Shining Force II (Genesis) review "A force to be reckoned with..."

How far we've come... How far we've strayed...

We have games with more complex stories these days. Some of them operate like interactive movies, others strip away interaction in favor of forcing you down a tight pathway for cinematic value. At times, it works and it leads to some wonderful experience. Others, though, it feels wrong, for lack of a better term. Why do I care about cinematic value in a medium that isn't cinema? Why can't we focus on the qualities that make gaming special rather than trying to turn gaming into mini-film or mini-paperbacks?

Don't get me wrong; games had stories way back, especially adventures and RPGs. However, you didn't have developers so dead set on defying tropes, partly because they hadn't been played out yet, and partly because “power fantasy” titles were still popular. You had worlds besieged by masked men or threatened by devils and/or gods. And who was it that stepped up to take them out? Tormented men in their forties? Trained assassins with heartrending pasts? Nope, just teenage swordsmen who somehow had a natural aptitude for combat and leadership.

Enter Shining Force II...

You have a king dwelling in a fantasy realm where anthropomorphic animals live alongside humans. He has a bad feeling one night, confirmed by lightning striking a sacred tower behind the castle. From there, the tale turns to thievery and demonic possession. Thankfully, the kingdom has a court wizard because of course they do, and he has promising young students because of course he does. One of them turns out to be a battle prodigy with leadership skills that could guide snowmen to a bonfire because of course he does. They battle a small menagerie of monsters, fight off a demon that looks like a squiggly pattern with a face on it, then exorcise the king. That, of course, only forces a whole world of other events into motion: destruction, authoritarian takeovers, kidnapping, and a refugee crisis all coming about because of one, huge, overarching conflict: a devil king is about to be revived.

It's always that kind of quest with these games: someone wake up some long slumbering evil that can't be felled by even the most powerful gods, but somehow ends up being defeated by a fifteen year old with a magic sword. Deities can't do it, but someone with zits and grit can. God bless the '90s.

Our hero joins up with his friends: a centaur, an dwarf, and a woman who obviously loves him, though her love goes unrequited because she can't compete with a frickin' princess that's obviously the protagonist's love interest. Still,they form a ragtag group, slay some monsters, and recruit friends along the way. Your predictable, albeit no less welcome, faces join the entourage: the long-haired mage, the plucky thief (who's a rat this time), the cute creature that eventually learns to breath fire, more mages, additional centaurs, a vampire named Lemon, and a phoenix who's kind of a prick.

Together, they form an army and wage war across two continents, engaging in turn-based battles on grid-based fields. Your standard goblins and bats join the fight, but so do griffins, minotaurs, dark dwarves, and witches. Hell, you even fight sinister vicars and bishops, looking like dropouts from the band Ghost. Units move and/or act with each turn, swinging weapons or casting spells. Magic users call forth flames and freezing flurries, clerics heal their buddies, and sorcerers summon flippin' gods—how cool is that? You can upgrade a mage to a boring wizard, whose only advantage is a stronger fire or ice spell, or you could make them into a sorcerer who commands Apollo or Neptune to get down there and blast the opposition.

Yes, upgrade. Or promote, to be more precise. Most of your allies trade their old class in for a more powerful one, starting at their twentieth level. Priests become vicars who utilize improved healing magic, warriors become gladiators who put more weight behind their axe blows, and even your phoenix can evolve into a phoenix. It's cooler than it sounds, trust me. That's not all: hidden items allow you to forgo the standard promotion and turn your troops into even more badass battlers. Centaurs sprout wings and take to the skies, and priests forsake the papal dress code for sexy outfits and metal fists. Seriously, if you've never seen a healer become one of the hardest hitters in a roleplaying game, this is your chance.

Battles require strategy, obviously. However, the level of thought each fight takes is by no means overwhelming. Not only is it very possible to grind for levels and bolster offensive output with improved weaponry, but encounters themselves don't really put you up against grim odds. Even when the cards are stacked heavily against you, game over allows you ample opportunity to grind experience and farm cash so you can revive your fallen comrades and develop into the asskickers you need to be.

The battles themselves also prove to be memorable and worthwhile, seeing you face off against giant chessboard full of killer game pieces, a tunnel populated by a massive rat named after a '70s horror film character, a squid-like predator and its numerous arms rising from the depths of a rapid river, and a fight against a green-faced demon in the depths of a goddess' shrine. Meanwhile, you experiment with different combinations of characters, discovering who could possibly lead you to victory the swiftest or easiest, sometimes gunning straight for your opponent's leader for a quick win, sometimes taking the time to finish off all targets because that's how you roll. And who could blame you? With a combat system this smooth it's hard not to get sucked into fighting off everything just for the satisfaction of watching units duke it out in a special battle screen. As with the previous Shining Force installment, this one cuts away from the main screen to a brief shot a full-body render of the two combatants taking shots at each other or casting spells. Sometimes, the aggressor gets a second attack, and others the defender launches a reprisal strike of their own.

It all builds the way it should: with the entourage desperately seeking answers, being dogged at every turn by the devil's mistreated cronies, some of whom you can't help but pity. You know how this one's going to go, and yet the lack of surprise feels like home rather than a vapid revisit of old plot devices. You know the hero is going to vanquish evil in the end; the antagonist's henchmen are going to either die fighting you, or be killed by their merciless boss for their failure; the mostly-silent lead is going to kiss and marry the princess; someone will sacrifice himself for the good of the world, ending up a true hero.

This is ancient heroism. It's the kind of thing kids in the '90s loved, some of us return to these days out of nostalgia, but also because these old tropes are assembled in such a lovingly way that they don't feel like a genre exercise. No one is looking at this game and thinking it's Hamlet or The Godfather or any number of other fantastic works from other mediums. Maybe gaming doesn't have that sort of thing yet because it's still a relatively young medium, or maybe it doesn't need one to feel valid. At any rate, there's heart in works like Shining Force II, even after all these decades...

Community review by JoeTheDestroyer (January 02, 2025) Rumor has it that Joe is not actually a man, but a machine that likes video games, horror movies, and long walks on the beach. His/Its first contribution to HonestGamers was a review of Breath of Fire III.