unFun Games, creator of the longest-running MMO series “First Star Online” is releasing Shining Force Online this Thursday evening.

This is a free fan-made MMO created because of a message board post lead developer R. Mulvany saw 8 months ago.

“I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do next”, says Mulvany. “I thought about doing a remake. I heard about the Sonic 2 fan remake being shut down and that was a shame – it looked fantastic. I was googling about and found a Shining Force fansite where – years ago, they tried to make a Shining Force MMO. This wasn’t the only attempt. Searching, I found 6 other tries that also never happened. Maybe it was cursed, I don’t know, but I wanted to take a crack at it.”

Shining Force Online will be one of the launch titles on Arcade County, a free gaming site from unFun Games which features some of the most unique web games around. You won’t find any tower defense or Angry Birds ripoffs there. It’s all about doing things no one has thought of before.

Shining Force Online will release this coming Thursday 28 November in beta form. The world will not be complete, but there will be 100+ maps and a good deal of quests. Mulvany warns that there will most likely be growing pains and a potential server wipe if exploits are discovered.

“This is a very story-driven game. You will play through a story complete with cutscenes, character that die, and twists along the way. We won’t have the entire game ready at launch. We’ll be in beta for a few months. The way the engine works – we’ll open up new worlds and content literally on a daily basis. Even if you don’t patch, it doesn’t mean we didn’t add tons of content while you were away.”

Players will only need to create an account on www.arcadecounty.com in order to play Shining Force Online. The game can be played on the web or via a downloadable game client for PC, with a Mac version coming in a few weeks.

To learn more about Shining Force Online, check out the game’s page at: http://www.arcadecounty.com/games/shiningforceonline