The Video Game Project
A Closer Look At The Prototypes That Became Your Favourite Games!
Shining Force II Sega Mega Drive Prototype
Shining Force II is a tactical role-playing game for the Mega Drive/Genesis console developed by Sonic! Software Planning in 1993. Its storyline is not directly connected to the original Shining Force, although a Game Gear title Shining Force Gaiden: Final Conflict links the two games' plots.
The game is much longer than the first and more free-roaming. There is no chapter system, so the player can return to previously visited parts of the world. There are also two different ways of promoting many characters.
Despite being the fifth game in the successful Shining series, Sega allotted the same budget for Shining Force II as it had for the first game in the series, Shining in the Darkness. Additionally, producer/co-programmer Hiroyuki Takahasi remarked in a 2009 interview that "We were in a really precarious position at that point because we knew that if we couldn't produce another hit we would have no future." As a result, most of the Shining series development team dropped out and had to be replaced with new staff for the production of Shining Force II. Hiroyuki Takahashi summarized the game as "an experimental title where we improved the story and enhanced the game's 'RPG-ness'."
