Great video. There was a lot I didn't know about the history of this series.
I got into the Force games a decade ago with the release of Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection for PS3/360. I didn't know what I was getting into when I picked the games out from the collection, but the name Shining Force sounded cool so I booted it up. Since I love strategy rpgs it was right up my alley. Shining Force 2, which is how one should approach a sequel now stands as my favourite Genesis title and is a potential top 20 game of all time.
Some things that stood out for me while playing this series are the fact centaurs are you cavalry, omission of permadeath, nice blend of sci-fi with high fantasy(i.e. the ancients) and many of the classes are cool especially mastermonk.