Shining
Force 2 Review: Four years later...(2 guilders= 1 buck)
It
was february 1995. I went out to hire another Sega videogame because I
was getting tired of Ultimate Soccer and Wimbledon. When I got there, I
started looking for games...
"...Clayfighter?
Done that......Flicky...yuk......Kings Bounty...ugly..."
and
then, my eye fell on a knight, swinging with his sword above his head.
"..hmmm,
what's this? Kewl, nice colors. I'll go for this."
Yes,
I took Shining Force 2, payed five guilders and went home. Once home, I
turned on my brand-new Megadrive 2 (with those beautiful red buttons),
inserted the cartridge and started to play on my oversized 15 years old
television. I played every day, every hour, every minute that I wasn't
at school, eating or sleeping. I played on and on and I lengthened and
lengthened the renting of the game. After I had rent it three weeks I had
to buy it. I just had to. So I went back to "Videoland" to ask if I could
buy the game. The man behind the counter looked at me and said: "60 guilders.
Then it's all yours.". I raced home, begged my father to borrow me the
money and hurried back. The moment had come. I was owner of Shining Force
2!
Later, my friends also got hooked and everyone impersonated a character.
There were nights we sat there with the eight of us sitting around the
tv watching how our heroes were victorious over Zeon's evil forces. We
renamed the characters with the cheat to our own names and started to yell
for our own character. Later on, my addiction ceased a little and I gave
my friends the possibility to play. And they did. One guy came and played
so often that my father couldn't watch tv even if he wanted to. He was
plundering the refridgerator, torturing my dearest console! There seemed
no choice left but...to sell my computer to him. For the meager sum of
225 guilders and two cd roms I abandoned that which I enjoyed most, to
turn my interest towards the Personal Computer and Internet.
Ok, enough about the blatter let's talk about the game. The story
is not very special. The two magic jewels have been stolen by SLADE and
because of that, the evil that was sealed has been released in the form
of Zeon. Besides that, the princess of Granseal gets kidnapeed by the evil
king of Galam. These problems are yours to solve, but...
You're not alone at all. If you are patient, and you know where to look,
you may find 29 additional characters! Of course, the cpu has its limitations;
you may only put 12 characters of your Force in battle. The others just
tag along in the Caravan.
This game has the highest hooking factor a man has ever seen and will ever
see probably. Of the 17 friends who tried it, 1 was not addicted. I rest
my case.
The graphics are quite exceptional for Megadrive standards, but since most
reviews only show the best pics, I'll also show the worst pic of the game.
This
is the animation you'll see when you're being teleported. This pic should
show enough. The rest of the game is more beautiful than this. The sound
is excellent. Once it is in your head, you keep humming and whistling it
(ask my friends!). Especially the attack music is a huge improvement compared
to SHF 1. Another unique feature is the optional promotions. With special
items you can promote some of your chars to extraordinary classes (scarcely-clothed
fighting monks, pegasus knights). The game balance and the A.I. have also
significantly improved. The only bad thing about this game is that the
story is boring and ....well...that's it actually. This game just rocks.
Graphics:
9 of 10 Sound:
8,5 of 10
Story:
6 of 10 Interactivity: 7 of 10
Hooking
Factor (here it comes): 10 of 10
If
anyone disagrees, he'd better shut up!
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