who I just got, and so far he's being a pain in the ass to train. Should I just promote him outright then?

[@JackieM00se]

Lmao now you find out you shoulda promoted half of the whole game ago. Bleu is only strong if you invest a bunch of time to get him to the highest level on your team, which would probably take more time than just finishing the game. He’s a very late bloomer like Arthur, get Bleu to 20 first if you’re already ahead on him since he doesn’t get punished by not having promotion specific items, zylo same

[@Hilipinapixili]

@@JackieM00se Eh, such is life. I'm currently in the Mishaela fight with a party of recently promoted characters and I can't seem to damage her fast enough to keep up with her healing, so I guess it's grinding time for me. :P

[@johnlewisbrooks]

Blue Dragons are totally exposed to desoul spells!

[@MiBrCo4177]

Just started playing this last week for the first time in roughly 30 years. I forgot how strong these characters can be. My main team at endgame right now where I'm fighting Colossus is: Max, Alef, Lyle, Luke, Amon, Bleu, Domingo, Zylo, Adam, Tirasu, Guntz, Earnest and I'm wrecking enemies. I've thought of keeping it with the lore of shining force CD and having Lowe, Anri, Ken apart of the force but I'm to far invested lol. I spent hours leveling everyone up to 20 and then promoting them..Yes.. even Adam.

[@leonig01]

Healers could be brought to level 99 relatively easy, as they always get exp for healing, regardless of their level. Especially mass aura, which rewards you with 5 xp per healed character. Some items allow healing as well, so the non healers who can use them can similarly benefit. P.S. I was crazy enough to bring all my characters to level 99 in both SF1 and SF2.

[@FurryEskimo]

Wow, this is recent. I’m currently designing a game and referencing Shinning Force’s leveling system. I don’t suppose you have the leveling data and be able to share it with me, do you? The forums I’ve found are very outdated and seem to have errors, so I want to find out as much as I can.

[@JackieM00se]

Yeah I know a bit about how the leveling stats work in this game, but as far as EXP in respect to character level/enemy, i don’t know about that, but as for the stats There’s an expected level for each stat a character is supposed to have at each level and the game will boost that stat after some RNG roll, which is manipulated depending on how far off the stat is from that number. Ex: Mae gets a lot of defense, but she had a bad roll and didn’t gain any defense from a level up, the next time she levels up, she has an increased chance of getting a defense bonus that makes up for the stats she didn’t get last time. The same is also true in reverse, if Balbaroy gains a +4 attack boost when he hits level 6, Theres a good chance he won’t gain any more attack stats whatsoever until after hitting level 10. Power and defense potions impact this as well. If you use a defense potion, a character will gain less stats upon leveling because it knows the specific leveled stat is higher than it’s supposed to be, making power potions and bread of life’s situational and generally best suited for once a characters stats have been maxxed out at level 20. Characters do still gain stats after level 20 though because of the RNG element that randomly gives a specific stat +1 or +2, so even though a character at level 20 has all the stats they should have, there’s still luck upon leveling that they keep growing past that predetermined point. As far as exp, I know that at the lowest level, if a character is very far behind in experience, they typically gain x3 the amount of damage dealt in EXp. Example being, Adam does 1 damage and gains 3 exp, or does 4 damage and gains 12, unless they get a kill then it’s boosted to 48 xp being the maximum I’m not sure if you’ve already come across that information because I’ve never looked into it, I just have my experience, but it feels as if there’s certain thresholds of EXP against certain enemies, which if you go a level beyond that threshold, each level you go past, exp gained gets halved each time. A character will get x3 of damage dealt in experience points up to a certain level, then it’s only x2, then they only get as much experience as they deal in damage for a level, then it halves and keeps going down and down until they only get 1exp for doing anything, even if it’s a kill. I know those values can be tested against the dark dwarves and goblins in chapter 1 to determine what threshold levels those monsters have, but I’m not sure about the others since the leveling I did was focused on convenient locations to level up the characters rather than the optimal exp from specific enemies. Hope this helps you some lol

[@FurryEskimo]

@@JackieM00se Yeah, thanks. I recorded their level data for most characters, all the way up to promoted 20, and I noticed some pretty obvious patterns, but wasn’t quite sure how to reproduce the values. I kept testing and I think what they did was use a sin() function to define the expected stats, plus the randomness you described. I wasn’t so familiar with how xp worked, but that was a helpful description, thanks.

