Shining the Holy Ark
is a first person role-playing video game released in 1997 for the Sega Saturn. It is a part of Sega's Shining series of video games, and marked a new direction for the series, utilizing polygons as well as sprites for the visuals and a story targeted more specifically towards an adult audience. It introduced the saga of the Vandals and the Innovators, abandoning the saga of the Devil Kings which was followed by the previous installments of the series. In contrast to the action-adventure format of the first Shining game on the Saturn, Shining Wisdom, Shining the Holy Ark revived older RPG elements such as extensive first-person dungeon crawling and turn-based combat. It had greater critical success than its predecessor, with praise going to its unique graphical style and engaging battles. Gameplay Gameplay is most similar to Shining in the Darkness; the player explores towns and dungeons in the first-person view, with battles almost exclusively taking place in dungeons. Exploration uses traditional node-based movement rather than the continuous, free-form movement used in most first-person games at the time Shining the Holy Ark was released. The player controls a party of up to four characters, but additional characters can be kept in reserve and called upon mid-battle if needed. Battles take place at random and are in a turn-based format, maintaining the first-person view but also allowing the player to view allies as they take their actions. As with every previous game in the Shining series, Shining the Holy Ark uses a menu system in which each menu has exactly four options, all represented by icons. The effectiveness of the playable characters is increased through the traditional methods of earning experience points and equipping better weapons and armor. New spells are learned automatically when the character reaches higher experience levels. The game utilizes a "pixie" system, where the player can befriend pixies that can attack enemies at the opening of an encounter. There are five types of pixie: fairy, pixie, succubus, incubus, and leprechaun. When an enemy appears, the player has a few seconds to select the right type of pixie for the direction that the enemy is coming from. For example, leprechauns will only attack enemies that come from underground, while fairies only attack enemies that drop down from above. If the player selects the right type of pixie, it deals some damage to the enemies and increases the amount of gold and experience points earned from the encounter. Towns can be explored freely without encountering battles, and include buildings where the player can purchase new armor and weapons, save their game, and have their party recover from injuries and illness. Plot Mercenaries Arthur, Melody, and Forte are hired by the King of Enrich to hunt down and capture a renegade ninja by the name of Rodi. The group pursues Rodi to the nearby mines where, after a brief skirmish, an unknown craft crashes through the roof. All four characters are gravely injured, but soon healed by being possessed by