At the tail end of 1992 in Japan, we saw the release of Shining Force Gaiden on the SEGA GameGear. Then just six months later a sequel was released, again only in Japan. The second game did make it to North America the following year as Shining Force: The Sword of Hajya, while both games were later bundled together as Shining Force CD for the Mega CD in Europe.
What also did not make it out of Japan, was the 56 card set of trading cards that was released at the same time as the games. This set covered the main characters in both games. The sequel followed directly on from the first game, being set only months after the conclusion of the first. Though both games were set years after the events of the first Shining Force on the MegaDrive, yet in the same place Guardiana.Let's take a look at the complete set of cards.
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| Shining Force II |
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| A closer look at some of the character artwork |
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| There are 5 of these shiny shining cards in all! |
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| The rear of the cards, unfortunately I can't read Japanese! |
The Shining series of games should really be up there with the Fire Emblems of the world, but unfortunately SEGA seem to keep wanting to release average 'Shining' themed games these days and the series kind of stopped being relevant after Shining Force III on the Saturn.
