Shining Force II -- Swift Strategy

Shining Force II is a game that is better than it's predecessors in almost every way. And yet, it also makes itself distinct in a few ways that make the game feel inherently weaker in comparison to the other entries in the series. Let's delve into a case study on this unique sequel.

[@anthonyrl5s364]

Bro I think you’re trying to play devils advocate more than anything. This game is a masterpiece for the time it was made. I still can play through to this day, and love every second lol

[@danielpio700]

Man Shining Force 2 is awesome. One of my favorite games.

[@michaeldehart3253]

My favorite thing about SF2 is that I actually get stats every time I level. Nothing better than “Gong reaches level 12” without an increase in anything.

[@domikarus5237]

it's even worse in the GBA remake where you gain nothin for almost 40 levels or so till lvl 99

[@sorinev]

Or they just get 1 AGL and nothing else. I played SF2 first, so when I played SF1, it was like "what the hell???". The more even level ups in SF2 was so much nicer.

[@squidwardtentacles2736]

ugh leveling with no stat boosts made me so angry. whats point of leveling if nothing improves. luckily there are rom hacks that fix this

[@JoeFpoc]

Yeah i too played sf1 after sf2 and thought that was such crap. It did seem to go off a RNG or something cause i played sf1 on my switch on that sega genesis collection and it was so bad i ended up just quick saving before ever enemy and reloaded until i got some kinda stat gain

[@NobodyNothing-f5c]

Imagine leveling Gong, he's terrible. Low movement, low mp, low damage. I even tried a playthrough where he was fed all of the power potions, etc. Still better stockpiled and given to Hanzou, Musashi, etc.

[@whiteiswong]

Shining Force II is one of my absolute favorites and I did play the first. And this opinion is shared by a TON of fellow games I know on Discord and such. The chessboard match is absolutely a stand out memorable battle as well as the infinite spawn one in the hidden village. But you are more than welcome to your own opinion |-)

[@LaborHours]

The battle right after the chessboard through the hole in the wall against the rats and slimes with Willard boss is a really cool one too!

[@XellosNi]

I have way more fond nostalgia for Shining Force 2 than I do for 1, despite my first time beating the former from a lategame savestate as opposed to start to finish like the later.

[@shivasthong4924]

You played someone else’s save didn’t you?

[@diogoepronto]

It's interesting how all of the flaws you pointed are actually strengths to me lol I love the fact that they ditched the chapter based progression (this type of progression makes me anxious for some reason), I loved the open world exploration, the random encounters and the difficulty was on point. And I also find the battles way more memorable than those of the first game. I don't know, SF2 was my first Shining Force game, so maybe we both are being fooled by our own nostalgia, hahaha

[@MRDRK1]

Shining Force (original) for story, Shining Force II for user-friendly game mechanics. I wrote my own expanded game universe lore because of Shining Force (original). It was the second game I had for the Genesis (since I bought it at its premier when it came packaged with Sonic the Hedgehog). Yes, SFII was a bit easier to control game-play-wise, but the original (especially after the GameBoy Advance re-release) just had a more interesting plot story. The story of SFII just felt like a stretched re-hash of the first.

[@slimmy478-6]

Link to your lore?

[@MRDRK1]

@@slimmy478-6 Sorry, all paper hard-copy. I started back when the games first came out, so it's all in notebooks. Although I have been thinking about transforming it into a Pathfinder RPG campaign...

[@alephricardo100]

I do write stories too. xD However, in Spanish.

[@adhamshawky5594]

​@@MRDRK1 I still feel the depth of 2 like way deeper.just an opinion.

[@sorinev]

