Shining Force 2

After completing Shining Force 1, it was only a matter of time before I became addicted to its successor, Shining Force 2. Unfortunately, after this, there are no more Shining Force games for Genesis, so unless I want to brave the world of other games systems' emulators, I'm stuck here. Anyway, I'm about a quarter of the way through SF2 right now, and I have to report that I'm happy with the game. I had played it back when I was younger (on an actual Genesis), but unlike SF1, I never finished it (it's a bit harder and there are a few places you can get stuck - that said, these days I'm using an internet walkthrough, but whatevs...).

With SF2, you can tell the people making these games really tried their best to improve on some of the features of the last one, most notably in terms of ease of use (accessing menus, better AI, and simpler controls). Also, the world is much more interesting, the story is better, the characters are more expandable and have more options, and the level-ups are much more straightforward, thereby encouraging the player to get through the game at a more reasonable speed. There are a couple negatives though, including poorer monster appearance and an unreasonably long story, but other than these minor details, the game is overall much better.