YMMV / Shiness: The Lightning Kingdom

• Accidental Innuendo: Rosalya constantly screams in pain when she uses her powers, but the actress makes it sound more like she keeps moaning instead.
• Adaptation Displacement: Though the game is quite obscure, it attracted much more media attention than The Shiness, which was lost for more than a decade. Furthermore, the game and the tie-in manga Crossroad were the only parts of the franchise that were translated in other languages than French and were therefore the only one foreign players got to see. All of this was intended by Samir Rebib, who was dissatisfied with his original manga and deliberately made it unobtainable so that the game would be a Continuity Reboot.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Did Ranahel send his top retainers to capture Rosalya because he genuinely fears for her safety, or because he wants her to marry Ayron?
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: Menhirs, the large stones Chado can summon, actually exist: they're large, ancient standing stones found in many cultures and very common in France, where the game was made.
• Angst? What Angst?: The writers tend to forget that Chado and Poky are children:
  • Somewhat averted with Chado, as he suffers a Heroic BSoD after the battle of Mantara and is implied to have become less sociable after he lost his mother. On the other hand, he never seems bothered by the fact that his father has no idea where he is.
  • Poky seems even less concerned, he left his family behind too and also witnessed the battle of Mantara but never angsts about either, though he's visibly disturbed when he sees Meos crush Pagash to death.
  • Early in the game, Chado and Poky can do a sidequest consisting of looking for a missing Mantarian patrol. They eventually discover that the soldiers were killed by gromiz, but seeing their bloodied, mangled corpses has no effect on them. In fact, they're usually not even disturbed by killing people themselves (if you choose to fight Vrynn to the death, for instance).
• Awesome Music: Hazem Hawash's soundtrack is one of the game's high points.
  • Of special note is the track "Promised Heart -Summer", which was composed by Hiroki Kikuta.
  • "Maherian Dreams" is also notable for being sung in Maherian.
  /ilin edo/ (A fallen tear)
  /sowan nojo/ (It beckons our fear)
  /enuun es ɾi jan/ (The deepest of souls)
  /hiʁa i tsetan/ (Let the story unfold)
  /noim, noed, nojan/ (Flames untold)
  /maʒalt, gelio, juode kinim zaja/ (We jump, we fly on a wing and a prayer)
  /jama ki nobludoʁ, lun dejoi ʃe/ (Come pick the bloodor, your dream so fair)
  /zwifil, inise, ad jeka oʁihoja/ (We run, we flourish, we love, we care)
  /jama ki nobludoʁ, lun dejoi ʃe/ (Come pick the bloodor, your dream so fair)
• Breather Boss: Sabba's second form is considered the game's easiest major boss, as her attacks are slow (though they're poorly telegraphed and suffer from Hitbox Dissonance), she doesn't use projectiles, it only takes a few hits to beat her once her weak point is exposed, and healing supports should be more than enough to never get killed as long as you're not playing as the last teammate standing. Guides recommend beating her as fast as possible in order to easily obtain the achievement awarded when earning an S rank against a major boss.
• Broken Aesop: During the game's development, Samir Rebib claimed that "there is no such thing as good and evil in Shiness", but this is strongly undermined in the final game, in which Zagrom is shown to have destroyed Meos's kingdom apparently for no other reason than he could. The mere fact that the dark shi exists contradicts this aesop, as everything people under its influence are shown to do is unambiguously evil, though it's unclear as to whether Zagrom was actually under its influence or just already evil before being exposed to it. Even Ayron, whose Last Words before he falls from Mantara, "the Shiness will submit you to the same suffering as me", somewhat imply him to actually be a Well-Intentioned Extremist, is needlessly cruel and willing to kill his minions for petty reasons as both the game and Crossroad show.
• Camera Screw: One of the game's most criticized aspects, the camera often gets stuck on scenery elements in the middle of a battle.
• Cliché Storm: Arguably an intentional example, as the game is meant to be a Homage to classic RPGs, anime and manga, its creators named many admitted inspirations such as Dragon Ball.