Shining Force 2 was the first one I played, in 1995 (I was 14). It was a year or two later that I would acquire and play the first game. Part 2 was hands down better in absolutely every single possible way from a gameplay perspective and I played through it a million times. More even leveling, open exploration, much better AI (AI in part 1 was really bad!), faster cursor movement, user friendliness when buying new weapons.....just everything. The only thing I'd say I thought was better in SF1 was that the story somehow felt more epic, it felt more world-encompassing and engrossing. Everywhere you went seemed to be directly connected to the main story, for the most part. Whereas in part 2, a lot of places felt like their own, standalone places that didn't have any connection to the story other than "hey, there's monsters everywhere". SF1's story felt more connected, driving, and grandiose. THAT SAID however, I only played SF1 once. I did love it, and still do, but after playing SF2 first, the technicalities of the gameplay were just too much to bear through. Still recommended though! The post-promotion characters do definitely suffer if you've spent even a little bit of time grinding some levels on pre-promotion characters. If you play each battle just once, then sure, the post-promotion characters fit decently. Unless of course they have aura or boost :D. I discovered that power leveling trick all on my own, back in the day. But as for no battles being memorable, DUDE! There's at least a few! If you don't pay attention to actual strategy (and haven't grinded), the Kraken battle and the Chess battle will WRECK YOUR SHIT! Also, the prism flower battle definitely requires a thought to strategy so that you simultaneously avoid the prism flowers, but also don't make any of your members too vulnerable to being picked off. Other than that, I wouldn't say any of the battles were hair pullers, just a few to maybe be careful with due to certain circumstances (Taros, Red Baron). The open world exploration without always having clear direction, I actually liked that. I liked being able to just wander around and explore (I found all mithril pieces on my own in my first playthrough, with no strategy guide or hints due to loving exploration and being thorough). I also got stuck on the wooden panel issue for several days, and it was so satisfying to figure that out on my own (although I'd call it mostly a technical problem, because you have to know to press A at the tree in Ribble, instead of C, and I did know to put the wood panel in the hole otherwise). And yes, Peter is definitely overpowered. You don't even have to work at it, like you would with Slade or MMMK Sarah. It's just a given. Peter is an absolute one man wrecking crew. Although I hate those few battles where he's AI controlled - he stole so many kill setups for my lagging / weaker crew -_-. I'm playing through SF Final Conflict right now for the first time and I very sorely miss exploration. It's literally just battle after battle, but I understand and accept that the Game Gear had certain limitations. The battles are still fun. I understand and appreciate your gripes though, I can see most of those as being valid from one person to the next.

[@mattwho81]

The game is easy enough to enjoy but hard enough to challenge. Keeping all character balanced is hard. It’s way too easy for one or two characters to pull ahead. You often have to leave off a wounded enemy for a low ranked team member to finish off for XP. This means they might just get a turn and hit you first. Even after all this time that’s what keeps it fun.

[@diogoepronto]

Yes, I love how character progression is also tied to your strategy. If you're not careful and think ahead, your team can end up with one overleveled character alongside eleven useless underleveled characters

[@sorinev]

"You often have to leave off a wounded enemy for a low ranked team member to finish off for XP." And then AI-controlled-Peter's punk ass comes through and steals it. -_-

[@JoeFpoc]

Yeah kiwi and slade are definitely 2 that come to mind. I skipped over them a bunch back in the day now they are always 2 characters i use the entire time. You just have to spoon feed them a bunch of kills in the beginning

[@mattwho81]

@@JoeFpoc I always take Slade. Ninja is insanely good class. Kiwi, I dump him the second an alternative becomes available.

[@JoeFpoc]

@@mattwho81 way back when i was a kid slade seemed to always fall behind and be very weak so always kicked him to the curb now he’s always in the party. Kiwi grows on me, i love that he can fly to reach far away monsters. I think he does ok attack wise and his hp raises after promoted and was around 50hp by the time i got to Zeon. Level 4 freeze was a instant kill though as he ended up dying on the Zeon fight lol

[@MrMaskYT]

That Battle Theme do be slap tho

[@rayplaysgames_RPG]

What?

[@mrcatchingup]

We need Shinning Force 4 already!

[@myopiniondoesntmatter7068]

Imagine forgetting the Kraken fight, Prism Flowers or the Chess fight. The names are like that sadly due to localisation. Back then it was a crap shoot and you got some really random choices when games came across. Names would get randomly changed, some would just straight up capitalize names in English because it "looked" similar to how the JP version does because of the language difference. This game was one of few and it was all I had for a period of like 4-5 years as a young kid. So I replayed it.. a lot. The only time I ever struggled with the game was when I was on one of my first runs at maybe 5 or 6 years old without my older brother nearby and the Red Baron fight kept ending me. Turns out if you put Bowie anywhere near RB he's going to charge through everyone and desoul/use darksword on Bowie to send you to church. There are definitely tiers of characters, but literally none are so weak that they can't hold their own weight unless you're doing some stupid moves that even a 6 year old would know better (running a high MOV char into 4-5 enemies solo for example). The "worst" characters are Higgins, Screech, Luke (they did the birds rough in SF2), Janet, Elric, Gyan and Kiwi. Playing normally Peter is SSS tier for obvious reasons, can literally solo the game like Xylo does in SF1. But even the remaining "duds" like Claude, Rhode, Zynk, Chester, Sheela are perfectly fine in normal playthroughs. With anything that heals becoming busted, especially if they have aura or boost if you realise that it gives xp for just being cast. The two characters that won't keep up without maintenance are Kiwi and Slade. Kiwi is never worth the extreme trouble so he's literally the only character I see fitting the issue of "not keeping up". After Slade hits 11 to 12 he starts finding his feet and you won't need to completely baby him by saving low hp enemies. He becomes one of the strongest characters even without his best weapon too. The game is not even close to difficult as its completely possible to beat the game with something like 30/32 characters entirely solo (using a mod that gives you members from battle 1). Red Baron becomes the hardest fight usually due to RNG, but even Zeon is killable by the likes of Gyan and other low tier chars.

