Someone on Neocities told me yesterday he's playing Shining Force for the first time following my translations, and you can kinda imagine the impact this had on my ego, so i rushed to finish a few more scenes that I consider important:
The intro (prologue and meeting Simone)
Darksol's jerkass moment above from Chapter 8 (this one had mistranslations last time I posted it, do check it out again, I'm a stronger person now)
The epilogue with Simone
With this, I'm fairly sure I've done all the important story beats, we're just missing a lot of NPC dialogue of course, and a few less relevant battle moments. At the very least, I don't remember any emotional moments left out by now, so my main goal is done. Not sure I'd ever commit to a complete translation one day because it's daunting, so we'll see.
Happy April Fools! Back at January I had a fun idea for a ROM hack with Simone as the main character, unfortunately I got too busy with a bunch of other projects as usual, so I'm not sure if I'll ever get back to this, but I sure don't want these sprites to go to waste! They were a lot of fun.
Her portrait is heavily copied from her appearance in the main menu but it did need some tweaks, everything else is my work but I did reference Mayfair's promotion sprites for the skirt. SFCD sprite rips are not easy to find but it turns out they exist on Github of all places, now you know.
More rambling on the hack idea below the cut:
Simone was meant to be a Card Master, like Mawlock in the GBA version. I think it's extremely fitting and cute for her to call upon the powers of the characters in the actual story.
There were a lot of challenges to pull this off with only the SF Editor, which did put me off the project right away. I would have preferred if I could hack the GBA version instead, but I don't think there's any documentation on that one and I'm already investigating other games' hacking (Soul 2 and Final Conflict) for now.
For one, SF's item management sucks as you do not have a storage. It would make collecting cards a pain. The game also does not have a system for magic/item that can only be used once per battle, like Mawlock does. My compromise was to make the cards immediately get destroyed after used in battle. This kinda ruins the whole flavor of card collecting, but the idea instead was to keep unlocking new, better cards at each new map, so that you didn't have to hoard them. I also wasn't against putting out repeated copies of certain basic cards. Who knows how fun that would have been though. I only got to the point of implementing a single card for testing. I also wasn't sure if things like hitting all enemies on screen (Mishaela card) or having infinite range (knight cards in general) would have been possible to replicate, although the editor does have options for custom ranges at least.
The cards would also be equipable, as a stand in for Mawlock's Copy skill, but they'd only be able to affect stats I believe (and possibly only one, I think equipment in this game works different from SF2 where it can effect two stats at once, like Guardian Staves raising defense for example). I had no clue how to mimic the Move and Imitate skills though. Overall this was veeery early in production, but I got some good fun out of it so it's fine.
As a bonus, here's the Max card icon. The vibes ended up far better than I expected for a 16x24 icon.
the hunt for unused content in the game itself is not doing so hot, so i went to look for some old magazines and was immediately rewarded. Again, eternal thanks to Sega Retro for archiving this stuff.
There’s a magazine with some interesting stuff from three months before the game’s release:
“...the king of Guardiana said, ‘you are our last light’...“
First of all, pink haired Simone! Just like in the GBA games. Her face has a few details different as well, there’s an actual line for her nose, lighting in her eyes, which she only gets when looking at you in the final version, and a weird line on her forehead i can’t understand. The whole scene also looks lighter but i don’t how much of that is printer effects.
Anyway, while I like the auburn hair more, I have no clue why they would change it, and bringing it back for the GBA makes me think that at least the designer preferred the pink version. Interestingly her artwork in the manual already implies that, her hair is not pink there, it would probably be too obviously contrasting with the game’s version, but it is far lighter than in game.
Her text is also different here. I have translated part of the JP intro before, she talks of Max and Cain’s bloodline instead, no mention of Guardiana and its king. Makes me wonder if these lines survived in the JP rom, the US rom has unused lines for her but all of this intro was altered in localization, so they tell little of what the JP might have.
Moving on, Ken has completely different sprites, and mind you, they kick ass, I’m wondering big time why they were changed. I guess the perspective might be a little off, but, you should not talk to me about perspective lol. The lower body is also not moving much, but that wouldn’t be reason to change the whole shading. Notably, the spear seems to be part of the character instead of a different sprite, and is accurate to the knights’ artwork.
I didn’t even notice at first, but you can see an axe on the loose behind the sprite, meaning weapon sprites and animations were already in, but unfinished.
For further evidence here’s Max’s sword learning how to levitate as well. This sword sprite is also cooler than anything in the actual game.
It also took me a ridiculously long time to notice Max has no MP here. Perhaps there was no egress at this point, or you’d have to gain the MP to use it first? sounds bad. But Max’s magic suffering late changes would explain the oversight in the final version where his MP continues to grow despite learning nothing but Egress. Would also explain Egress requires exactly 8 MP, which is kind of a random number for a basic and unique. It would come to make a little more sense in future games where the heroes have Bolt and you have to actually manage their MP if you want to be able to retreat later on, but Max has no other spells here.
