Shining Resonance: Antagonists Spotlight, Additional B.A.N.D. System Details, Boxart!

Behold! Pictured above is the cover art Shining Resonance. It’s quite simple – the cast of characters against a white background. The presence of the white-haired character of the right is puzzling, however. We have no indication that this character is a party character based on news released this far. What will become of her throughout the course of the game remains to be seen.

Gematsu also recently published a writeup of Shining Resonance with new information.  Some of the information has already been covered in our previous writeup for the game, but there are some new interesting tidbits – namely Sega’s expansion on the Center unit in B.A.N.D. attacks. Placing Kirika as the Center will decrease the damage your party characters receive and protect you from status ailments, while placing Lesti as the Center will boost your defensive capabilities even further than the bonuses that Kirika gives you, though this wasn’t explained in detail. Sega also mentions that the length of the filled B.A.N.D. gauge functions as a timer for the effect boosts.

Readers who are interested in Shining Resonance may have seen artwork for two antagonist characters recurring in recent articles from outlets covering this game. Sega produced their own character bios for them and Gematsu translated those bios. To learn more about them, hit the break.

This is Marion Lu Shila. Beware his (not her!) doll-like appearance, as Marion is a fearsome soldier. He is an artificially created weapon, a devout follower and product of Beowulf, the Church of the Seal’s special organization of knights. Marion is a calculating and patient sniper who wields the above-pictured Divine Cannon in battle and uses other magic-powered heavy artillery to fight Dragoners. He specializes in support and healing magic. His left eye has been replaced with the eye of a dragon; it is perhaps through this tool that his superior Joachim spiritually controls him, and this power that Joachim has over Marion provokes an internal struggle between two personalities within his psyche.

This is Joachim Rubens. While Marion’s character themes (magic affinity, prominent cross on weapon, softer expression) are more light-oriented, Joachim is much more of a traditional expression of darkness. He specializes in Dark Magic, and the weapon he holds in his left hand is the Death Blade, also called the Psycho Lops. Joachim is a gifted researcher with a talent for biology and medicine, and has created a number of living weapons like Marion. However, Joachim is described as having “a few screws loose” and possesses little sensitivity to humanity, or perhaps lacks humanity of his own. Joachim’s primary concern is satiating his own intellectual curiosity. This goes so far that he does not care for the sacrifices made in the name of his experiments; he is especially interested in conducting more experiments on Yuuma, one of his previous test subjects. However, he is especially attached to Marion.

There are plenty of recently released screenshots. The Gematsu article linked for this writeup contains the screenshots, but you can also view them here. They show off dialogue scenes, fights, and a B.A.N.D. Attack performance, with a translation for one of the song titles: “The First Glorious Wild Sounds of the Year”.

Also, be sure to check out the Shining Resonance website if you haven’t done so. You can view character bios (in Japanese) by clicking a corresponding party character’s weapon at the top of the page. This biography pages also feature voice clips. There is a seventh weapon whose owner and relation to the story is not revealed. The website also shows off dragons that you will likely have to fight during the course of the game; the three dragons pictured are themed off of the classic elemental trifecta of Ice, Fire, and Lightning.

Credit to Gematsu for the boxart picture.