Despite resorting to regularly pumping out Super Mario sports titles for Nintendo, Japanese developer Camelot used to be primarily known for their Shining role-playing game franchise.

Now, we’ve learned (via VGDensetsu) that Camelot president Hiroyuki Takahashi still wants to make Shining Force IV, over twenty years since the previous game was released for the Sega Saturn.

He noted that it will always be up to whether or not the original publisher (Sega, in this case) will fund a sequel, and said he feels the chances of Sega greenlighting a sequel are very low.

Both Hiroyuki and his brother Shugo (who also works at the company) attended the “3rd Game Business Archive” in Japan, alongside Treasure CEO Masato Maegawa and Compile founder Masamitsu Niitani.

There are some other fun tidbits from the meeting, including the fact that Shining Force CD was sort of a warm-up for them developing games for the Sega CD, so they added bonus content.

Maegawa complained there was a lack of communication with Sega, and that they received no help from them for their Yu Yu Hakusho game on the Mega Drive. He also noted they were mostly developing games for western markets at that time. He also wants Sega to make a Mega Drive Mini.

Sega hasn’t abandoned the Shining IP, however, as they experimented with a cross-over fighting game titled Blade Arcus from Shining. That game was released for PC via Steam, worldwide (which they also re-released with new content).

It’s worth mentioning Shining Force III was released in three volumes – to get the true ending you need all three and only volume one was released in the west.

Are you a fan of the Shining series? Would you like a fourth game to be released? Sound off in the comments below! Also make sure to let Sega Japan know that you want a new true role-playing game in the series.