[@FurryEskimo]

@@JackieM00se Oh yeah, I also discovered that the curses are doing doing a certain percentage of damage, and the soul drain spell is doing damage, because I got the combo.. I got damage reflected on a soul drain.. If I recall correctly, it’s not doing some random amount of damage, but in binary it was just like, “11111111” or something, which is something like 251. I forget the details, but I know it was a huge, very specific value, so I investigated and found out it made sense if the game makers had been coding in binary.

[@BarokaiRein]

The spellcasters seem to get pretty big increases in MP, which is worth it imo. Other than that Max had absolutely insane difference in stats. Bleu has no weapons, so he is always a promote at 20 character for me. Same goes for Zulo. That said, I like grinding, so I grind mages, Bleu and Zulo. In the GBA game, it's even more fun when Mawlock can damage fucking everything on the map so everyone else can finish them off easily. Which, also makes Mawlock always be like 15 levels higher than everyone else.

[@vallum12100]

Mawlock is a true bro for replays

[@gunsharck]

Who is Zulo?

[@vallum12100]

@@gunsharck probably meant Zylo the werewolf

[@thatonegeeksite5251]

I found that with only healers and mages I’d just promote at 10 because I barely used them. It was a miracle if any of them were even level 20 by the end of the game lol.

[@FirionFF2]

Honestly I’ve always promoted around lvl 10-12 ish. The game is easy enough that you don’t need to overlevel (at least I never found myself needing to.) Only grinding I do is to get characters like bleu up to speed. Also it’s on the switch library now which has rewind so if you REALLY want you can rewind level ups until you get good stat boosts and it’s alot faster than actual grinding. But yeah. I wish this one had multiple difficulties like shining force 2 but it’s still my favorite of the series, likely from all the nostalgia

[@JackieM00se]

I had no idea the rewind feature can adjust stat rolls, I'll have to experiment with that

[@FirionFF2]

@@JackieM00se yeah, I’m a little iffy on how far back you rewind, but I think I usually went to before my unit attacked.

[@danielkilgore8654]

​@@JackieM00seI did this in emulator for Max, save-scumming to get level ups with huge stat boosts every time. The end result was he was miles above everything and every one, and only the mages could keep up.

[@rpg_haven]

@@JackieM00se The RNG seems to change whenever you move units, at the very least. So you can rewind to before you attack, move the unit around a little, then try again

[@edenconeby8227]

It’s different every time, except Zylo. Zylo could kill god in his sleep

[@kingofbudokai]

Zylo, Musashi, and Bleu are all utterly overpowered beasts. They are non-negotiable for me.

[@gunsharck]

@@kingofbudokaimusashi’s range is shocking though

[@Amoschp524]

For casual play Tao is the one I wait on, for me she slows down on damage if you don't get blaze 3, by the time I do I have come to rely on Domingo and Anari. Have only ever gotten blaze 4 when I hold off Tao's promotion.

[@PatrickChetland]

The past 3 years I've replayed both games once a year. Can anyone recommend any romhacks that are fun?

[@AnotherZenThought]

I downloaded the app which lets you pause at any point during the game and save. I restarted the game again and again until I got the best numbers for each level and yet they are only comparable to yours. What gives? Are you the luckiest person alive? I promoted them at 19.

[@ReinMixTape]

Well it looks like it's time for me to promote a lot of my team members because I wrongly assumed getting them to lvl 20 before promote meant=god like stats compared to a lvl 10 promote!

[@killerb255]

For a character like Arthur, the difference between Level 10 and Level 20 promotions are night and day, but for other characters it's a lot less prominent.

[@KishorTwist]

I asked the AI and it said for most, level 20 is respectable enough for promotion.