[@sorinev]

All great points. No idea how he could have missed the Kraken, Chess, and Prism Flower battles! They definitely required some strategy, especially with the patchiness of the safe areas in the prism flower battle. They really did do the birds dirty in SF2. I'm playing through Final Conflict for the first time, and the birds are actually really good. In SF2, they just suck (Peter aside, obviously). Looking back on it now with almost 30 years of experience since then, I'd say they probably made the choice to balance a lower attack against the ability to fly (so no terrain limitations). But I didn't find that to be a decent enough trade off. The enemies can get tough, fast, so the overall lower stats are simply a no-go. I really wanted to like and use the post-promotion characters, but even a slight amount of grinding the old crew kinda nullifies them. For me at least.

[@myopiniondoesntmatter7068]

@@sorinev The birds are strongest in FC or CD IIRC. They're sadly bad in basically everything else. I wish they took a look at them again in the SF1 remake but IIRC that changed very little in terms of power. Meanwhile Peter is probably the strongest single character across all games.

[@sorinev]

That sucks. When I first went through SF2, I had thought it'd be so cool to have a bird fighter besides Peter. It's extraordinarily helpful in certain battles and situations. I tried to use Luke, and really wanted to keep him up, but he just fell too far behind stronger crew. So he was dumped at the first chance. Skreech wasn't even in the running, given when he shows up, and considering the grinding that's taken place up to that point. So I'm just enjoying Kiddo and Julia in FC while I can.

[@JannPoo]

When he mentioned the ship fight in SF1 and claimed there isn't really anything comparable in SF2 I really thought he was trolling. The Kraken fight is a lot more distinct and interesting as a fight on the water. The ship in SF1 is so big that it barely makes a difference compared to a normal town map. Moreover you get not 1 but 2 fights in it, which makes for a not so great repetitive experience.

[@illyrianmovement3169]

Words will never be enough to describe the love that i have for this masterpiece of a game, still play once a year after almost 20 years since i first played it. Wish SEGA would remake this game so bad.

[@ezg8448]

Characters underpowered problem? This is a MUCH BIGGER problem in Shining Force 1. Many characters join the party sorely underpowered and needed emergency grinding. This issue was minimized in Shining Force 2, it's not terribly difficult to clear the game on normal (Ouch mode?) without using egress. As long as to give as the XP to the main group and not spread it.

[@MT-ke3tq]

There was a SF2 mod that kicked the normal difficulty to ouch for no reason. Played it myself and it was definitely one of those, 'caution is your friend. Don't even think about going out too far' moments

[@TheDOSGamer]

I never thought about it but there is a difference in the battles. It might be mostly that SF2 relies way more heavily on the overworld. SF1 had a lot of unique battles. SF2 had a lot of grinding battles. There were some unique ones though. The caves (they had to engineer their own software based parallax scrolling for the cave spotlight and cloud backgrounds), the kraken, the chessboard, some of the town fights. Battles that had guests or units that changed sides. But SF1 has a lot more battles that stand out as unique. The ship battles, laser eye, orb cave battle, circus battle, skull castle, kane battle, runefaust castle/ramladu, the tower to get Alef/Torasu, there's lots.

[@thecatlike2125]

I agree completely, the music and character design and story are far better in Shining Force 1. The quality of life, and gameplay changes are better in 2. It would be great to mod in the SF1 music and update the character art to bring it in line with the grittier vibe of 1

[@JoeFpoc]

I kinda hated a lot of sf1’s fights. Way to many of them had heavy land effects where half your team could only move one square at a time which always caused them to fall behind. Sf2 is my favorite, just finished it again for like the 50th time last week.

[@Psychology]

I hate how bosses gain health back after turns in SF1

[@JoeFpoc]

@@Psychology oh yeah forgot about that. I think it was only like 15hp or something. You basically just had to surround them and kick the crap out of him with everything you got

[@Psychology]

@JoeFpoc Yeah basically. I love the characters and lore of part 1 way better, but the gameplay of 2 blows it away in every aspect.

