Oh my twinkling stars...

Prior to it, my experience with RPGs as a child involved Dragon Warrior 3 and... Baseball Stars? I saw Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior (Quest. I know. Shut up.) as rivals back when I was in grade and middle school, so I avoided Final Fantasy solely because I thought I would be a traitor to Dragon Warrior. Yes, kids believe in stupid stuff like that all the time, and I was no exception. Fortunately for me, I've never made another mistake ever and have been perfect in every other manageable, imaginable, and unimaginable way.

What actually got me into the genre itself was due to a comment my oaf of a friend made while I was spending the weekend at his place. Resting atop an uneven pile of perforated bricks in his guest bedroom was a Sega Genesis, and at this particular moment, I noticed Shining Force lying on the floor nearby. I asked if it was any good and he told me it would be too hard for me to figure out. Hearing that sort of thing from a guy who couldn't dress himself properly unless his mom laid out the clothes for him irritated me, so I played it secretly whenever he left me alone for a while to figure the game out for myself. Once he finally saw me playing it, I told him it wasn't that difficult to understand (for me, at least). He was kind enough to let me borrow it and I spent my free time playing through the game multiple times in my brother's room. Why did we always have the Sega Genesis in Ian's room? I probably didn't want to have a Sega system and a Nintendo system in the same room together because of their rivalry... dang it! I made the same mistake and didn't even realize it! Actually, Ian told me it had to do with my television lacking space, or was it the three-color setup, or something something... com-plete. Oh, well, at least this now validates my prior claim to flawlessness, unless one wishes to accuse my poor memory as being a flaw, then, you know, shut up.

Shining Force is the second game of a series that began with Shining and the Darkness back in '91, though you probably wouldn't know it if "shining" wasn't used in both names. Darkness has a similar look to that of Wizardry, while Force more closely resembles Nobunaga's Ambition and Fire Emblem:

The first picture is of Wizardry VI, I believe. A lot of hot pixel nudity in that one. As for the second image, I'm convinced Nobunaga's ambition was to cover the world with tatami mats.

I should mention that SF developer Hiroyuki Takahashi showed no love for Fire Emblem, despite the similarities. What brought about his game was a desire to make the battles in Dragon Quest more enjoyable without the help of Toriyama's artwork. Impossibru, you say? Merely improbabru. Inspired by Silver Ghost, combat in Shining Force revolves around commanding multiple charismatic individuals, and, for whatever reason, Lowe, in turn-based battles that usually take place on maps twice as spacious as they really ought to be.

Masochists might demand more pain in their Strategy/Tactical RPG, but the only legitimate issue with Shining Force is having to battle in areas full of empty space with movement-hindering terrain that prolong a fight for no beneficial reason. If one really wishes to nitpick, there are certainly minor problems to point out.

For example, while there are plenty of PCs to recruit, many of them are just different versions of each other. This is especially true of the centaurs May, Ken, Arthur, Pelle, Vankar, and Earnest, with similar lance-wielding individuals, such as Guntz and Kokichi. The only one who stands out dramatically is Lyle, the centaur with a fucking bazooka, whose face seems to be the standard look of all the playable characters:

Another minor problem revolves around healers and their inability to keep up with the team. They, like anyone else, can become quite powerful, but if you don't enjoy wasting extra turns to boost their experience with healing, then switch'em out, toss each fighter a healing seed, and go into battle full force. (I've done it. It works quite well.) Other nuisances include debuff spells that are worthless (no surprise there), all boss fights are won with a bum rush, a handful of extremely weak PCs join late in the game and require an excessive amount of attention to be of value, there are a few of those obnoxious "But thou must" questions creating the illusion that your decision matters, and the menu is cumbersome. Again, minor problems. All they really do is show the game's age, as these issues were common with RPGs in the '90s... until Final Fantasy VII came, fixed everything, and made RPGs the greatest thing ever:

She hugs the enemies.

The Shining Force roster has only one weak character, Jogurt, and his entire purpose is to be comedy relief. He's not half bad at that, either. Want to bring down the ultimate evil with the might of a dozen hamsters? He can do it!

What's more impressive is that he's the only one to find work outside of the Shining series.

Among the rest, there is no Delibird or Luvdisc of the bunch. Just choose whomever you like, level'em up, and watch the magic happen. Bleu and Adam are ridiculously pathetic to begin with, and helping them grow probably isn't worth the effort (at least the healers can keep their distance), but those two are by far the most rewarding for your trouble.

The player will have to deal with a lot of shit to level Adam, but, if you're patient, he'll return the favor once he's stronger.

As much as I enjoyed each chapter, once I experienced Shining Force II and it's properly-connected world, I became displeased with the idea of separating the world map into eight pieces. I won't refer to this as a flaw of Shining Force, because it never mattered until SF2 was released, and comparing it negatively to it's sequel would be silly. In fact, Shining Force II actually manages to improve upon nearly every aspect of its predecessor, which is what a true sequel should do.

... or just keep churning out the same fucking thing.  That works, too.

That's quite a feat considering it had the same shitty budget as the other Shining titles and a fresh team of developers to help Takahashi create it.

Shining Force II takes place half a century later with an anthropomorphic rat stealing the two jewels that sealed Zeon, one of the three Devil Kings. Demons emerge from the tower where the gems were kept and Sir Astral is brought in for assistance. Astral is a more developed character than his Shining Force counterpart Nova, a Dragonute (Dragonewt?) whose existence discredits an NPC's comment about Elliot being the last of his kind in the first game. I believe the comment was altered in the remake to, "...one of the few left of his kind," so it's not as if it went unnoticed by SEGA, though more backstory of Nova himself would have been appreciated. Oh well.