• Common Knowledge: The game is often referred to as a furry game, what with the shelks and the wakis, but there are actually only three shelks and three wakis (four if you count Chado's vision of his mother) in it, almost everyone else is human. Samir Rebib also denied being a furry in the foreword of Crossroad's first issue, and the game's commercial failure prevented it from becoming Popular with Furries.
• Continuity Lock-Out: The puzzle in the princesses' bedroom in Meos's palace doesn't make any sense if you haven't read Crossroad. Whose English version was lost for years.
• Critical Dissonance: The French website Jeuxvideo.com gave the game a 10/20, which caused many users to retaliate by writing "reviews" which were just insults to the reviewer and gave the game a much higher score, often a perfect one. As users agreed with critics on pretty much every other website, it's safe to assume that Jeuxvideo.com's infamously toxic userbase just used the game as an excuse to trash-talk a reviewer it already disliked.
• Demonic Spiders: Gaiaks are both very strong and fast enemies who are fond of inflicting Status Effects and jumping and causing shockwaves by landing, which makes them unreachable for a few seconds and causes massive damage if you're too close to where they land. No matter the variant, when there are gaiaks in an area, they're its toughest enemies.
• Game-Breaker: Aside from regenerating quite a lot of health, the spell Ishenisha is also the only spell that replenishes tension, making techniques and the hyper a lot easier to spam. It's normally an endgame spell, but you can obtain it early with some Sequence Breaking.
• Goddamned Bats: Shivos can fly and frequently teleport around the arena, often turn invisible and can inflict silence, which prevents you from using spells and therefore makes them a lot harder to hit. They're even worse when fought with other enemies, since their teammates can heal them and make the fight drag on.
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • Some bugs can duplicate objects in the inventory.
  • Enemies will sometimes completely ignore players during battles and become total pushovers.
  • It's possible to beat the game in less than 1 hour and 20 minutes thanks to bugs that skilled speedrunners can exploit to skip the first three dungeons and obtain endgame equipment much earlier than intended.
• It's Easy, So It Sucks!: The puzzles were criticized for being overly simplistic. The fact that some of them, especially Poky's, are reused over and over didn't help.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: Many mixed or negative reviews called the game dated due to its obsolete graphics and its tendency to have the same flaws as the much older games that inspired it, like repetitive gameplay, Camera Screw and constant exposition. A recurring observation from reviewers is that Shiness could have been a PlayStation 2 game.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: It only takes between 15 and 20 hours on average to beat the game... if you include all the Backtracking and the Forced Level-Grinding.
• Narm:
  • For English-speaking players, Chado and Poky's names and the word "Shiness" are hard to take seriously.
  • Some of the characters' animations during dialogues are very exaggerated Stock Poses.
  • Sabba's constant, unsubtitled exclamations in Maherian during the last phase of the battle against her were misheard by some English-speaking players as "you're a Nazi!".
• Obvious Beta: The game was heavily criticized on its release for its numerous glitches that could make the game Unintentionally Unwinnable (and some still can) and missing features such as Italian and Portuguese translations that were announced but never released. Even the game's texts are full of typos.
• Older Than They Think: There was another Shiness game a decade before The Lightning Kingdom, Samir Rebib created a short RPG titled Inside The Shiness with RPG Maker in 2005. However, instead of an adaptation of The Shiness, it was a humorous game with No Fourth Wall set in Rebib's imagination.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: The game's Kickstarter campaign was infamously mismanaged, resulting in hundreds of backers never receiving their rewards.
• Remade and Improved: Samir Rebib considered the game an improved remake of The Shiness. Though the game ended up disappointing many, it's hard to deny that it does boast much better art than the manga and was overall significantly more ambitious.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • The platforming parts, due to their Fake Difficulty: the game's Jump Physics and Edge Gravity are unreliable, and the Falling Damage makes them frustrating.
  • Some critics felt that having to frequently channel shi during battles caused them to grind to a halt, as you can't move or attack when doing so.
  • New spells and techniques are unlocked by finding and equipping scrolls. The problem is that you can't sell or get rid of scrolls, even after you've used them, so your inventory will eventually become cluttered with useless scrolls.