Of course, the other possibility is that Max was meant to learn more spells. With the trend of GBA version things being planned for the classic all along, it wouldn’t surprise me. This is probably the moment I should bring up that the final game has exactly one dummied out spell, which just so happens to cost 20 MP, a weirdly high cost for a test/placeholder feature, and very in line with the costs of Supernova in the GBA version.
For minor details that don’t excite me as much, Guardiana castle had a gate at some point, and plenty of chickens as well. Even I can’t make a theory out of that, they are probably placeholders.
Started translating Max’s diary from the japanese guide book on my main and it’s full of silly doodles so I felt like doing silly doodles of my own as well. You cannot hide you stupid ramblings from the public any longer, Max, my bad.
Found some guides of Shining Soul so here’s some art. Nothing too interesting from what i skimmed of the japanese text, save that while confirming that I-Om and Zeon here are the same guys from the classic games, it says it’s unclear if Mishaela is the same. Darksol and Otrant too get no reference to past games despite Adam and Chaos getting, so they might not be the same people either. Not that I care for shining soul lore but hey, now you know.
Also making Chaos a Adam colorswap was so lazy that they even got wrong who was on which side in the guide. Didn’t even put Chaos here to not get too angry.
I will replay it to confirm but I don’t remember SFCD saying a thing about Mae which is a sin, she’s clearly so so important to the Force and Guardiana.
cool he’s bound by fate to fight after fight against the darkness in return for this miraculous survival, but let him at least see his friends once more. Maybe send a letter? Come on Simone this isn’t as nice as it sounds.
...if Simone has a book about it how long has it been. Assuming Simone lives in a world and not just straight atop the fourth wall.
*looks at a dude whose head is clearly floating with no neck* funky armor man
why didn’t Egress affect Adam too? I can fully understand that as an ancient robot he might have wanted or had a duty to watch over the sinking castle but Max is the one who cast the spell to save everyone. Did he know Adam would stay? Are heroes even in control of Egress or are they like “i’m the fated hero, spell, save my ass!” and the spell does what it wants.
i could ramble more about the fourth wall shenanigans but i’ve said enough, i love this ending. Yeah buddy I named you at the beginning. And then you saved the world. Player & protagonist partnership. A shame Final Conflict just uses the canon name instead of him running up to you like “oh yeah and my name is...” prompting you to use the same name you did before.
Shining Soul 2 - Prologue and Character Bios translation
While to my knowledge the game’s story is the same for all the characters, they all actually have their own backstory behind the scenes, and it’s a shame that nothing gets brought up, especially since one of them seems linked to the main antagonist, if we can even call Gillespie that.
All the info here is taken from the official guide book, which is sadly kinda poor, and from the old official website. Everyone say thank you Internet Archive real quick, because while I’ve seen a backup from sega around it already had broken pages.
Prologue [this one is the same in both the book and the website]
The time when the warriors of light defeated the forces of darkness is now in the very distant past.
The world was at peace.
However, an incident slowly inched closer.
Sometimes the sun's light would be blocked by thick clouds, while at others there'd be continuous drought, and water supplies would dry out, making the people suffer.
Finally, monsters began to appear, and the world fell in despair...
King Marcel of the Klantol Kingdom felt how dire the situation was and, besides building a fortress and strengthening the country's defenses, declared open a fighting tournament in the Colosseum, in order to find heroes powerful enough to exterminate the monsters.
"...Heroes who have inherited the light, you’ll save this world covered in darkness!"
Characters
Warrior Alex [Eric in the english version]
Guide book:
A descendant of the Legendary Warrior always aiming to be strongest
A descendant of the warrior that defeated Dark Dragon long ago. While traveling throughout the world as he practiced his sword skills, he decided to take part in the fighting tournament.
Website:
Alex descends from the warrior who defeated Dark Dragon in the distant past, although he doesn't know that.
He's still growing up and thus has a huge appetite. A mischievous boy going through puberty. He wants to travel the whole world as a warrior one day.
A specialist in close combat - His balance of offense and defense is exceptionally good
A warrior who uses strong melee weapons. He balances that well with great defensive equipment and is thus an easy to use character.
___
Magician Pamela [Premiera in the english version]
Guide book:
A heroine of legendary blood hiding magical power behind that beauty
A descendant of the magician who fought Dark Dragon. Contrary to what you might assume from her looks, she's a hard worker who doesn't hold back in her efforts. Sensing the incident in the island, she took part in the fighting tournament.
Website:
A girl a little (two or three years) older than Alex.
