Book Review: Shining Force Feather: Design Works

Thanks to Udon (tag) for sending me an advance copy of Shining Force Feather: Design Works that is coming out in August 2012. So you guys can get a good preview of the book first.

The book was first available in Japanese in 2009 as シャイニング・フォース フェザー ビジュアル設定資料集. This is the English translated edition by Udon. The paper is mostly non-glossy except for the splash pages in front.

This is the video game art book for Shining Force Feather, which is the first Nintendo DS title for the Shining RPG series (tag), and number 18th in the series.

It features mainly character designs. The first half of the book features the coloured character art and the latter half the sketches. The character designs are great looking, in typical Japanese style of course. I like the costumes and art. What's missing are the enemy designs.

There are character profiles and design commentary. The commentary are from character designers Noizi Ito and pako. It's unusual to have two character designers for a game and in the interview they talk about why and the design process.

In between there's a small section of art for the world consisting of airships and environment paintings, and also the cutscenes. The environment paintings are very beautiful but it's a pity they are printed only about a quarter page size each.

The second interview is with SEGA producer Yoichi Shimosato, Flight-Plan (developer) director Tomoyuki Murai, Noizi Ito and pako. They talk about the game design in general and how it fits in the Shining series.

It's a nice companion art book to the game. Recommended to those who like the game and Japanese character art.

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The book's a review copy from Udon Entertainment.

Shining Force Feather: Design Works is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN)

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