  • You can't use items in the menu, you have to select the character you want to use them on, add them to their personal inventory (which only has four slots), exit the menu, select the character and open their personal inventory to use the items.
  • You also have to do this to call Xaham, which is done with a special item instead of having its own button.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: The game's first half is very linear with few sidequests, lots of Backtracking and many exposition-heavy cutscenes. It doesn't open up until you reach the Gendys Plain, after completing the first two dungeons.
• So Okay, It's Average: While the game's art style, music and universe were praised by critics and players alike, its uneven gameplay and story had a more mixed reception and its lack of content (which the developers tried to hide with lots of Backtracking), outdated graphics, many bugs and camera problems were heavily criticized.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • In the only 3D cutscene Terra appears in, her model is missing its mouth, she just has a black hole on her face which doesn't move when she speaks.
  • The same ladder climbing animation is used no matter where the ladder's rungs are, so the characters' hands and feet often miss them completely, making them look like they climb air.
  • In the cutscene aboard Ayron's ship before he attacks Mantara, his sword very visibly clips through his cape and even his chest when he crosses his arms while holding it, making him look like he's impaling himself. This can also happen to some Adoryan soldiers in some cutscenes.
  • Similarly, if you're riding an amos when the cutscene where Rewald is threatened by Adoryan soldiers starts, the amos won't despawn and will clip through the soldiers' heads.
  • In the establishing cutscenes that play when the party first encounters Eymdal then Laukhy, both of them appear to hold invisible swords, as the pose they strike is obviously a recycled animation. Worse, Laukhy's overworld model doesn't despawn during the cutscene, so two Laukhys appear next to each other!
• Spiritual Adaptation:
  • An Animesque world with Steampunk elements populated with Mix-and-Match Critters, a Five-Man Band of heroes including a Kid Hero who can speak to spirits and a 112-year old with power over air (though they're separate characters in Shiness only), Kung-Fu Wizards with Elemental Powers fighting an invading nation whose ruler has a child with power over fire who resists him... Shiness shares many similarities with Avatar: The Last Airbender, even though the creators didn't name the show among their inspirations.
  • A Shattered World (though there's no air between the floating islands in Shiness) with Cool Airships, a girl hunted by the villains for her mysterious powers and a cocky boy (they're not siblings in Shiness, however) wearing red and black who is an Ace Pilot (though Chado claims it more than he actually shows it), a tech-savvy Child Prodigy, freedom fighters resisting a technologically advanced dictatorship, a Missing Mom (though not dead like in Shiness), and even a monster resembling a Giant Spider... Shiness is the closest thing there is to a video game adaptation of Skyland.
  • Though the construction happens offscreen, children (only two in Shiness, one Book Dumb, the other a Child Prodigy) building a spaceship and flying it on their own is quite reminiscent of Explorers. Furthermore, in both works, they're guided by something only one of them can perceive (permanently in Shiness, only temporarily in Explorers before other kids also can), that very kid gets in a fight with his school's bully (but only wins in Shiness), and the ship nearly runs out of oxygen.
• Squick: The game mentions that squirropigs eat dried droppings, and Crossroad actually shows it.
• Subbing Versus Dubbing: An unusual example, as the game's original spoken language is Maherian, which was actually created to avert this trope by making dubbing unnecessary, before the publisher decided to have the cutscenes dubbed into English anyway. While the English version boasts some well-regarded voice actors such as Sean Chiplock, some critics felt that their performances were phoned in, and the Maherian version matches the rest of the game's voices better since only the cutscenes were dubbed.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: "Can You See Me?" sounds an awful lot like Gustav Holst's "Neptune, the Mystic".
• Tainted by the Preview: Chado's, Poky's and Kayenne's designs were met with mixed feelings when they were revealed as they were likened to furry art.
• That One Boss: Ayron can spam an unblockable, undodgeable attack that inflicts an Anti-Regeneration effect, so you have to defeat him as fast as you can since you can't recover. Worse, Rosalya has to fight him alone, so if she gets killed, it's an instant Game Over and your No Death Run achievement is lost. If you're aiming for it, some guides recommend immediately turning the game off if your health drops below 50%.
