 SEGA DRUNK The Super Nintendo has earned the reputation of having one of, if not the best, collection of role-playing games out of any system ever made, and rightfully so. I mean, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI, and Earthbound are three of the best games ever made, not to mention at least a dozen other RPGs that are fantastic. But one area I think the SNES fell short is the strategic RPG genre. Games were either way too complicated and impossible to understand, like the romance of the Three Kingdom series, or they were just too intimidating, and already assumed knowledge of the player of how to approach a strategy RPG, like Ogre Battle March of the Black Queen. This is where the Genesis had a leg up on the SNES, because the Shining Force series, in particular Shining Force II, is an absolutely perfect introduction into the strategy RPG genre. Charot has the regular role-playing stuff, of exploring towns, talking to people, leveling up and equipping weapons and armor and all that good stuff, but the way the game's battle system builds and builds from the ground up as you play along is remarkably well done. When you start out, it's just three people in your party, you walk into a scripted battle against these ghouls, it's an easy enough battle that does a nice job introducing movement and terrain, and it also allows the player the freedom to screw around and discover things on your own in a non-threatening environment. As you progress through the game, you can end up with as many as 28 people in your party consisting of warriors, wizards, knights, archers, and all sorts of creatures. Demanding an army this size sounds like a huge ordeal, like it'll take all fricking day just to get through one battle, but Shining Force II moves along so quickly that the battles never get boring or tedious and there's always something to be done somewhere. The game doesn't overwhelm you with choices either, it gradually brings you along, introducing a new aspect here and there, but the game also doesn't hold your hand. I can't overstate how perfect they balance the learning curve here, you never feel in over your head, there's plenty of functionality within your power without being overwhelmed by micromanaging everything, and the game moves fast enough that the battles don't take too long. Shining Force II is nearly flawless in this regard, and bear in mind, while there's over 40 scripted battles for you to fight through, you're not limited to just having the game move you from point A to point B, you can still explore on your own and talk to people and all that. In addition to a great user-friendly battle system, Shining Force II also looks spectacular, maybe my favorite part of the game is when you confront an enemy and you cut to the shot of the one-on-one battle, the graphics here are so fricking cool. That was a big hook for me to keep playing, I wanted to see what each of these enemies looked like, so awesome. The graphics and artwork really stand out big time throughout the whole game, and I really appreciate seeing not only faces, but different expressions as certain NPCs talk to you, that really adds a lot. The music here is top-notch, and is some of the best I've ever heard on the Genesis. I especially love how upbeat some of the themes are, sometimes I get burnt out on how maudlin some music tends to be in role-playing games, but a lot of themes in Shining Force II are downright cheerful, it's a really nice change of pace. In the story, a thief is bumbling around trying to steal some jewels when he unwittingly unlocks a seal, freeing this demon king that floats around and terrorizes the kingdom. He's chased off, but the demon ends up possessing the king of a neighboring kingdom and promptly starts a war, and it goes on from there and I don't want to spoil anything. The story overall is pretty good, it's certainly better than the usual Save the Princess or Fight the Evil Empire kind of stuff that was overdone even back then. But make no mistake, the hook in Shining Force II is the great battle system and the visual presentation. Those aspects are what keep you from putting the controller down. Shining Force II is definitely a top five Genesis game for me. Now I can't really speak for the first or the third games in the series, those have eluded me thus far, but I strongly, strongly recommend anyone that's ever wanted to dive into strategy role-playing games to give Shining Force II a try. The learning curve is perfect, the number of options aren't overwhelming and the difficulty is just right. Highest recommendation for one of the best Sega Genesis games ever made.