Shining Force II

Shining Force II, also known as Shining Force II: Ancient Sealing or The Ancient Seal, is a Mega Drive game developed by Sonic Co. and published by Sega.

Plot
Shining Force II opens with a thief, Slade, stealing two jewels in an ancient shrine, thus setting in motion strange events leading to the resurrection of Zeon, the Devil King. When the king of Granseal, protector of the Ancient Tower, falls ill, Sir Astral and his students investigate the opened tower.

An evil Gizmo escapes and possesses the king of a neighboring kingdom, Galam. Granseal's princess is kidnapped, and the door to Arc Valley (where Zeon is sealed away) is opened. Arc Valley and the evil that resides there begins consuming Grans Island, forcing the Granseal population to evacuate.

When the true danger of the opened door is realized, Bowie and friends have to fight against the invading armies of Zeon to find the Holy Sword and the stolen jewels so they may once again reseal the Devil King in Arc Valley.

Gameplay
hining Force II gameplay is a tactical role-playing game. There are two forms of gameplay: exploration and battles. When exploring, the player assumes the role of the Shining Force leader. The player can walk around, interact with people, and set the members and equipment of the army. It is also possible to find a headquarters in some towns where the player can inspect and talk with allies. While roaming through town or moving throughout the world, one can find both visible and hidden treasures and interact with certain objects.

Each ally unit is represented by a character with a background and personality. Some of these characters are also hidden, requiring specific events to occur before they will join the allies. Not all the characters can be used during a single battle so the player must mix and match their forward team. The main character, Bowie, must be in every battle.

Each ally unit also has a class, which defines the abilities for that unit. These abilities range from what type of weapons they can use to what kind of spells they can learn. Units can become stronger by fighting enemies and performing various actions which gives them experience points (EXP), which allow them to gain levels. Once a unit reaches level 20, that character has the ability to advance to more powerful version of their class through promotion. A unit can be promoted at any level between 20 or 40; the longer the player waits to promote a unit, the stronger it will be after promotion. Some characters do not have promotions. These units tend to be significantly weaker than those promoted at level 40. Some characters also have two options of promotion; one of the options is only accessible only through the unit holding a special item that must be found.

Battling
Similar to other games in the Shining series, battles take place on a square grid, and each unit occupies a single square. Units can belong to one of two sides: allies and enemies. Allies are normally controlled by the player while the enemies are usually controlled by the computer's artificial intelligence).

The gameplay during battle is turn-based where during a character's turn, they can move and perform one action: attacking, casting a spell, using an item, or standing by. Some minor commands such as equipping or dropping an item during the turn does not count as an action. The order in which units take their turn is determined by the unit's agility score. Units can use offensive actions like attacking or spells only on units belonging to other side, and they can use support actions such as retreating or using healing magic only on units belonging to the same side. There are some attacks that damage units regardless of which side the unit is on.

Battle objectives are either kill all enemies, or kill the enemies' leader, if one is present. Killing the leader of the opposing army will herald the defeat of the entire opposition. Likewise, the enemy side wins if they kill Bowie. Even if the party escapes or the leader is killed, however, the player can recover the allies and fight the same enemy again. In fact, it is possible through retreating from the battle before obtaining the main goal to fight the same battle again and again. However, the amount of money and EXP that is obtained from damaging and killing an enemy is reduced as a unit increased in level. Anything gained or lost during battle is not changed even in the event of an ally being defeated. This included even if the entire battle is lost when Bowie is defeated. This makes the game easier since there is no Game Over result.