The wait is finally over folks – Shining Tears has now been available in Japan for around 9 hours, and it seems those Akihabara prizes are being dished out already, judging by the auctions!

I’ve already seen three sets of the limited edition memory card stickers on auction, thankfully starting at the sensible price of 50 yen (about US$0.50), though who knows how high they’ll go?! Likewise some of the prize phonecards are now up on Yahoo! Japan, one starting as low as just US$10.00, others with starting prices of up to US$300.00 – I do hope that’s not an accurate early indication of the value of the item, or I doubt many of us will ever add these to our collections >.<;; In other Shining Tears prize-related news, Sega Japan updated their Shining Tears site again today to show the final hand-drawn pictures to be used for the top three prizes in Akihabara. Have a look at them here, they’re very nice – Ryuna, Elwing and Blanc Neige. I think I see some new forum avatars there 😉

A couple of new items seem to have cropped up on the auctions too, some kind of early guide book (perhaps a magazine freebie?) and something which looks to be about the size of a DVD case, featuring a picture of Ryuna… the translation lists it only as an ‘underlay’… not sure what it is, but I’ll do my best to find out!

Unfortunately, my copy of the game hasn’t arrived yet, and my PS2 hasn’t come back from chipping yet either… so it looks like I’ll be waiting a while before I get to try the game. Meanwhile, for those of you who already have it, feel free to discuss your first impressions here or in the SFC Shining Tears forum – though please mark your spoilers – I cannot stress how awful it is for those who haven’t played the game yet to have the plot etc ruined for them by inconsiderate early gamers. Be considerate of those who are waiting for the US release. Likewise, those who are waiting, please be careful of topics which may contain spoilers.

No news yet about the game’s reception in Japan, but I don’t doubt it’s doing well 🙂 Unfortunately, early news suggests that the game suffers from some slow loading times – to the tune of up to 15 seconds. More on this when possible, thanks to Michal of the TV Game Commercials website for pointing me to this info!

Finally, I’ve managed to get some contact details for Sega USA@s Press department, and am hoping to arrange for further information regarding the US release of the game. No word back from Sega Japan as yet regarding donation of Shining Tears goodies as prizes, sadly 🙁 However, I have contacted Lik-Sang to see whether they are able to get hold of any of these goodies for us fans 🙂

Meanwhile, if you’ve ever had an inkling that you’d like to contribute to the site, now would be a good time to do so – if I can raise enough funds, perhaps I can get hold of some of those phonecards etc for contest prizes, the expensive way. Or, if anyone wants to get me an early Christmas present… 😉

Now, off to get the Christmas Contest together, and then continue work on my Tatakai game mod!

With less than two days to go until the launch of Shining Tears in Japan, Sega have updated their Shining Tears site to include far more pictures & screenshots for most of the characters – particularly nice is the addition of more full front and back illustrations for cosplayers to work from:

Blanc Neige Artwork
Mao Artwork (no tail?! :()

The various Skills screenshots are also very nice – Razalus’ skills include moves like ‘Heavy Blow’ and ‘Iron Skin’ – certainly to be expected for this tough looking character! Blanc Neige’s skills include ‘Snow Veil’, ‘Ice Blaze’, ‘Freeze’, ‘Blizzard’, ‘Ice Wall’, ‘Ice Ring’ and more – no doubt she and Marki would get along well 😉 Volg, the wolfling, seems to be quite an agile (not to mention, spiky!) character, given the names of his skills: ‘Quick Step’, ‘Flying Claw’, ‘Gattling Punch’, ‘Death Moon Circle’, ‘Double Tackle’, ‘Drill Crusher’ and more. Finally, we can also see pictures of Mao (my favourite – hey, I’m a cat lover!) in action – unfortunately I can’t translate any of them names, but they appear to be mainly fire-based attacks. How purrrfect – fire spells are usually my favourites 😀

In addition, yet another limited edition Shining Tears item has been announced! Available through Chameleon Club, a new DVD slipcase featuring Maple the fairy will be given to those who purchase the game from said shop. It looks as though there’ll be a collectable for everyone buying the game, but where they buy it is the determining factor. It’s such a shame we’re unlikely to see similar promotional items here in the UK or elsewhere in the world 🙁 I’ll try to contact Sega Japan later today to see whether I can arrange any freebies as prizes for SFCers – wish me luck 😉 I found an auction today for a set of 10 ST phonecards – they wanted almost US$500 for the set! A little out of my range – any wealthy and generous site visitors want to treat me? 😉 *lol*

Even more excited about Shining Tears now? Why not pre-order from Lik-Sang and start enjoying the game in around a week? You’ll not only get to enjoy the game before it’s international releases, but also be supporting SFC as a small commission will be paid for each pre-order 🙂

In SFC news, I’ll be adding a lot of Shining Tears collectables to the site as well as launching this year’s Christmas Contest – watch this space!