• That One Level: While not particularly hard, the Three Arrows are infamous for being the game's buggiest area, the game can become Unintentionally Unwinnable at several points of this dungeon. Making a backup save file before entering is strongly recommended.
• They Copied It, So It Sucks!: Some reviewers accused Ayron of being little more than a Sephiroth knockoff due to their very similar designs. Incidentally, for most of the game's development, Ayron had a more original design with black hair, but it was changed very late into the production.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Nashoba has his own voice actor in the Maherian version, was given some backstory on the game's defunct website and was hyped as an important character in official artwork. Aside from capturing Chado at the beginning of the game when he finds the Mantarian camp and giving him and Poky some exposition regarding the war between Gendys and Adorya, he doesn't do anything important in the game and is never seen in battle despite being an important ally of the Mantarians, not even when Ayron attacks Mantara.
  • Even though he was already an antagonist in the original manga and was hyped as the whole franchise's Big Bad in Crossroad and trailers, Ayron doesn't appear during the game's first half and has no involvement in the second until he attacks Mantara, his backstory and motivations aren't fully explained and he seemingly falls to his death after the final battle.
  • Poky is said to be a Child Prodigy and a Gadgeteer Genius, but the game never shows him use his intelligence beyond solving some simple puzzles. For most of the game, he just serves as the party's cowardly comic relief and doesn't take initiatives or suggest anything helpful.
  • Rosalya spends the first half of the game waiting in the Mantarian camp and doing nothing to advance the plot, then another quarter unconscious while the party is looking for a cure for her. The other party members get to be somewhat fleshed out through the previous acts' dialogues, but Rosalya doesn't when she finally joins them, as there's little to no dialogue involving her after the team leaves Mantara, and she doesn't do anything important afterwards. Worse, the questions about her (where her fits come from and how she met Kayenne and escaped her prison) are left unanswered.
  • Chado's father only appears in three pages of Crossroad and has no involvement in the plot whatsoever.
  • Altania only appears in Crossroad and we don't learn anything about her in it. While the game indirectly reveals that she's Irys and Kaorys's sister, she doesn't appears in it, so she never contributes to the plot, and why she joined Adorya's side isn't explained.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • An Info Dump early in the game reveals that the war between Gendys and Adorya started because Adorya refused to shelter Gendyan refugees when Gendys became tainted with dark shi. This is then promptly forgotten, the game just depicts Adoryans as violent invaders (even though this creates a Plot Hole, since they know Gendys is corrupted by the dark shi and they rejected the refugees because they feared they would spread it to Adorya in the first place) and Gendyans as freedom fighters, and never deals with themes that would have made for a more Grey-and-Gray Morality, like Invading Refugees.
  • How Chado lost his mother isn't explained, in fact, there are no flashbacks of Chado's life before he met Terra (Crossroad also starts after he meets her), so we know absolutely nothing about his mother.
• Underused Game Mechanic:
  • The game's puzzles were criticized for being too easy and repetitive due to their lack of variety and their underexploitation of the characters' non-combat powers, which also stay the same for the whole game.
  • During the game's development, Enigami promised that the game would contain various optional puzzles and quests requiring having read Crossroad. In the final game, there's only one puzzle requiring this, in the princesses' bedroom in Meos's palace. This was arguably for the better, as the game's website was shut down a few years after the game's release and Crossroad's English version was lost for years as a result.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley:
  • Happens to the 3D models of some humans, especially Bagogue, whose face lacks a blinking animation.
  • Also constantly happens to Terra's model: outside of the 2D cutscenes, her face (which looks human while the rest of her body doesn't at all) is very inexpressive and her mouth doesn't even open when she talks... except in the only 3D cutscene she appears in, where her mouth doesn't close instead, isn't animated at all and is nothing more than a black spot on her face.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Chado can come off as this in the beginning, as he physically abuses Poky several times.

---