Shining Resonance Refrain Reviews
With a middling story and poor pacing, Shining Resonance Refrain isn't for everyone. Fans of the genre will find its combat and systems entertaining while the game's support cast is more intriguing than its central character. It's a flawed entry but those looking for their summer role-playing game fix will find a lot to immerse themselves in.
A horribly generic Japanese role-player that has no glaring flaws but fails to offer a single interesting new idea or character of its own.
While Shining Resonance Refrain’s story is yet another tale of going against an evil empire, the battle mechanics are simple and fun, with a wonderful theme of music to go with it. There isn’t much too deep to dig into compared to other JRPGs, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a good time with this one. Play on!
Shining Resonance Refrain feels like a filler game. If you've been aching for a 3D action-RPG to sink some time into now that we're entering the summer months that are often a lull in the game industry then this totally fits the bill, but it'll do very little to surprise you.
Shining Resonance Refrain manages to bury its many interesting ideas under repetitive gameplay and a dragged-on story.
Well, why did Sega decides to port Shining Resonance to our European consoles instead of Valkyria Chronicles or Phantasy Star Online 2, no one will ever know. However, what we do know is that Shining Resonance is your average J-RPG with your average team of anime-looking main protagonists fighting with the power of songs and friendship. An enjoyable but quite forgettable experience.
Review in French | Read full review
Shining Resonance Refrain is a rather difficult JRPG that will be great for hardcore fans, but unwelcoming for most.
What I liked about Shinning Resonance Refrain was that it has a solid cast of characters that are well-written and the combat is dynamic enough that you will keep experimenting with it. It is not a flawless experience but for fans of the genre, it is one of the better games to release this generation.
Shining Resonance Refrain is a title that should appease Shining and general JRPG fans, as it does a lot of things found in other games, and does them pretty well. The art style is cute, if the overall environments are a bit lacking visually, but couple with a solid audio presentation to create an enjoyable overall package. There is a lot to do here, though those turned off by grinding might not find the various systems interesting enough to spend oodles of time roaming and killing random critters encountered along the way. Personally I hope this is a sign of things to come, and we might see more Shining titles in the future - perhaps another strategy game please?
Shining Resonance Refrain looks like your standard JRPG with all the common elements; Grinding, Anime boys/girls, Bikinis, Monsters, and Good vs Evil, but there is so much more to it if you choose to invest your time and patience into learning the various aspects. The story isn’t going to blow you away as you’ll probably guess what’s going to happen next if you’re an avid JRPG fan, but the overall enjoyment you receive whilst playing the game only gets better the more you progress and unlock.
It's not gonna put in trouble the most complex and tactical JRPG's fans, but Shining Resonance Refrain deserves to be played and enjoyed.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Shining Resonance Refrain prefers a plethora of systems that are either inadequately explained or only serve as a reason to include additional grind. It feels the game errs on the side of caution and sticks to what is familiar, creating an exceptionally average action JRPG that neglects polishing core systems into something intriguing.
Overall, Shining Resonance Refrain is a good JRPG experience despite its incredibly slow start. If you have the patience to get into the meat of the story, it rewards you with fun gameplay and a pleasing audio-visual experience. Whilst it’s not breaking any ground in terms of character development or storyline, it’s still a solid game that fans of the genre are sure to enjoy.
Shining Resonance Refrain isn't a terrible game, it's just riddled with incredibly poor decisions which almost overshadow a great combat system.
Shining Resonance Refrain may not go down in the annuls of gaming history as one of the best RPGs ever, but is by far one of the most solid RPGs we've seen in recent years.
An interesting RPG experience full of dragons, action and a little repetitive playability that makes the game look a little aged... but it still has tons of hours of fun.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Taking inspirations from other series, Shining Resonance Refrain returns the long running Sega franchise to the West for the first time in over a decade. Mixing a cliched story story full of enjoyable characters with a simplistic combat system, Shining Resonance Refrain can provide you with hours of fun, but certainly is far from a must play game in the genre.
Shining Resonance Refrain might not be a classic example of the genre, but it gets the most important components of the genre right – the characters and the storytelling – and backs it up with some gorgeous art and a perfectly competent combat system.
It all combines into a game that has its flaws and doesn’t make a good first impression, but sticking with it will pay off depending on how you feel about the characters. I ended up liking the middle of the game the most, when I could leisurely work my way through while enjoying building relationships with my party members and watching interactions, while the beginning has fewer characters to work with and the end focuses more on gameplay and finishing the main story. The story is fine – not particularly original, but it is well-told with good writing – but the characters are by far the thing that makes it the most enjoyable and engaging. Even if it seems like I spent a lot of this review complaining, I ultimately did enjoy the roughly 40 hours I spent with Shining Resonance Refrain. It’s a decent game for $50 USD, including all the content that was originally available as DLC for the PS3 version and the new Refrain mode, where you have former NPCs and enemies Excella and Jinas as party members. If you’re interested there’s a demo featuring the first chapter, but keep in mind it’s short and I think it doesn’t highlight the game’s biggest strengths. Otherwise, if it sounds interesting and you can deal with some problems, I’d still recommend Shining Resonance Refrain.
Shining Resonance Refrain brings the original Japan-only release to a worldwide audience across multiple platforms. With that said, the narrative and combat system and thoroughly enjoyable, but neither stands out when compared to other games in the genre. The Refrain mode inclusion adds a new twist for those that already played through it, but I was more than happy to play through it again on an Xbox One. There are loads of systems that work in unison, such as forming bonds to create a compelling and cohesive party, as well as the inclusion of optional social aspects. There are also a ton of previous swimsuit DLC for the female cast too if you are into that type of thing.