"Yeah. I always feel like we’re “battling” with the previous games, so to speak. That’s why we talked a lot together as a team, about how to deliver a satisfying ending for players. We’d built this story up for them, from the opening to the mid-game climax, so we knew their expectations would be running high."

"Finding the right tone for that ending has taken a lot of trial and error. One day, as I was working on it, my brother Shugo sat down beside me and quietly said, “Seeing as this game has turned into such a big production… I want to cry at the ending.” I then spent about a month thinking about how to do that. I came up with something, but deep down I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to do that to players at the end of the game. I showed the staff what I’d completed, not knowing what they’d think. Then one of the staff spoke, with tears welling up in their eyes, “This is really good!” So yeah, I’ve got some confidence in the story this time."

"The first Shining Force was a game of armies battling armies. In Shining Force II, it doesn’t have that rigid “troops” feel so much—it’s more of a swashbuckling adventure. For example, say your team is traveling by wagon. In the first game you’d basically proceed straight to your “true enemy”, but in this one, you might get waylaid by random monsters along the way. In that sense, Shining Force II doesn’t feel like a game where you’re simply trying to defeat the big bad guy at the end."