It's been almost a year since I covered Shining Force, a strategy RPG for the Genesis, and it's time to dive back into the series.
I had been looking to play a strategy RPG and my options are surprisingly limited. It's been a while since I've played Final Fantasy Tactics, but I've also played it about a billion times and besides, I have other plans for that game later. I decided to circle back to Shining Force instead. I wanted to play the two games in order for continuity and story purposes, though I don't think that was particularly necessary. But I also kind of wanted to play this game first, as I was told it was vastly superior to its predecessor. It's not that I was told the first game was bad (and I certainly didn't think it was), just that the second was far superior in just about every conceivable way.
Let's get the bad stuff out of the way first, starting with the biggest issue first: the inventory system. The inventory system in SFII is almost entirely unchanged from the first game. That's a massive problem because this is one of the most awful inventory systems I've ever encountered in an RPG. Each character can only hold four items and that includes the weapon they have equipped. That wouldn't be that big an issue, items aren't as important here as they are in some RPGs, but it takes four or five button presses to pass items between your characters. This is a long game as it is and it's made even longer when you have to spend 20 minutes (not an exaggeration) reorganizing your inventory any time you have to buy weapons. I tried to avoid buying anything, I only bought weapons when I absolutely had to and I don't think I purchased an item during my entire playthrough. In addition, they still don't feel the need to tell you what any of the items do. That was almost acceptable when the first game came out, but by 1993 that shouldn't have still been the case. There were a lot more items this time around too, though the core few were the same from the first game. This might not sound like a major problem, but trust me, it is.
The other standout issue I had, though it wasn't as major, was the design of some of the areas where the battles take place. I feel like a lot more battles in SFII took place on the overworld map on standard, flat areas. Even the battles that did take place in other locations all felt pretty generic, or different in ways that weren't good. I hate the whole "limited vision" gimmick, it should be abolished from non-horror games forever. I'm serious, it should be against the law. The fight on the raft was also problematic, not being able to actually fight the enemies you need to fight is incredibly frustrating. There were a few really cool battles, I like the one on the bridge toward the end of the game, but there were far fewer arenas that stood out as compared to the first game. Rather than use terrain and design, the developers used world map terrain to add challenge. I don't love that, but at the end of the day the combat is so good and so engaging that this was more of a minor issue.
Now that we got that out of the way, let's move on to the more positive stuff. Because believe me, there's far more good than bad. Combat remains largely unchanged, you control a squad of 11 who move around the battlefield via a grid system. There's a good variety of different units, from knights and soldiers to healers and mages. You will also add several unique creatures to your army, like a phoenix and a werewolf. Each unit can be upgraded once and depending on their stats can transform into a different unit. It isn't common, but there are even a few hybrid classes this time around, like the healer's monk upgrade. There also seems to be a better variety of ranged and magical attackers than the first game, which is nice. You can win by either destroying all the enemies or finding and defeating the general. I found the first game almost forced you to always clear out the enemies, but SF2 actually included some battles where it was better to go after the general. Other than that, not much different from SF1, which is fine because combat was where that game excelled.
The story is much better in SFII, mostly because it actually made it into the western version of the game this time. It isn't great, but its serviceable for a strategy RPG. You take the role of a young man (who's name is apparently supposed to be Bowie, though the game never tells you this) studying under the great Sir Astral in the kingdom of Granseal. Unbeknownst to the denizens of Granseal, a thief breaks into their temple and steals the kingdom's greatest treasures, the jewels of light and darkness. The thief Slade (who will later join your party) believes he's hit the jackpot. But what he's actually done is release the seal containing Zeon, the all powerful demon king hell bent on world domination. Nice one dude! Zeon and his minions get right to work, possessing the king of neighboring Galam, kidnapping Granseal's princess Elis and destroying the city, forcing its residents to evacuate via boat. After crashing on a nearby continent, the remaining townspeople build a new town out of the remains of their ship over the course of a year. But it's soon determined that simply resettling is not enough. Zeon needs to be stopped and Elis needs to be rescued, so Bowie and his squad set out to do just that.
It isn't great, but its passable, especially considering how the first game was barely understandable due to its translation. The characters are pretty one note, they all join for some random reason and then you never hear anything from them again. There are a few characters that see some development, like Peter the Phoenix and Lemon the knight turned vampire, but it was rare. At least they have some personality in battle, with each unit type offering its own quirks and advantages. Only one or two of the characters that join up are truly useless and one or two are overpowered, so the characters are balanced as well. The characters actually look a lot better in and out of combat. There's not a lot of character development, but I don't think its a huge deal here.
The biggest improvement might actually be in the auditory department. The sound is worlds better than it was in SF1, both in terms of quality and design. Gone are the very strange, high pitched squeaks of the first game's battle theme, replaced with a far more appropriate and better sounding track. The music as a whole just sounds better, like they had learned how to work around the Genesis sound chip. Even the tracks they kept the same are clearer and cleaner. The soundtrack as a whole is a little more lighthearted than it should be, but its not bad by any means. The graphics are also improved, though not as drastically, with better details and what feels like more colors. SF2 isn't the prettiest game on the Genesis, but it still looks pretty good.
So, where does that leave us? Shining Force II is one of the better old school strategy RPGs I've played and it's definitely better than its predecessor. It's an accessible title (gameplay wise) in a genre that's generally very inaccessible and its a relatively short RPG. I did some research and it looks like SF2 got okay-to-good reviews when it came out back in 1993. That's a far cry from the sentiment surrounding the game today, read up on this game today and its clear to see people think it's an all time classic. So which is it? It's closer to the latter, but it doesn't quite reach that level. It's good, really good, even great. But it misses the mark of all time great. I definitely recommend it for any RPG fan, especially if you are a strategy RPG fan, or even fans of turn based strategy games. I also think it's a great gateway into those genres for anyone looking for a jumping off point. I think anyone who can appreciate deliberately paced games will find something to like here.
8.75/10
Comments
Post a Comment