While her magic skills are still getting there, she's descendant of a legendary magician. She aims to become the greatest magician in the kingdom, and trains day and night with no skipping.
A specialist in offensive magic who can use a variety of spells
She can attack enemies from a distance with many types of magic. Of course, since she has no physical strength, her physical attacks and defensive equipment are not very great.
Archer Rwinn
Guide book:
A kind forest guardian of flawless skill with the bow
One hailing from the elven race that lives traveling throughout the forests of the whole world. After a certain event he became good friends with the family that runs the item shop. Feeling the unusual incident impacting the forest's creatures, he came to the fighting tournament.
Website:
It is unknown if he's a descendant of the archer who defeated Dark Dragon.
In the past years, he noticed that the forest has been restless and unusual incidents have been happening to the creatures there, and thus felt that the balance between light and darkness was crumbling.
Skilled in long distance attacks with bows and throwing spears
He is skilled at long distance attacks but, in counterpoint to that, is exceptionally bad at close combat. He can also attack borrowing the strength of the animals that live in the forest.
Dragon Warrior Tyroth
Guide book:
Number one in destructive power! A brave beast warrior
A young dragonewt of strong body and mind. Has a troublesome but inseparable relationship with the drunkards of the tavern. Sensing the incident in the island, he decided to take part in the tournament.
Website:
Originally, the dragonewt race used to live in regions of the continent with lava, but as this peaceful era went on, plenty of young dragonewts began wanting to know more of society and be active throughout the world. Tyroth is one of these young people.
This heavy soldier has plenty of openings but his attack power is number one
Using heavy weapons like axes and flails, he deals strong blows to his opponents. Naturally, his weak spots are the time he takes to attack and his slow movement.
Priest Prim
Guide book:
A novice priestess who wields the light and banishes evil
She's a girl of the race known as cantaul, and both her parents are priests of light famous throughout the world. Having a sharp sixth sense, she felt evil energies and came to the island.
Website:
A girl of the cantaul race, which is few in numbers nowadays.
She descends from preachers of the light doctrine skilled in light magic.
Her skills as a priest are still developing, but she has excellent control of her spiritual aspect, and her sixth sense is far better than that of a human.
She saves the party with healing and support magic
Despite being able to equip flails, her attacking capability is still shaky. However, her real strength is in helping the party with skills like healing and support magic
Brawler Zachs
Guide book:
A solitary grappler who shreds his enemies with swift attacks
A wolfling man skilled at hand-to-hand combat. He usually never misses a day of his training. And in order to put his skills in service of the people, he joined the tournament.
Website:
The wolfling Zachs was an orphan.
In his youth, Zachs learned a special form of hand-to-hand combat from someone, and was then raised by a martial artist who had mastered the spiritual power of sensing the flow of ki.
He has no defense but attack and speed are outstanding
With superior speed and high attack he can defeat monsters in an instant. However, in order to preserve that speed, he has limitations on what he can equip, so his defense is a bit worrisome.
Dark Wizard Bradster [Armand in the english version]
Guide book:
A mixed race of human and vampire blood who bends dark magic to his will
A half human half vampire man skilled at dark magic. Due to his mixed blood, he's weak to light. He came to the tournament looking for his missing twin brother.
Website:
Bradster was born from a human and a vampire. His magic is tied to the darkness. He is very skilled in this dark magic.
He has a twin brother, and seems to be following after his last whereabouts.
A half human half vampire skilled in magic
A character skilled at magic that uses the powers of darkness to transform into monsters, spew poison and so on. He can also fight summoning special swords.
Ninja Raizen
Guide book:
An assassin swift as the wind, from the land of the rising sun
He uses the arts known as "ninjutsu" from a small island country to the far east. Following the duty written in the Prophetic Scrolls passed down by his ancestors, he joined the tournament.
Website:
Raizen was born and raised in a small country to the far east.
He belongs to a class known as ninja who utilize arts called ninjutsu.
Right from the moment of his birth he has undergone harsh training away from people's eyes, and his arts are on a level any magician can respect and admire.
He makes full use of swift attacks and special arts
He makes a fool of the enemies with fast attacks and ninjutsu tricks. He is also notable for having the fastest movement among all characters.
___
Notes:
I talked about it only in the tags but it might be worth noting it here, the conflict against Dark Dragon mentioned here is that of the first Shining Soul game, not Shining Force. Shining Soul does attempt to have some connections to the classic games but those are shaky at best.
As I mentioned in the beginning, the dark wizard’s missing twin is Gillespie, the game’s main antagonist which has basically zero lore or even much relevancy in game, something that boggles me to this day.
why were the gba games so dedicated to making Simone’s hair bright pink. It was originally brown wasn’t it. It was at least darker. this is a very nitpicky thing to be bothered to but i am lmao