[@sorinev]

I also played SF2 first, so the things that lacked in SF1 that SF2 improved upon were really hard to put up with. The bad level ups were SO terrible. But regarding the fights, yeah, it didn't help that the AI was REALLY bad. So many enemies just stood there doing absolutely nothing, even if you were a few spaces away (???).

[@Psychology]

@@sorinev And the name Mishaela put fear in the hearts of any shining force 1 player lol

[@Lucky2000Zx]

Any chance on playing Phantasy Star I-IV on the Genesis and Master System respectively, as I would for you to review and see what you think of them

[@ChrisTheFields]

I haven't really played them before and I currently don't have plans for videos but Phantasy Star IV has been calling out to me recently.

[@davidshain8673]

Three is definitely the most unique game in the series and by far one of my favorites. They knew that the Sega Saturn was coming to an end and that it needed to be wrapped up, so disc 3's story is wonky, though throughout the whole thing it needs a skip cutscene button. Also, hidden items, unless there's something really important, need to just be in treasure chests and not patches of grass or the sides of a wall.

[@BigGnome]

10:19 This. I really hate the mentality among a lot fans of game franchises that different is inherently bad, such as a lot of Metroid fans ignoring a lot of Fusion's uniquely strong aspects just because it doesn't play exactly like Super.

[@nahueltaccone2121]

Love Shining Force 2

[@OneTrueNobody]

5:00 - I don't like the allcaps names, either. One of the things I always did as a kid was activate the name-every-party-member cheat in order to rename them with lowercase letters. Pain in the butt.

[@iwanttocomplain]

Don’t sleep on the Genesis sound chip. I seem to remember finishing the first one but not the second. The first game is more creative. I prefer it. One thing I would change is not have the cursor go to enemies if they’re not going to move. That’s like 1 line of code. Instantly double the speed of battles. Shining Force CD should have had towns. Re-use the GameGear games sure. But it needed that down time. It was just a couple of lines of dialogue between battles. Boo hiss.

[@sagegang6957]

Thracia 776 on lunatic???

[@squidwardtentacles2736]

I love both for different reasons, but 2 is overall better. I only wish sf2 adopted more of the steampunk aspects of 1, which they incorpoated into 3. Three is ultimate sf game and nothing has rivaled it since. All classic amazing games that no other strategy RPG has come close to capturing its charm

[@StevenOyston]

Really great content, looking at the systems and processes.

[@rowdyoutdoors5397]

I played the 1st one as a kid, saw 2nd one on steam (as well as 1st) for $1 each..guess I know what I’ll be addicted to for a few weeks 😂

[@DezorianGuy]

Wow, it seems you really were searching for straws here. Not one point you made does degrade the quality of this game. :P Examples: "This game is difficult!" (therefore removing some points). "The camera is dynamic" (points go). "The game has an overworld map and no chapters!" (go away you points). "There are random encounters!" (removing more points). Personal tip: You don't have to repeat those battles. If you cannot keep your party alive, those battle are the very reason to exist - to make it easier to grind for levels. Level your party to a degree so you get more powerful - the rpg rule nr. 1. What a weird, but insightful video. Enjoyed it anyways for I love different perspectives on my favorite games. :)

[@leadbones]

I know 2 is "better" but I've always preferred Shining Force 1.

[@justTyping]

Let say these are my thoughts about the critics. As you mentioned is is different for all players. I think you can seperate the game into chapters. But it is not shown. - Granseal. - Way To Volcano - Way to Creed - Getting to the north of Parmecia - Defeating the evil. I think FF Tactics (at least the GBA version) had no chapters ether. How can you not remember fighting the Kraken or on the chess board? Also the pond was specific. BTW: How did you mange to have Chester there at lvl 11? (9:47) At that point I think the lvl should be at least 21. I enjoyed the generic maps in SFII much more than in I. SFI had so many desert or forest maps, where you hardly can move. it is so annyoing. The map on 6:13 is ok. Forest in the beginning and open in the end. To be hones one of my favorite maps. I think it is the only repeatable battle where some of the enemies spawn at tier of the game progress. I am sure for healers and bow units. So this is also a place to train. But I understand the point that you want to go further and than a battle happens by chance. E.g. the dessert battle on 5:54 reminds me on these annying SFI maps. But just needs to be done ones since you never pass this area again. and in the one case you do (when going back) you can just use magic to leave. The other desert map is at least quite small. still annoying but enemies are close by and not crouching to the fight over several rounds. I think the diffrence in difficulty is not how hard the enemy hit, but how aggressiv they are. On the hardest level the enemy attacks low hp characters they can kill. On normal they ignore this chance. But I agree on some parts some battles seem not to fit the player level. I think the Kraken battle is much harder than the following ones. Also the chess battle is harder than the one against the rats after it and you get quite less XP. Also if you promote very early it is indeed hart to keep up with the pace. And since you dont lose stats on promotion and pre promotion level is +20 to the min promotion level instead of just +10 it takes more time to keep the weak chars in touch. Especially since you get new weapons regulary, you miss quite a lot of attack.