[@Lupo32]

I played this on sega smash pack 2 From 1999 - 2004 . Got shining force 2 on steam but Never finished that final battle .

[@sirlawton6610]

Please I need the link to download the full game for pc

[@jameswarner5878]

I had one play through where Tao was my most powerful attacker!

[@JackieM00se]

@@jameswarner5878 Tao is goated at every point in the game lol

[@m.a.4500]

Is it possible to complete sf 1 and 2 without promoting anyone?

[@killerb255]

Promoting early vs Promoting late: it's almost like you're playing two different Shining Force games. Promoting late renders all late-joining already-promoted characters weaker in comparison to your existing force, but helps make up for "empty levels" at Level 20+ Promoted in every game except Shining Force 2 (where there are no "empty-levels"--the characters get reasonable level-ups all the way to Level 40 Unpromoted and Level 99 Promoted). Promoting early makes it easier to compare every character on their own merits, but in every Shining Force game outside of SF2, you rob those characters of their true potential because of "empty levels." If you want to fight the secret boss fight in Book 4 of Shining Force CD, promoting the 12 characters that participate in that at Level 20 is HIGHLY recommended!

[@quickpawmaud]

My name is Adam so I want to use Adam. Any advice?

[@MrResille]

Grind a lot. He's too weak once he joins

[@gunsharck]

@@MrResilleHear hear!!!

[@DDRmails]

played my game with chars that i get, didnt rotate them maybe i did get it wrong but isnt you just should show us 3 pictures? char lvl 10 char lvl 20 promoted char lvl 10 that could be enough

[@Komakazeම]

I promote when it feels like its getting too hard (except arthur bleu and zylo 20 all the way for them) depending on the stats I get that can be lvl 12 - 17

[@riftfontain]

I need this game to compete with fire emblem!

[@magacop5180]

I’m playing this again after 20 years and this time with 4 Horsemen 😂 Centaurs are really good. I never liked them as a kid.

[@kingofbudokai]

I don't like ALL of them, but Mae and Earnest (and Lyle, though he's an archer) are a must in my comp.

[@gunsharck]

Ken, Mae, Pelle are literally the backbone of my army

[@raymondhemphill146]

Thank you.

[@AshtranDubs]

So just grind the MC and the mages got it How about the sequel? Do they follow the same rules more or less?

[@JackieM00se]

There's a way to infinity grind XP on characters in SF2, but I did a playthrough where I promoted all characters at lv20 in SF2 and it was pretty much same as here. I actually didn't like over leveling in SF2 because it made the fights too easy. I can't find the video I used, but there's the hidden village with the secret battle where a dark smoke or whatever the high level monster is. position your characters in attack distance of spawn, save and restart game with control enemy switched on, put a weight on the C or A button and let it run. Since the monsters spawn automatically and they only spawn in certain locations depending on where your characters are, you can control which enemies spawn.

[@Nilithic]

Love this game

[@lmagus]

Great video!! Did you forget to mention Bleu? :D He also gets a ton more points!

[@JackieM00se]

I think I did? if not, he's kind of like Arthur where he needs a lot of babysitting to get going, but by the time you've spent enough time getting him to the point where he can carry the game, you could've already beaten the game just using the other characters. Great ROI on Levels but bad ROI on time invested

[@Arrowdodger]

I guess the thing about Bleu is that, if someone wants to kick butt with a dragon, they're getting what they want, even if it takes a while.@@JackieM00se

[@megamix5403]

Hm, so you're implying that there's a balance to be achieved when it comes to promotion levels. 🤔 What would you recommend personal?

[@domikarus5237]

Max getting 1+ movement is nuts

[@Ubernewb111]

played this game so many times

[@DrJambonius]

Good video btw! I would have liked if Sega made the switch version a "replayable" one (You can replay the game forever each time getting tougher). Also, I almost cried when I saw the video of the new shining force 1 (In 3d) only to be cancelled ;(

[@mooglemage6456]

Wouldn't Hans be viable to wait until Level 20 to promote as well?

