Past meets present: Shining Force II

The second mainline Shining Force is bigger, better, and more refined than its predecessor.

This column is “Past meets present,” the aim of which is to look back at game franchises and games that are in the news and topical again thanks to a sequel, a remaster, a re-release, and so on. Previous entries in this series can be found through this link.

Shining Force II’s name implies that it’s the second of these games, but that’s about as far from the truth as you can get. For one, dungeon crawler Shining in the Darkness is actually the first Shining title produced by Climax Entertainment, Sonic! Software Planning, and Sega, but Shining Force was the first of the tactical role-playing games in the series. Shining Force II is the sequel to that, except it’s not the first sequel to it, as Shining Force Gaiden and Shining Force Gaiden II — known as Shining Force: The Sword of Hayja outside of Japan — were released for the Game Gear in December of 1992 and July of 1993, while Shining Force II didn’t land until October of ‘93.

Sonic! Software Planning, which would eventually split off and rechristen as Camelot Software Planning, were all Shining, all the time during this period. And it’s kind of incredible that they dedicated themselves to the series this way, because Sega seemingly didn’t care for it. At least, not as much as they should have. The November 2009 issue of GamesTM was devoted to role-playing games, and scored interviews and behind-the-scenes info from key contributors to the genre and its games. It includes this tidbit in the Shining Force section, which was learned from Hiroyuki Takahashi, the founder and president of Camelot who did an inordinate amount of the work on Shining in the Darkness due to the lack of budget:

…for each of the three Shining Mega Drive games, Sega gave Takahashi’s team the bare minimum funding offered to out-of-house developers. Shining In The Darkness was a success, but apparently not enough to merit a raise for the development of Shining Force; and although Shining Force was a hit, there was still no raise forthcoming when it came time for a sequel to be built.

Image credit: Mobygames

Sonic! Software Planning was a second-party subsidiary, so being limited in that way by the budget of Sega is, frankly, incredible. The massive change in Sega over the early 90s, though — which included America taking priority in a number of ways since that’s where the sales were — played a part in that as well as Takahashi’s disillusionment with the company:

Unfortunately for Takahashi, while players and critics universally appreciated his team’s fine work on Shining Force, Sega’s bosses were less enthusiastic. In part this was a result of differences in attitude and approach between the Sega managers Takahashi had initially dealt with and those who succeeded them – new additions to the administration one by one transforming the company from a modest game-loving outfit to an austere profit-obsessed corporation. “From 1990 on,” Takahashi explains, “Sega gradually became a larger scale business. New managers were recruited and things started to change. When Sega’s managers were replaced, we came to be seen just as a small, unruly subsidiary that wanted things its own way, and because of that we were forced out of Sega’s main line of business. From that point on, I felt that Sega had ceased to be a true software-orientated company.”

Throw in that Shining Force Gaiden, Shining Force Gaiden III, and two-thirds of Shining Force III never made it out of Japan while Sonic! Software Planning was still part of Sega, and it’s pretty easy to see why Takahashi feels the way he does about his studio’s time as a subsidiary there. Here was a developer pumping out high-quality tactical RPGs, somehow managing this without a serious dip in quality in order to produce hits that will keep the money coming in, and Sega couldn’t figure out how to get them all localized and released worldwide. And this at a time when Nintendo wasn’t bothering to localize Fire Emblem games, too: there was an opportunity to up the “Sega does what Nintendon’t” quotient, but Sega tripped up there as often as they succeeded. Which, you know. Sega in the 90s.

It should be pointed out, though, that while he was still in the midst of it, Takahashi had positive things to say about Sega, and the fact they even approved an RPG that wasn’t a “Dragon Quest-style RPG” in the first place. “At the time, it was said that Dragon Quest-style RPGs were the only console RPGs that players would accept,” Takahashi explained in a 1993 Famitsu interview. “But that whole experience taught me that Sega is the kind of company that would take a chance on novel gameplay and new mechanics.” Some of the later resentment toward Sega likely comes from the fact that approving the development of these games is one thing, but supporting and marketing them is another: for all the attention modern Sega gives these classic games now, ensuring they’re available in some form every generation since the Wii introduced the Virtual Console, that wasn’t the case back in their day.

And hell, Takahashi might have already been plenty annoyed with Sega in the early 90s, but also was aware who owned the rights to the games keeping his company afloat — it’s not difficult to read into the way he responded to questions during the build up to Shining Force II as being both safe and very specific ways to come away as complimentary because it was better business to be that way.

