Shining Force Resurrection of the Dark Dragon: Better left sealed

Some remakes try to bring an older game to a brand new audience, tiptoeing a cautious line between the past and the present. Others use their second chance to boldly reinvent the original, creating something that surprises everyone. Some begrudgingly keep a few names and gleefully discard the rest. And then there’s this. Shining Force‘s GBA remake pokes and prods at the original Mega Drive template quite a bit, but it never really behaves like a game that knows what it’s changing, or why. Not even the graphics manage to make a good first impression. There may be more colour (and pixels) on the screen than ever before and the game makes an honest attempt to give everyone some visual individuality in battle, but at the almost complete loss of the original’s style. Back in 1992 colours popped, shading was bold, and stark black created striking outlines and deep shadows. Here everything has been redrawn in a washy pastel style when it used to look invigorating, intimidating—and I don’t…