[@JackieM00se]

he takes more damage than he dishes out in the mid-game so I've always seen that as a negative. I hate it when i try so hard to babysit a character and a gargoyle or belial walks over and one-shots him, defeating the purpose of saving kills for him. Besides Lyle has way better stats, even without a delayed promotion.

[@lancer010gaming2]

Man how do you get multiple items like Bread of Life or Def potion?

[@JackieM00se]

There’s like 3 or 4 of each throughout the campaign and you can save before using them to get the high roll bonus for maxing stats

[@torwauki7]

What version of shining force is this? It doesn't look like any Sega genesis version.

[@JackieM00se]

Nintendo Switch official emulator of the 1993 game

[@wooper2654]

I hope Shining Force 1 and Shining Force 2 get a remake the same as Super Mario RPG, where the remake is super respectful and faithful to the original game

[@joshuarichard6827]

Mario RPG remakes was none of those

[@wooper2654]

@@joshuarichard6827 I'm talking about the recent one that was rereleased on Switch. The remake of the original Super Mario RPG. How is it not?? It's literally the exact same game but with new visuals, music, and a few new elements. Look at the characters, they look exactly like the ones from the original game but with 3D models.

[@joshuarichard6827]

@@wooper2654huge changes in that terrible switch game

[@wooper2654]

@@joshuarichard6827 Elaborate

[@Rem694u2]

I personally don't find it worth grinding to 20 to promote. The game isn't hard enough to warrant doing it. But it's worth doing once just for the fun of it.

[@heardofrvb]

So, since Zylo is crazy good, is it a good idea to promote him immediately or later?

[@JackieM00se]

I don't use Zylo much since it takes him a few levels after promotion to hit his power spikes, whereas I could use the centaurs and their power spears to cruise through chapters 4 & 5 faster, so I wouldn't know, I bench him too much.

[@annapierce8666]

I have Zylo in battle on most playthroughs I recommend promoting later 🐺

[@TheTartKnight]

so basically the mages are the ones that should be promoted last? ironic considering the manual says that warriors should be promoted last while mages and healers should be promoted early, I guess you can't always trust the manual.

[@blackdragoncyrus]

SF1 = Whenever you want, really, the game's pretty easy as is.

[@321242]

Bro. Did you try use game genie codes? It makes your job much easier. In SF 2 i only promote after lv 40 😂 but it breaks the game because the team becomes uber powerful and using codes i get everyone in lv 99 it’s so awesome the green health bar and the ??/?? But sadly at this point even zeon is no match for ANYONE in the party. Ok nostalgia hits me really hard now…

[@HaidesTunicaRoja]

5:43 Move 6/7? Maybe with a Turbo pepper?

[@magacop5180]

4:40 Whoa you hold no weapon so it looks like a Sorcerer instead of a Wizard 😂

[@aaronwarr34]

Whats the best way to grind levels?

[@JackieM00se]

Very first battle, the cave fight in chapter 2, Balbazak boss battle, Kane boss battle, and Ramladu boss battle. Since they’re all really short trips for you to egress out of and have monsters almost immediately available to kill in first couple turns, plus in all these fights, there’s specific monsters like the goblins, zombies, golems, Balbazak, and Ramladu who you can exploit the AI to blast them with ranged characters from afar without them gap closing and fighting

[@0niSouL]

i level all char to 99 in shining force 2 i also level healer char to 99 at start of the game.

[@killerb255]

Shining Force 2 is the ONLY Shining Force game where this can lead to extremely op characters. In every other Shining Force game you run into "empty levels"--levels where characters may gain no stat increases whatsoever or they gain maybe one stat increase by 1 point. Shining Force CD (and the Game Gear games they're based on) and Final Conflict are the biggest offenders after Level 20 Promoted. In Shining Force 1 this starts happening at around Level 30 Promoted. In Shining Force 3, Level 30 Promoted and again at around Level 30-35 Innovated (second promotion).

