My first real gaming console was the master system (before that I just had an old atari 7xxx), however that was short of rpg's. When I finally begged my mother to get a megadrive, I still kind of stuck to the "non rpgs". It took a while for me to finally get around to playing this game. And when I did, it took almost no time for me to suddenly realize that i had been missing a lot - byMy first real gaming console was the master system (before that I just had an old atari 7xxx), however that was short of rpg's. When I finally begged my mother to get a megadrive, I still kind of stuck to the "non rpgs". It took a while for me to finally get around to playing this game. And when I did, it took almost no time for me to suddenly realize that i had been missing a lot - by playing conventional platformers and action games. It's funny because now I look back on turn based rpgs and much prefer open world games like skyrim. However back then - a turn based rpg was incredible because it did not involve me running around and jumping on heads - it involved actual storytelling and characters. And even to this day, shining force II is a very charming game. Perhaps not the level of chrono trigger or the snes rpgs that followed - still, the combat is also quite simple - yet balanced really well. The reason I give this a 7 instead of a 10, is because when I review games - I don't let nostalgia affect the score (otherwise morrowind would get a 11/10 instead of 8/10). I only score games vs how they actually hold up vs the current gaming climate. Load the game up now, clear the slate of memories - how does the actual game hold up. And it's a 7 - which is excellent. Shining force 3 on the saturn was also a better game - however I only managed to play that recently via a translation patch. I wish I had played SFIII when it first came out.… Expand