I’ve finally gotten around to typing up my thoughts on Shining Soul’s European release. You can see it here.

In addition, I’ve updated the Collectables section, more specifically the Shining Force III Scenario 1, Shining Force CD and Shining Soul II pages.

The Where to buy… page has also been updated, many thanks to shining3master for his suggestions.

I still have some fanart to add, and I still (sorry!) need to get around to updating the list of games similar to Shining Force (if only to stop people sending in more of the same suggestions *lol*). There are probably some other areas I need to update too, but for now this is all 😉

Just a quick update today. Sorry updates have been few and far between of late, but as the SFC Forum-goers among you probably know, I’ve been busy adding a lot to the forum system.

So, today we just have the regulars… new poll, new MP3 and a new comic strip – courtesy of Tanthalas (thanks man, sorry I didn’t get a chance to put it up sooner!).

I hope to get a review of the European release of Shining Soul up by the end of the week. I played the demo copy of the game (on which I was unable to save, due to the special cart it’s on… I’ll post pics soon, though I have to return the demo cart to Inforgrames in a few days) until my GBA decided to switch itself off, despite being plugged into the mains O.o;; … so a big thanks to Aspartate, Mael and Prince Medion who rushed to my rescue with some save states that I could use to continue playing, via the ROM. Note that I do not encourage the piracy of readily-available games, and only resorted to using the ROM because I’d otherwise have to play through the majority of the game again (and probably risk my GBA turning itself off again anyway!).

Anyhoo, completed the game, first thoughts are still available at the Shining Soul forum here at SFC. In a nutshell, I enjoyed it more than the Japanese release, though it still becomes overly repetetive pretty quickly, and I’m sad to say that – despite being fairly true to the Japanese version – the translation is pretty dire – typos left right and centre, and poor English. I don’t know how well the other languages on it read, since I’m not fluent in any of them 🙁 Feedback is of course welcome.

Gotta go now, but will endeavour to update again soon!

Thank Zod for Google! I found a page explaining how to manually repair a database table that seems to be missing and it worked 🙂 What a relief!!

Just letting you know that I’m well aware that there’s something wrong with the forums. Emails about this matter will not be replied to unless they are actually helpful, since right now I’m spending my time trying to find out what’s wrong.

I’ve no idea when they’ll be back up and running, or whether everything will still be intact when they’re working again. We’ll just have to wait and see. Meanwhile I apologise for the inconvenience and will do my best to solve the problem.

Update: 09.55

It would seem the cause of the problem is within a particular table of the database, which holds posts…. which appears to have vanished as the file can’t be found (but when I view the database overview, it is listed as being 2in use”… no idea why, it’s never said that before). Unfortunately, due to my 56k connection with a 2-hour cutoff period (ADSL isn’t available in my area, nor is Cable), I’ve not been able to backup the 40MB+ database file so I can’t restore from that. I’ve contacted my host in the hope that he’ll be able to fix it… other than that, I’m not really sure what to do. Anyone who is familiar with MySQL & phpBB are welcome to advise on this matter. Perhaps the best course of action would be for me to delete that table manually and reinsert it? I dunno, I’m not much up on databases. Will keep you informed.

As usual there’s a new MP3 & a new poll. No new comic strip this fortnight either, I’m afraid, since I’ve been so busy working on making a Jogurt plushie! If you’re a member of the SFC Forums, you’ll probably know I recently introduced a new “Gold” system, where users earn “Gold” for posting, which can then be used to buy (virtual) items for their (virtual) collections… well, as a little incentive to any budding artists amongst you, I’m offering 500G as a reward for anyone who submits a comic strip that I should choose to use here!
What else? Ah yes, the winner of last month’s contest has been announced, and a new contest has been launched – good luck!

I’ve got quite a lot of stuff to add to the site in the near future – more collectables; updating my collection; fanart; games similar to Shining Force (many thanks to everyone who’s sent in suggestions, and sorry I’ve not added them yet!); where to buy Shining goods… and more besides!

In addition, some exciting news on the translation front – an old member of the Aspinia Team has contacted me to say he’s finishing off the Scenario 2 translation, and working on some of Scenario 3. There should be something of this available in the very near future. Great stuff!

No sign of my review copy of Shining Soul yet, but then again no magazines have reviewed it yet either. Infogrames are certainly cutting it a bit close, with a release date of February 28th listed on their website! No more news on Shining Soul II either, but I’m sure there’ll be plenty about it in a few months 🙂

Finally, I’d like to encourage those of you who have some free time, to join Grom’s Shining Force Interactive RPG, a free-to-join online roleplaying group, where members roleplay a Shining Force based story together on a regular basis. Enjoy!