Shining in the Darkness -- All in One.

I've been leaving off most of the Xbox Live Arcade and Virtual Console titles I've been playing and I've started to regret that. So here is an all in one for Shining in the Darkness on the Virtual Console as I've just completed the game for the second time today. The first time was all the way back in March of 1991 on the SEGA Genesis. I had no idea at the time but Shining in the Darkness was to be the first in a series of games that would go on to become one of my most favored in all of gaming.  Shining In the Darkness introduces us to the Kingdom of Thornwood and its castle, a village, and massive labyrinth. The game takes place entirely in first person. You never see your character.  You play as the hero with a five letter name of your choosing. His childhood friends Milo Brax and Pyra Myst will be along for the ride. You're summoned to the castle one day when Princess Jessa goes missing. You wouldn't be too terribly concerned except for the fact she was being escorted by your father at the time who is now also missing.  The game's story won't be considered original, it is sixteen years old after all. But what story is there is actually done very well. It's very charming. The presentation of the game helps this along. From the map you can select the town, castle or labyrinth. That's it. There isn't any wandering in the town or castle. In both, you just hit left or right to move through the people to talk to or the buildings to enter.  Everyone is named, and everyone has a basic personality. Which is more than most games of the era can claim. The bulk of the game is spent in the labyrinth. Which makes sense, considering the game is pure dungeon crawl. And the labyrinth is just about massive. It stands five levels above ground and four below.  The battles in the game are close to that of Dragon Warrior's in that you're entering the basic commands and actually reading the results even though the creatures have the most basic of animations. Don't let the text aspect scare you off as even that remarkably comes off as charming. The battles are also lightning fast, depending on your text speed, of course. The average battle only takes twenty seconds or so with boss battles being more like a minute. It's either you kill them or they kill you, fast. Only the final battle ever extends beyond this norm.  Shining In the Darkness marks the first use of the Shining series' animated cursor menu system. Nodding heads for yes, shaking heads for no and the like. Again, quite charming.  The game is also rather sizable with it requiring roughly thirty hours to complete.  I absolutely adored the game back in 1991 and to my joy I've found it holds up exceeding well today. I would be greatly surprised if Shining in the Darkness doesn't charm you as well. In my opinion the game is absolutely perfect in what it set out to do. It does everything right. Great graphics, and amazing operatic score, a polished and fast battle engine, tough maze dungeon design, and more story than one could have expected from the genre at the time.  I considered it a perfect 10 in 1991 and I consider it a perfect 10 in 2007.