♦ Livestream of the ZZT world “Shining Force: Rising Hero” by TymeUltima (1997) [https://museumofzzt.com/file/view/shine2/] ♦
♦ Stream Contents ♦
• (1:44) “Shining Force: Rising Hero” by TymeUltima (1997) [https://museumofzzt.com/file/view/shine2/]
The Wildcard stream that wasn't really. This one's been around for awhile, and was intended to be played the previous week but the first game took a lot longer to get through than its small board count suggested.
The first game had some definite promise, so going into this and seeing the world immediately expanded to a much larger size felt like that promise was going to be fulfilled here. Years after the events of the first game, a young boy reaches adulthood and discovers he is fated to fight evil etc. etc.
But oops! Lessons were not really learned between the first game and its successor. It's still a pain to figure out where you need to go, and who you need to talk to, only now it takes even longer thanks to the wider world. The game loves to have characters looking for one another only for them to just miss each other, forcing searches to drag on and nothing eventful to happen.
The game continues to love secret passages and now includes secret hints which are pretty important to have any idea of what you might want to be doing at any given time. Or, you may find them after they're no longer relevant making them useless to you now.
In the first game it was hard to make progress due to needing keys and items whose whereabouts were unknown. This time, it's even harder to tell what it is you're actually supposed to be doing, and it seems like some of the keys you need are just outright not there at all. This one turned into zapping past doors and jumping to boards in hopes of doing something beyond running around in circles. I honestly prefer the first game to this one, as it was somehow less obtuse.
The sequel does do a bit more with its story, and it also features some impressive looking RPG battles. These fights aren't very engaging, the game even tells you the winning strategy is to use magic until you run out, and then spam attack (the only way to make your health last long enough to survive). This in turn makes all the fights the same thing, just with some new art to ogle while you fight.
♦ Play this world directly in your browser ♦
• https://museumofzzt.com/file/play/shine2/
♦ Originally streamed on October 5th, 2025 ♦
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