#sfcd apis

[claire-starsword]

oh god i just connected so many dots from looking at a cute beedrill fanart

Beedrill is called Spear in japanese, written in katakana as スピアー (supia-). Reading that backwards you have アピス (apisu).

Apis. As in, scientific name of bee. This might be the whole idea behind the Pokemon.

But more important to my current Shining Force obsessed self,

it finally explains this boy's name!! I have been joking about this boy having a random bee name for over a decade!!! Turns out I just had to connect some wildly distant dots in my life!!

[claire-starsword]

if anything I appreciate that book 3 has a lot more flavor in the characters’ speeches at headquarters

<3

Shade is so much more upbeat than his father, it’s hilarious and i’m glad they didn’t go a route of ‘every kid is the same as their parent’

Wendy you can be both and you’re wonderful don’t let anyone bully you

you on the other hand are an idiot but like, a funny one

Cray apparently had a tragic backstory with his wife all along and no bothered to tell us. I’ll google it later I guess, poor guy.

Domingo seems to be an annoying know-it-all except that with only two or three lines of dialogue it isn’t annoying at all and actually kind of cute, especially since they still have the squeakiest voice in the team. I’m sorry Domingo I saw you hatching you’re still baby to me

this is an A+ character

Amigo was unfortunately born too early for pacifist modes in RPGs.

Dawn states the obvious.

If I recall the story of book 3 correctly Dava worked for the Cypress royal family for ages so Graham might be the only Cypress dude here with a brain.

according to the wikia there’s a whole thing of Slade and Ruce being pervert and harassing the girls and boy howdy could I live without that kinda lore in my RPGs huh devs. Thanks for wasting precious cartridge space with this.

It does make me feel better on how those two were some of my most underleveled characters and kept dying almost once per battle.

Also Sarah wants blood. Shame she doesn’t have the oddly high attack Khris did.

[claire-starsword]

you mean the ones we just lost in the ocean? sorry man

[claire-starsword]

man these people are so instantly adorable

I thought it was funny that Wendy is the only one not mentioned to be someone’s relative, so I looked it up and... turns out she’s Tao and Diane’s younger sister.

Tao and Diane have been sisters all the time and no one in the first game bothered to say a thing about it.

god you miss so much on old games without the manuals

also the in game makes it look like she has slit pupils. Probably isn’t intentional but i refuse to unsee it. Her sisters were some of my favorite characters last game so i’m hoping Wendy’s just as kickass.

Apis, you’re a centaur... you use lances and spear. See, this is why you’re not ready.

“My son can’t go, it’s too dangerous. Luke’s son though? Whatever.”

“He too had the power of fate and protagonism at his side, at least until said fate stuck him in a sword and a sinking castle. Oh well! Good luck kid!”

[claire-starsword]

Shining Force Translations/Loreposting masterpost

About time I tried to organize all the rambling i do here.

Update: also organizing things even better on a website on Neocities, it’s still a work in progress but I hope to one day just replace this entire mess of links with it.

For now though, the mess of links below is the best we���ve got.

Shining Force:

partial translation of character bios from the Shining Force Encyclopedia (original scans here)

translations of the Shining Force Kouryaku no Tebiki Book (original scans here), starting from the character bios, then getting to Max’s diary, the epilogue interview with Nova, and the Country Guide.

translations of the Shining Force World Book  (original scans here)

partial translations of the Shining Force Data Collection from Beep Megadrive magazine

Write up on the japanese pre release coverage of the game, including plenty of changed/removed content

Write up on unused content in the game seen through a ROM editor.

Some further investigation on unused content visible with walk through wall cheats: Khris’ scandalous secret line, unused NPCs in Alterone, and weirdness in chapter 7 and the debug mode (note: i have since then sadly confirmed that lines related to the unused event in Metapha are sadly removed in the JP version as well).

The unused content info is also summarized on TCRF as well.

that one post where i ramble a lot about the ending, including the japanese/english differences

All HQ quotes in the japanese and english versions

All special quotes from the ship HQ of Chapter 5, japanese and english versions

Bloodline of the Sacred Dragons novel translation [ongoing]

Shining Force CD/Gaiden 1 & 2:

Discussion and retranslation of the initial characters’ introduction scene

Sadposting about Hindel plus a small correction to the localization

tfw you don’t have money for treatment in Book 3

Hanzou’s bio from the Guide Book

Natasha is Nick’s cousin according to the SFCD manual

Origin of Apis’ name

Final Conflict:

Translation of all HQ quotes. From what I’ve seen these were mistranslated in the fan translation patch.

Sprite rips and comparisons between the original graphics and the sprites from Shining Force Chronicles 3, the lost mobile version of the game.

Darksol concept art

A few scenes from the start

Me crying about the ending

Unused spell indexes

The Natadecoco/Yogurt lore...

Not mine but worth linking here: the only footage of Shining Force Chronicles 3 I’ve ever found.

Shining Force 2:

All HQ quotes in the japanese and english versions, plus some related stuff from a guide book

Translation of the encyclopedia. You gotta put up with some rambling at the start because i didn’t put that in a different tag my bad.

Manual translations (The prologue and character bios). Also includes a retranslation of the lore dump of Tristan and discussion of the names changed by localization.

Write up of the japanese pre release coverage of the game, including plenty of early build screenshots. The post is currently broken and cannot be edited, but unlike what it says I won’t be making a second part, there are only a few screenshots missing and I’ll put them on TCRF later and link it here.

Bloodline of the Sacred Dragons novel translation [ongoing] (listed it twice in the post since it takes place between SF1 and SF2 with plenty of characters and elements from both)

Sadposting about Hawel

Observation about the Granseal escape sequence that haunts me

Ramblings and love for Zynk

Oddeye’s concept art/beta design

My gameplay of the japanese version. I didn’t make an specific tag for it so you gotta scroll past a few english posts first, my bad. Also I stopped the playthrough at Red Baron. Overall take translations in this one with a grain of salt because it’s messy and old.

Japanese and english versions of the conflict with Oddeye

Me trying and failing to understand the lore dump at Hassan

Fairly important cut line from Zynk

Shining Force GBA:

The english version’s odd obsession with giving relatives to people

HQ dialogue

English Nova forgets Anri exists

Shining Wisdom:

Guide Book translations

Interview snippet from before the game’s launch that says Final Conflict characters were meant to have a cameo appearance there

Shining in the Darkness:

JP manual and intro translation, plus a mention of Dark Dragon in a magazine

Shining Soul 2

Translation of the prologue and bios of the playable characters from the guide book and official website

Translation of bios of the town NPCs

Translation of bios of the boss characters

Masterpost about the lost mobile games

The general tag for discussing localization stuff

My playthroughs. Note that back at some of those playthroughs I hadn’t yet dived into guides and lore and stuff so they might have mistakes and stuff, I’m not linking them as a source of info, just as a source of fun:

Shining Force

Shining Force CD

Final Conflict

Shining Force 2

Shining Force GBA

Shining Soul

Shining Soul 2, mostly with a Slade sprite hack

Shining Wisdom

Landstalker