Anyway. Sonic! Software Planning released Shining in the Darkness in March of 1991, then Shining Force in March of 1992. Shining Force Gaiden came out on the Game Gear in December of 1992, in Japan only, and its sequel in June of 1993 — this received a worldwide release despite being a direct sequel. Shining Force II released just a few months later, in October, and also saw a worldwide release. Shining Force CD, a remake of the two Gaiden games with additional scenarios in them, came out the next summer, finally bringing the first Gaiden out of Japan, and then 1995 included a third Shining Force Gaiden title in June, this once again Japan-exclusive, before the company took a break from tactical RPGs to produce Shining Wisdom (an action-adventure title) and Shining the Holy Ark (another dungeon-crawler, although this one actually was 3D). Last, there was the three-part Shining Force III, the first of which released in North America, while Japan received the complete set of scenarios. Before Shining Wisdom released, Camelot split off out of Sonic! Software Planning, and they stuck around through Shining Force III’s three-part story before leaving development of the series and with Sega behind — they’ve worked on Nintendo-published games since.

It’s kind of wild that Sega didn’t treat Sonic! Software Planning and Shining better, considering these were beloved titles that sold exceptionally well for the budget being given them, but the result of this was Camelot splitting off and then out right around the time that Sega really could have used some exclusive RPGs to compete with the Playstation and Playstation 2. Instead, Nintendo found a developer to make some Mario-branded sports RPGs, and their own exclusive RPG series in Golden Sun, both of which were helpful in surviving the onslaught that was Sony’s first two ridiculously popular systems. Sega, famously, backed out of the console industry and became a third-party publisher and developer around the same time: it’s not like losing Camelot is why that happened, but the strained relationship and lack of appreciation for what they had certainly is part of a much larger puzzle of confused priorities.

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That’s all down the road, though. Shining Force II is the focus here, and it’s a bigger, better, and more refined version of Shining Force, despite not having the budget to more easily make that happen. Sonic! Software Planning went hard on making this game flow and play better, and look better, too. On the surface, it looks quite a bit like its predecessor — and as it still has you moving characters around a battlefield to setup turn-based battles one turn at a time, it plays a lot like its predecessor, too — but there’s so much more going on here visually. As Takahashi told it to Dengeki Megadrive in a 1993 interview: “In terms of the underlying mechanics and systems, we’re doing many things with SFII people have said were only be possible on the Super Famicom. For example, parallax scrolling and spotlight effects in the dungeons… The SFC is, in fact, the only console that can do that in hardware. We went to great efforts to study those effects to see if they could be recreated in software, and we’ve succeeded in that. I know it doesn’t seem like a big deal but it was actually a real challenge to pull off.” And managing this at the accelerated pace Shining games were developed at — the Gaiden games and II were made concurrently, with focus shifting between whichever one was set to release next — makes these effects all the more impressive.

The real change, though, is that the enemy behavior is vastly improved. They have a clearer strategy in play, they aim to take you out and create advantages for themselves, and it all just feels so much better and better-paced — this was a way to balance the fact that Shining Force II is considerably longer than its predecessor. Shugo Takahashi — Hiroyuki’s brother and fellow developer, as well as the co-director of Shining Force II — explained in a developer roundtable shortly after Shining Force II’s release that the original Shining Force used a series of pre-set patterns for enemy AI, but its sequel was something else entirely:

The Shining Force II AI is definitely faster than the first game, even though its more than twice as complex in terms of the amount of AI calculations it performs. And yeah, the other big challenge was how efficient and deterministic the AI should be. The programming is setup in such a way, where the computer will not always make the most optimized choice, but we still tried to make sure it didn’t look like it was just being stupid. If the computer always makes the perfect choice, you see, it becomes little more than a mechanistic shogi simulator. So the challenge was how to avoid that shogi feeling, but also make it look like the computer was “using its head” when it made moves. And that’s where our balancing efforts come into play.

And, as Hiroyuki added, “The easy way to program a strategy game is with preset logic: ‘If the player does X, the enemy will always do Y’. It’s much more difficult to do something more subtle and varied, like ‘if the player does X, the enemy may do Y.’”

So, Shining Force II is longer, but the pacing is improved and enemies feel much less predictable than they were previously, so it all still feels right and fresh in the end. There remain some nitpicks in battle — mages are still comparatively held back on how much experience they can gain from a battle, as even if they kill multiple enemies in one go it’s not as if they’d get “full” experience from doing so in comparison to a melee character defeating just one enemy at a time — but overall Shining Force II is a vast improvement.