[@billcox8870]

Good game but my big mistake in it was promoting the dragon as soon as I got it

[@LordValzy]

The difference for Hans is huge, 11 HP and 13 Def? That may easily allow him to tkae another 1-2 hits, the 7 attack more is also a great bonus. Similiar for Gong who should be a much more viable frontline healer with those additional stats and the atk bonus is also quiet a bit bigger then for others. I'd say for chars without weapons and casters it seems more viable then for more common unit types this does make a difference, now if it is needed or worth the time is up to the player.

[@chrispalpalatoc7831]

my team is max tao anri alef diane kokichi zelo domingo khris lowe gong

[@johns.8246]

What about Jogurt?

[@whitemagicalhat2844]

I *always* promoted my characters at level 20, because, think of it this way: Promoting at level 10 robs your character of 10 potential level-ups. All other things being equal, a 20/20 character will *always* end up stronger than a 10/20 character, even accounting for RNG in stat gains. Patience really is a virtue; I have no qualms whatsoever with grinding.

[@JackieM00se]

This video was moreso to prove that 2-3 additional levels worth of stats is all somebody will get out of optional addition hours of grinding, showing it's inefficient for people who just want to cruise through the game like myself who can't enjoy games like minecraft and pokemon thanks to the level grindy features

[@boredomkiller99]

How many characters are getting to level 20/20 unless you stop to grind more then needed? If you are not retreating or dying to farm exp you wont hit 20/20 with most characters Especially because of exp decay that makes leveling up mid game un-promoted rough. Physical fighters that use weapons want to promote once weapons that need promotion become available so not promoting means taking a big hit to your damage output. Many characters also have a weird stat curve where they tend to get less stats as they get higher level so as mentioned you only end up with a few star differences. really the only characters that get anything out of delaying are characters with high growth curves all game or have increasing stat curves So like Pelle never had a reason to delay too long because his late game star gains are not great bur Artur might want to because he is a growth unit but Artur is arguably not worth using do to being bad for so long unless you want the fun of having a pathetic unit become a god

[@freddyvidz]

I played this as a teen and I have beaten it with several different parties and I STILL don’t know when to promote. 😂😂😂

[@LetsPlayRetroRPGs]

At level 20 for maximum power! :)

[@yoseflopez5141]

It promotes at level 10

[@stgzeldafanboy1538]

PLEASE do this for Shining Force 3 ♥️♥️♥️

[@killerb255]

For Shining Force 3, unless you're playing on Insane difficulty, the last stretch of Scenario 3 is relatively easy if your characters have reached their second promotion/Innovator promotion. Even a team of characters at Level 1 Innovated will do fine regardless of when they were promoted both times (so a L10/L20/L1 character will do ok). The Premium Disc, on the other hand...you probably want characters at at least Level 10 Innovated if they were promoted early both times. They might be fine if they were promoted at Level 20 and Innovated at Level 30 (L20/L30/L1). If you're rocking L20/L30/L20 characters, even the Premium Disc will be easy... ...outside of Insane difficulty, I suppose, in which then you might flex L20/L30/L30 characters not named Garosh (since he has a level up bug from Level 21-30 Innovated that makes his HP level up by -8 every time (yes, NEGATIVE 8)). While there is an "Arthur" character in Scenario 2, he starts off already promoted, and I don't think he gets insane stat increases between Level 20-30 Promoted to justify innovating him at Level 30 (Like SF1's Arthur between Level 10-20 Unpromoted).

[@michaelwilson1537]

I love Shining Force 1 & 2. What Shining Force 3? Does this game exist in North America? If so, which platform can it be played on? I would love to play this game

[@guruthosamarthruin4459]

In every Shining Force game, I basically try to promote at whatever level the pre-promoted characters seem to be promoted at. I always have trouble finding this info, but some games promote them at 10, and others seem to be at 17. I try to keep the characters on "level ground", so when I'm choosing my final party, it's a 1-to-1 comparison.

[@NobodyNothing-f5c]

I see people wasting the power potions, etc by spreading them out before any promotions and the 15 year old me screams. You dump them all into a single character, and not Max.

[@Daveisawesomesauce]

The first playthrough I ever did I did not promote lol