After being so thoroughly disappointed with the previous Shining Force game, I thought I'd give a try to the sequel. I went in fully aware that the biggest problems I had with it were almost certainly not fixed, but I'd heard it was all around a fair bit better than the first game. And what I found... was a mixed bag to say the least ^^;. It took me around 25 hours to get through the English version of the game via the Genesis collection on PS3.

Shining Force 2 opens with the thief Slade stealing two crystals from a large tower in the kingdom of Granseal. It ends up causing a huge earthquake, unleashing a demon, and the demon possesses the king to the kingdom to the east and an invasion of Granseal begins. The king is momentarily defeated thanks to the efforts of the main character Bowie, but he manages to get away causing the citizens of Granseal to flee across the ocean to build a new kingdom until they can try and defeat this great demonic evil again. Overall the story is certainly trying to be a bit more in-depth and better written than the first game, but an overall significantly weaker localization hurts those efforts considerably. There are some neat character beats and twists, and some characters like Peter have some good (albeit perhaps not intentional) comedy to their character due to how awkward and direct everyone's speech is, but it comes off as a similarly generic story to the first game at the end of the day.

On a macro level, all of the gameplay issues I had with the first game has are more or less still present. You still can't see enemy movement ranges, so it's too difficult to work out how far they can move, and it's still too hard to discern turn order with their strange RNG-filled initiative system, so making sound strategic decisions is far more difficult than it needs to be. A couple of things help ease this to be not quite as bad it was in the first game, particularly with how the game tends to be a tiny bit more easy than the first one, but even then I'd say this game's difficulty peaks are MUCH higher than the first (still tons of maps with very tough, very mobile flying enemies who will kick the crap out of you) even though the valleys are a bit lower and more numerous.

A big reason for those valleys is down to just how many maps there are that are just "monsters attack you on the way to X-location". It's not exactly a sin to have story filler maps, but there's not really any meaningful story correlation to these maps and they're really just mandatory versions of the random encounters you can rarely run into while you trot around the world map. These random encounters are just repeats (or higher difficulty ones, depending on what point in the game you are) of those filler encounters. I get what they were going for here, but grinding already isn't very fun in a normal RPG where you have faster battles, and it's even less fun in a much slower strategy game like this. Even the world map itself is a really weird and not very fun design choice, as it makes it weirdly easy to just not know where you're supposed to go next (whether you just don't know or were only told once and won't be told again, much like Shining Wisdom would also have), which is a very strange problem to have in a strategy RPG.

Encounter and map design overall is a pretty mixed bag, and overall feel a bit weaker than the first game had it. There are a good handful of gimmick maps which range from needlessly annoying (such as the few dark maps in caves, where it isn't fog of war, it's just that you can only see a small amount of the map via your cursor, so nothing is actually hidden, it's just hard to see) to absurdly hard out of nowhere (like the super hard and story-wise quite insignificant chess board map), and I found those to almost universally be the weakest and least fun maps in the game. Maps like the dark maps also gave me an appreciation for how many other strategy games have a strong "Blue Vs. Red" color scheme between allied and enemy units. There are no such color distinctions in Shining Force, and if you're scrolling around in a dark map or even in a normal map, it can be pretty easy to not even realize there's an enemy in the middle of your front line because they had their turn so long ago and they blend in with other units so well.

As far as improvements to the first game go, the one that's easiest to point out is that the UI is far better streamlined and nowhere near as much of a pain to deal with. Menus could still use a bit more delay before confirmations, as it's really far to easy to select the wrong thing and be sorting through menus for ages (and it's also really frustrating that moving your unit, especially a magic user, to a spot still default the cursor to "end turn" instead of an attacking option), but overall it makes the general play a lot less painful than the first game had it. Another nice change from the first game is the enemy AI being nowhere near as likely to get stuck in a routine and simply never attack you. AI is far smarter and actually feels like its trying to kill you most of time, but even then you still have the common occasion of an enemy obviously picking the wrong attack to hit you with (like a caster pinging you for 1 damage instead of using a big AOE spell) or just standing there and getting beaten up for no reason.

The presentation is once again very nice. It's a really pretty Genesis game, with very well detailed monster sprites and character portraits that are also very nice looking. The music is also quite good, so the presentation (aside from the poorer localization) is once again a more easy point in the favor of a Shining Force game.

Verdict: Hesitantly Recommended. Though I'd heard a fair bit about Shining Force 2 (and I went into it knowing I probably also wouldn't like it very much), I not only have a hard time recommending it but also don't really think it's all that much better than the first game. The first game's map design and difficulty balancing also had its problems, but I overall prefer it a fair deal to this game, especially with the better localization. If you liked Shining Force 1, you'll almost certainly also like this, but Shining Force 2 will in no way sway anyone who wasn't sold on the first game.

If Legacy of Great Intention had its merits in its simplicity, Shining Force II does everything to top the original. It looks much more polished, sprites and battle animations are simply gorgeous, it has a better UI, it sounds incredibly well for Genesis standards and the world is much more expanded, with loads of secrets and a greater focus on exploration thanks to the world map being as wide as it is. There'll be mostly two big continents you'll explore and time and time again you'll be able to revisit villages and places, something the original couldn't in part because of its more linear approach to storytelling.

Alas, the game is wide and offers more content. If Shining Force I had a great chemistry between map design and encounters, Shining Force II offers 40 different scripted battles, of which you'll probably remember half. Off the top of my head, I remember the infamous Harpy Pool, the Kraken battle really sticks out for difficulty, but then comes the chessboard encounter, the temple fight or the glass panel battle right before the end. Everything else doesn't feel as memorable simply because they feel like random encounters; you'll walk through the map and then the screen will flash, just for a battle with demons to begin. Some battles do repeat themselves as well, going back to places in the overworld means that the half an hour encounters may just trigger again and again over stacks of woods and grass. Whenever that happened I would just sigh, save the game and let future me handle the fight with a fresher mind and perspective.

I would love to give more credit to this game, because it's got good looks and great performance, but it feels just less interesting than the original due to the flaws compounding what feels like half the game. The greatest flaw for me though might just be the script and the story: while the original was innocuous enough with its simple premise and conversation pieces, the sequel (which by the way doesn't connect to the original if not in passing dialogue) just. doesn't. stop. ever. talking. Characters expose, give you crap, directions and it's just a mindless amount of walking around a dispersing world, with random encounters by the way, and most just ... flies right over my head. It doesn't need to be this painful, generic as it is, even if it's just a fetch quest let it be so without over exposing and mindlessly filling the game with dialogue or characters that would seem important but then never appear again. Take the starting team, Sara, Chester and Jaha. For a good two hours the trio talks and helps the player immersing, but once the game kicks off for real they NEVER talk, again, like until the very end. Oh and what a peculiar thing the ending is. No spoilers, but let's just say that people love this game for the gameplay and not the riveting conclusion.

So what gives? I like Shining Force II a lot, it might just be Shining Force but better. I think the first game is more nuanced in some aspects and straightforward in others, offering a similar experience but half the struggle. It is a personal preference, so let it be known that I have no intention of dying on this hill. And who knows, maybe I'll change perspective once I'm done with the classic Camelot games. I have some games I want to play through like Shining the Holy Ark and Beyond the Beyond before playing the third installment of Shining Force. That's a long queue of games, but this approach is what is making me appreciate a lot more the Golden Sun series, and in retrospective this hobby of mine. I also am clinically obligated to play SRPGs.

Please don't look up the ending to this game. Even with context it's painful. Half the people in here haven't said a word since fifty hours prior. Thank you for reading and have a good night.