I suspect that Shining Force Neo will start a whole new trend whether we like it or not. I’m sad to say that there isn’t a huge market for “simulation RPGs” in the western world.
As for Shenmue 2, it sold well partly because American Dreamcast owners imported the game from Europe instead of waiting a year for the Xbox version. I can’t say I blame them when considering that the game was one of the Dreamcast’s last quality titles to see release. I doubt sales of the Shenmue games covered the costs of developing them, but at least they didn’t flop (on the Dreamcast anyway).
So is Shining Force Neo actually selling well then? I hope not!
Shining Force Neo stayed in the top 10 of the Japanese charts for a whole month, selling 100 000 copies. Although it didn’t reach Sega’s projected sales figure of 200 000 in Japan, 100 000 copies sold isn’t a bad figure by any measure. Maybe it well sell another 100 000 copies stateside since there’s a thriving market for Diablo-clones there.
Hopefully we’ll see something new at E3.
How is SFNeo anything like Diablo and more importantly : have any of you played it yet? (2nd bit is rethorical)
It’s a hack and slash with simple combat mechanics where you spend most of your time killing enemies and finding new equipment and other kinds of loot…
Previews I’ve read on it (google, there’s several nice ones) say it’s quite a nice game with a stronger emphasis on story unlike Shining Tears and some going as far as to say that it may not be a true Shining Force game but it’s a true Shining game for sure…
On another note, phantasy star universe is looking quite nice imo…
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Not yet. If I ever get a PS2, it won’t be for this game alone. Really, I have no reason to play this game compared to any other random hack and slash… it’s only Shining Force in name alone, unfortunately 
If it feels Shining I’ll like play it, though I’m still miffed about the title. My brother picked up Shining Tears a while ago and while it’s apparently terrible single-player, it’s not bad two-player. (It’s not excellent either since the load times are pretty bad, but it’s doable.) It’s a straight-up Diablo clone though.
I wonder why they just didn’t call Shining Force Neo “Shining Tears 2” given that they’re more similar to each other than SFN to the original SF games.