The main character in Shining Force II is a student of Astral who was trained in both magic and swords. As with Max, he learns Egress to allow an immediate escape from battle, and Bolt is eventually learned, but he'll always be much more effective fighting up close.

By default, the dork's name is Bowie, though I usually change it to Karn, and his appearance made me reluctant to use him in battle any more than necessary to keep him alive. He's convinced by his classmate Sarah to see what's going on. Followed by a third student, Chester, the trio lie their way into the castle. Why Astral went alone to begin with doesn't make much sense considering he is too decrepit to do anything outside of teach and advise. Fortunately, he spots the kids, also lies, then has them accompany him to the tower where the geezer sends his students off to die against a group of demons. It's a typical School-Life Anime introduction. All this story is missing is a mysterious transfer student to assist them in battle. Once the fight is over, Astral casts a single spell, becomes winded, and collapses in the king's bedroom. Typical. Realizing the threat at hand, Granseal's army is called upon to hunt down the escaped Gizmo (a demon). Obviously, trained soldiers are useless, so the children are also dispatched. Before leaving town, a fourth student appears to join them. He's not a transfer student, nor is there anything mysterious about him... and he's uglier than Bowie, but he swings a mean axe, and, by this point, we learn that Chester's an unreliable fuck-up, so greet the sluggish dwarf with open arms, then send him up front to take all the hits, because you can't afford to stock up on enough healing herbs to keep Chester's sorry ass from dropping.

Some real effort went into the introduction of this adventure, and it only gets better from there. The English translation of the original Shining Force omitted numerous pieces of information, including Max's backstory and his (intimate) relationship to Kane. As far as I knew, the first chapter was little more than the first episode of Power Rangers with Nova recruiting a team of teenagers with attitude (and Lowe) to episodically fight evil. It's fun, but the reasoning for why I went from one place to another was a bit two-dimensional. In Shining Force II, there's all sorts of drama and detail to appreciate. The English translation isn't all that bad, either... compared to its predecessor, that is. So Dark Dragon's real name is Lucifer. Is anyone surprised about that? I'd change my name too if I had my dark followers calling me "Lucy" all the time.

As with Shining Force, the sequel offers numerous PCs to choose from. There's a little more depth with this roster, as it has been with everything else about the game. There's also a greater difference in power between individuals. For example, Peter the Phoenix practically breaks the game. He is a flying unit with very high stats who resurrects himself for free and doesn't require weapons to fight. Granted, Shining Force has Jogurt, but this guy is a one-man army... who isn't actually a man, because he's a bird, and birds have opposite chromosomes, so his would be XX, and since I typed "one-man", he would clearly be a female if his species was human instead of bird, making that description incorrect, though it would be anyhow because a bird's determining system is based around Zs and Ws, but it's the same even with different letters, because male birds are homogametic, which is what females are for mammals, so he's actually a one-bird army, right? Then, there is Higins the Centaur. Old, weak, slow Higins. None of his stats justify his inclusion in your team, because there are plenty of similar PCs with much stronger attributes. One could also call into question the need for Zynk and Claude. Both possess formidable power, but with practically no movement, neither will reach the front line quickly enough to be of any use. Leveling won't help them hustle, either. What I am typing is that there is a "best" team to use in this game, and choosing favorites who don't qualify will require level grinding to compensate. This won't matter too much on the normal setting, but try tackling this game on the Super difficulty (Ouch! mode has better targeting, but someone at SEGA forgot to buff the enemies' stats, so it's actually the second hardest). It won't take long to realize that this is not as forgiving as the original.

SFII offers a few detours with reoccurring battles (actually, this annoyed me whenever I walked into one), special promotion items to allow some minor customization of your characters, and fifteen hidden pieces of mithril that can used to craft unique weapons.

The music is cheerful, maybe too much at times, with Motoaki Takenouchi's "Welcome to Our Town" being my personal favorite of the soundtrack. Actually, I can have almost any track looping in the background without being bothered by it. Still, as a child, I would occasionally turn down the volume and play alternative rock radio (103.1 The Buzz). Now, thanks to that, I can't listen to "Pumping On Your Stereo" by Supergrass or "Sucked Out" by Superdrag without thinking about these games. This is still better than having the entire Jagged Little Pill album being linked to playing Metroid.

It's like picking up 10,000 ammo when what you need is energy.

Also, some content in both games is either questionable, or outright confusing:

There are hidden outfits for Anri and Tao in the first game, an all-out boss royale battle on top of Sonic the Hedgehog in the second one, and a delightful code in both to allow the player to rename all the characters. My brother and I used it on Shining Force to rename everyone "Dick" in some manner, because we were mature children.

Dicknose, Dickchin, Bleudick... you get the picture.

If there is any advice to give, I guess it would be to watch your ass in the circus tent and at Shade Abbey on Shining Force I and cautiously battle the Kraken and chess army in Shining Force II. All four fights can be problematic for first-timers, especially if they are not accustomed to this sort of gameplay. One more important piece of advice: don't nobody touch my hoes!

This includes the redesigned Khris in the GBA version.

Lastly, an inside joke:

Just for you, Ian. Just for you. :)