Overview
Shining Blade is a PSP action SRPG developed and published by Sega and released solely in Japan. Another entry in the lengthy Shining franchise, Shining Blade abandons the grid-based tactics RPG battle system similar to games such as Fire Emblem and Tactics Ogre in favor of one that deeply resembles Valkyria Chronicles, another series by the same development house. In particular, much like Valkyria Chronicles, Shining Blade's battles are conducted with a mixture of turn-based and real-time elements, with enemy and allied sides each getting individual turns, but with the specific actions within those turns otherwise unfolding in real time. Various other subsystems made famous by Valkyria Chronicles such as potentials, character-specific abilities that can be triggered under specific circumstances, also feature prominently under different names. Unlike Valkyria Chronicles, however, Shining Blade features a heavier emphasis on individual character growth, with party members levelling up individually like in traditional RPGs, rather than doing so in bulk along with other characters of the same class as in the case of the former.
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