[@songshungama5288]

thanks man you did a very good job ab explaining it

[@briangaron7609]

This game gets pretty hard around the chess battle

[@CosmicCosmo1]

Art style and music in 1 are better. Feels more mature, less cartoony.

[@VZed]

I'm just disappointed you didn't use my Starcraft to Starcraft II example. oh well. Shining Force looks cool, though!

[@ChrisTheFields]

Maaaaan, there's only so much I can do for a 10 second clip of b roll footage when I've never played a Starcraft game before.

[@DeliberateContrarian]

What game is being shown at 8:19? It seems familiar but I can't quite remember.

[@ChrisTheFields]

That is Langrisser/Warsong on Sega Genesis

[@lOoNie_01]

So you think shining force 3 is a good game to play?

[@robinkeating4521]

I need progression of chapters? Dude, you're gaining levels, promoting, getting weapon upgrades, progressing story.

[@max-lee1203]

Most of these complaints sound like it's your own fault. You complain that the game is hard but you holded out all of your characters on promotion until they were Level 40. I'd say it's best to promote at Level 25 to Level 30, at least before the Devil's Tail fight. Not only that but you're severely under-leveled. For example, at 9:42, why is Chester only at Level 11 at the HAPRY POOL FIGHT? By the time you get to that fight you should at least be Level 21 or heck even Level 30 promoted if you train in Elven Forest. You know you can egress out to start battles over and train right? And that leads to another point, the random field battles do not have to done over again. Just egress and don't step on the same tiles next time.

[@luisreyes1963]

Just be thankful that Shining Force 2 isn't on the same maddening level of difficulty like Final Fantasy Tactics.

[@beebs_magoo]

Tactics is easy and very breakable, even before the later stages of the game.

[@kjhansonkjhanson6643]

Shining Force 3 three scenarios are more like Neapolitan ice cream

[@ChrisTheFields]

Ok. That's pretty clever.

[@ztrinx1]

Great video. Fascinating for nerds who have played both games religiously for decades. I have had these same thoughts many times, i.e. that Shining Force 2 is objectively better in so many ways, but there are tangible and intangible aspects that make Shining Force 1 better for me. Some immediate disagreements on memorability: The kraken battle is infinitely more memorable and better in every way than the two ship battles from Shining Force 1. I might give a more thoughtful response later with other details for discussion.

[@JoshuaHamberger]

This is the craziest review I’ve ever seen. Much of the early stuff you list is preference based nit picking and the points about strategy at the end (eg peter being a “necessity”) and pacing are simply wrong. While Peter is definitely the best character many others can pretty easily keep pace. The lacking of a breaking point as you say seems silly as you can save from the battle map and at any town and can thus put the game down virtually any time you want.

[@princemarkied8071]

your crazy. SFII is my all time favorite.

[@Thrashman138]

I'm all but certain I disagreed with nearly every single "complaint" you had in this video. I'm struggling to understand the point of why you made and published this.

[@nikolaikalashnikov4253]

1:31 ...Holy shit... was that really necessary ??? ...DOWN-VOTED !!!

[@FinoClips]

Is the almost perfect rpg

[@adrialmada7521]

i play first shining 2

[@beebs_magoo]

Yeah, disagreed with pretty much all your critiques. Cheers!

[@Damyoro]

the only point I could agree with you is the camera. I hate SF2's Camera system. I was gonna drag you for trying to get views with terribly constructed "arguments" for your video but Ive just noticed it's been 2 years and you havent reached much with it lol

[@ChrisTheFields]

@@Damyoro You got me. I made a video bringing up mild criticisms of a Sega Genesis game to explore why it didn't resonate as much with me just for the views. Oops.

[@Datenshi-Beats]

So you are saying you like vanilla more and Shining Force 1 is vanilla flavor? I still don't understand how some people like more 2. I don't see much innovation from 1. I really love the original.

[@adhamshawky5594]

Bc of what he said in the video,,2 has evolved in almost every thing

[@TJDious]

Shining Force II: Superior gameplay, inferior narrative.

[@vsolyomi]

Atmosphere's off, from gloom Eastern European vibe into some trashy post-cyberpunk in the end to II's sanitized generic fantasy. Sadly Camelot never seems to have tried it again. Feel similar for 1st Disgaea.