It helps, too, that the story is no longer broken down into chapters that shuffle you along in both the tale and the world. It’s a less cliche narrative, as well, and the fact you’ve got some freedom to travel around and explore, or backtrack to find items, shops, characters, etc. makes it all feel a lot bigger in ways besides just game length. Promotions now begin at level 20 instead of level 10, owing to the fact you’ll be doing more battling and gaining more levels, and you have a choice of how to promote characters, too, not just when, as secret items open up what are, oftentimes, more powerful second classes to unlock for specific characters or starting classes. Promotions can sometimes completely change the look of a character, such as the protagonist, Bowie, looking far more grown up to show time and experience have changed him from the young lad he was at the start of the game’s story, while Peter, a talking phoenix, looks a lot more majestic and tougher in his later form.

You also have access to a spell, Egress, that lets you exit battle whenever so you can rest up, heal, and get back to it, all while keeping your experience points from the aborted fight. Which means that if you find yourself overmatched or underleveled, you can purposely exit some battles before completing them in order to do them again from the start and build up your party strength until it feels right. Hey, it’s cheaper than just playing until you die and then having to spend a bunch of gold to revive everyone at the church. More honest, too. But most importantly, completely optional, and there if you do need it.

Shining Force II opens with you as Bowie — well, scratch that. Shining Force II actually opens up with a nearly 10-minute optional cutscene that you see during the title screen sequence, of a rodent man whose identity you’ll later learn discovering some secret treasure, the finding of which ends up having negative consequences for the world given they aren’t actually just some legendarily impressive jewels, but magical items holding a malevolent force at bay:

The story follows the fallout of this event, with the aforementioned Bowie — still a student, albeit already capable with a sword — and his friends getting roped into saving the king’s daughter, and then the world itself. The former by virtue of being the only ones around to even attempt the feat, and the second because Bowie, unintentionally, becomes one with one of those magical items, ensuring his role in the story to be told. You travel the world, build up a [Shining] force, escape the dangers of home, and, eventually, attempt to return, legendary blade in hand, to put a stop to the evil, Zeon, that escaped and forced you to flee in the first place.

Now, Shining Force II is self-contained, in the sense you don’t need to know of anything else that happened in other Shining games in order to enjoy what’s here. It is connected, though, and more so than the English translation lets on. Shining Force Central corresponded with Yasuhiro Taguchi, the co-director of Shining Force II, to ask about the translation error. This might be nonsense if you’re not familiar with the story of these games, but the takeaway is that the English language localizers messed up:

SFC: In the English version of Shining Force II, the tale of the Storytellers in Tristan has been mistranslated. I understand in the Japanese version they refer to “Lucifer” and not Dark Dragon. Who is Lucifer? How does he fit into the storyline of the series? Is Dark Dragon not a Devil King?

YT: In Japanese version, the story was told this way:

There were three powerful Demon Kings on Grans Island. Lucifer, who is excellent in magic; Darksol the tactful leader, who excel in intelligence; and the atrocious Zeon, who is good at both.

Dark Sol used his tactic to seal Zeon on Grans Island. Dark Sol and Lucifer are also exciled [sic]. Although Dark Sol appeared in SF1, Lucifer didn't show up in any other game in Shining Series.

As for Dark Dragon. We designed him as an ancient monster, released by Dark Sol. So he is not one of the Devil Kings.

We have no idea how the English version made this mistake. But this is how it's told in the original version.

This mistranslation messes with the story of both Shining in the Darkness and the original Shining Force, and would have created an issue with the final Gaiden game, as well, if that had been brought overseas. Sega hasn’t modified re-releases of Shining Force II to clear things up, but hey. Maybe someday, so that this multi-game story can be as consistent in English as it was in its original Japanese. Luckily, this isn’t a game-breaking error or anything like that. It’s just annoying, especially as it was an avoidable issue, and ties back into Sega simply not paying as much attention or enough of their budget on these games and their release as they should have.

Luckily, Sega has learned to care enough about these games to make them available all the time. You can purchase Shining Force II in two places as of this writing — as one of the games included in the Sega Genesis Classics collection available on the Playstation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Windows, Linux, and macOS, or, as one of the games on the Sega Genesis Mini 2. If you have a Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscription, you can also play it for “free” on that system. Shining Force II is still worth it all of these years later, even if a translation error makes some nonsense out of what was a connected, consistent story, because everything Sonic! Software Planning did to make this game a standout is still noticeable all these decades later. Battles are still not easy to predict, and feature enemies who will try to overwhelm and challenge you. The pacing is still great — better than in some other beloved Camelot titles, for sure. And even though it’s significantly longer than the original Shining Force, this is still a game that’ll take 30 hours or so, not 100 — that’ll feel like nothing at all in this day and age.

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