OK, this right here? This is how you make a sequel. Shining Force II would have been everything I coulda hoped for in a sequel, had I played the first game back when it was new. SFII is a sequel done right, by trusty formula of making the same game again, only expanded. And by god did the devs at Sega expand it. For one, they ran with the idea of giving the player more to do and explore outside of combat.
Instead of a constant stream of battles with a few some scenes between like you get with most Fire Emblem games, Shining Force II feels like a full-blown, globetrotting JRPG, where battles just happen to be of the tactical variety. If that’s common for the genre, then I’m stoked to check out more TRPGs, but so far Shining Force is the only series I’ve encountered that attempts this kind of fully explorable world.
Its story spans years to form a sprawling epic, or at least a year — something like that. An incitive intro sequence kicks things off, followed by a full seven chapters that act as a lengthy prologue, setting up the conflict to come, with plenty of action and intriguing unresolved plot details. Yeah, this game ain’t all about the strategy; I cared about the people of Granseal and their plot to re-take their kingdom and seal off the King of the Devils — who they accidentally freed, by the way. One character, Oddler, stands out as a fascinating, mysterious lad who gets developed slowly over the course of the story in a satisfying, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it way. There’s not much to his character, though he’s key to the plot, and theres’ a good reason for both. An impressive amount of effort went into fleshing out SFII’s lore; apparently, the Gaiden titles for the Game Gear delve even more into the backstory — I’ve got a feeling I’ll need to check out their remakes, as part of Shining Force CD, soon.
I’m more keen on discussing gameplay here, though, so I won’t get into the plot details much further except to say Shining Force II surprised me by actually keeping my interest in the goings-on. Like with many JRPGs, I didn’t quite follow everything — blame that on the translation or my attention span, but story scenes are lengthy and involved — in a good way. There’s a lot to dig into that any fan of SNES-era JRPGs should love.
Shining Force II also happens to be quite girthy — I spent over 32 hours on it. It’s got more than 40 story battles as well as, this time, optional encounters on the world map. These aren’t exactly random — stepping over certain tiles will trigger them, but they help make SFII feel even more like a full-on JRPG experience. It’s… impressive compared to, say, the early Fire Emblems; I must admit I didn’t know games like this existed. (Cue the comments giving me a zillion recommendations for similar games, which I welcome.)
The music’s way better than before, with a greater variety and amount of tracks, enough to keep the special story scenes feeling special instead of repetitive. The OST gets pleasingly proggy at points, such as in the headquarters track — check this out, it’s like progressive rock mixed with a march — very cool. I still wouldn’t call the soundtrack super memorable overall, but it fits the game perfectly.
Combat, on the other hand, hasn’t changed much. That’s a good thing; check out my video on Shining Force 1 for a comparison to Fire Emblem and what makes this series’s approach great. The sequel does have a few new tricks up its sleeve, however. For example, the poison status now sticks with characters between battles, a neat mechanic to make things a little more punishing — usually you can ignore poison in games like this since each battle marks a fresh start. Not in Shining Force II! It’s a minor change, but any mechanic that keeps a JRPG from being too repetitive gets my respect.
Vibrant, detailed backgrounds spruce up the combat resolution screens; new enemies and unexpected situations come at a nice clip, but Shining Force II really sets itself apart with its spot-on pacing. This may be one long game — especially on a first playthrough — but it moves at a breezy yet thoughtful clip, taking care to spend enough time on each story section without letting dialogue grow stale. The buildup to the final battle begins when there’s a full nine stages left, for example, which may seem indulgent, but given there’s 44 mandatory battles, it actually works well. Shining Force II doesn’t rush and thus feels like a more complete experience compared to many other SNES and Genesis classics.
The whole game looks pretty damn great, too, with awesome, detailed character portraits that animate during cutscenes, but in general it’s not a huge step up from its predecessor. Even by the time the first game was released, the Genesis — or Mega Drive for my non-American friends — had been around for years, and Sega, as you might expect, knew how to get the most out of their system. What a shame they rushed out the Saturn, huh?
While I’m being flippant, might as well address the few problems I had. There’s a lot of reused battles maps, which may be common for normal JRPGs but not so much in T-RPGs, so it’s disappointing to see here. The translation translation is mostly good but never amazing. sometimes it’s bad in a standout way, like Evil Spirit being translated so literally, when we would never name something that in English.
Finally, combat’s still too easy on Normal, tougher than the first game though not by much. I know I could up the difficulty, but I like to play games on Normal to get what I can only assume is the developers’ intended first playthrough experience. And, well, the tried-and-true strat of sticking with one main party the whole time works better than ever, particularly when you give a lot of XP to strong units like Peter, an anthropomorphic phoenix, or Kazin, the mage. There’s nothing earth-shaking about the combat overall; it’s just... fun — not to mention addictive. I finished the game over the course of a few nights; I couldn’t put it down. Either I’ve only played the best of the best TRPGs, or this genre’s my kryptonite. Resisting the urge to move on to the next chapter at 2am is a fight I too often would lose.
Indeed, before I knew it, I’d reached the beautiful fairytale ending, capping off one of the best JRPGs I’ve played since going all-in on the genre. If you like TRPGs, Shining Force II is a must-play. To be frank, I’d call this one of the few series where you truly can skip the first game and not miss… anything at all. Shining Force 1 is no doubt solid as hell, but if you’re a more discerning player who doesn’t have that OCD need to play every game in a series, absolutely go straight to this one. It’s bigger, better, and longer — ooh baby — while offering a gratifying story that requires no knowledge of the first game to enjoy.
Well, damn. Every game should be this good.
Thanks for reading this (late) edition of JRPG Journey. Check back next month, when I’ll cover Parasite Eve, a PlayStation classic I’ve finally got around to and have quite a lot of thoughts on. See you then.