Sega Japan have today updated their Shining Tears website to include a link to their Sega Voice online magazine, as a new article has been added about Shining Tears.

That’s right folks – it’s been a long time since a full-length manga series was released in a Japanese magazine – over 10 years in fact! Doom Blade (featured in Megadrive Fan magazine) followed the tale of Shining in the Darkness, and now Sega have announced that a new Shining Manga is to hit the streets in Japan, in January 2005.

The Manga is to be featured in Kodansha Publishing’s Magazine Z, and will begin in the issue going on sale on January 26th 2005. The story will follow that of the game, and if Babelfish has not mislead me it seems as though Tamaki-sama will be involved, as well as Yuri Nishiyama (designer for Shining Force PS2, I believe).

Gotta go for now – busy afternoon ahead of me. I should have a day to myself tomorrow, when at long last I can get the new script sections online 😀 Sorry about the delay!

My apologies for the lateness of this news – my other half was off work sick at the end of the week and as such I didn’t get online for a few days – during which time, it would seem that Sega Japan updated their Shining Tears site with some new information and pictures.

Apparently, to celebrate the launch of Shining Tears on November 3rd, Akihabara stores in Japan will be running a little prize draw in-store. Those who purchase the game will be allowed to draw a ticket and if they win they may win various goodies, including autographed artworks by Tony (the game’s artist) himself.

Pictures of the prizes can be seen here. There are three hand-drawn illustrations, five autographed pictures, 50 ‘QUO’ telephone cards (looks like the Sega Direct one available at the SF Remake’s launch, but seems to be a 500 unit version), 500 clear files and 1,000 PS2 memory card stickers (these seem to be on first-come first-served basis).

Lucky people, I wish I could have a chance at those treats, but doubtless we elsewhere in the world won’t be offered anything of the sort by our local stores or Sega.

Meanwhile, those lovely phonecards I reported on recently are starting to appear on the Yahoo! Japan auctions, selling for around US$60 each in price. I somehow don’t think I’ll be getting all 8, if any… unless we have any very wealthy and generous visitors here at SFC, with a PayPal account 😉

More gameplay info has also been added, regarding the freeplay and 2 player modes. The freeplay section mentions something about a magic mirror at the ‘hero cottage’, which Pios tells Xion is somehow connected to a strange world. Apparently if Xion passes through the mirror he becomes engulfed in a strange fog, as shown in the pictures here. At this point, Xion is in freeplay mode, allowing him to re-battle areas already passed, to increase his (or his partners’) experience and collect addition items. The story does not advance in this mode, but will resume when he returns to normal play.

Apparently, in 2 player mode, both may play as the same character if desired – pictures are shown of Ryuna and Elwing, in different colour schemes for the 2 players. Players can trade items, and it would seem that as in freeplay mode, the story doesn’t advance, this is simply an extra gameplay mode for enjoyment. While in singleplayer mode only the partner fighter’s link attacks can be used, 2 player mode gives more possibilities for co-op attacks to be used and even invented. That’s if Babelfish hasn’t let me down, of course 😉

Finally, a new section has been added to the characters page, detailing the Bestia force – presumably the enemy from the looks of things, and designed by Salamander Factory (of Shining Soul 1 & 2). All beastmen (hence ‘Bestia’), the characters include Dain (uncertain of his race), Byakko (a white tigerman), Buraaha (seems to be a warthog/boarman), Ezekiel (a goatman), Diokuresu (Dioclese, a lionman), Bakuuto (a dark-looking birdman), and finally – here’s the real confusing bit for us Shining Chronologists! – a centaur named Arthur. Yup, he’s blonde and very much resembles our dear Arthur from throughout the series. What’s going on here then?!

Now, in SFC news, sorry for the delay in getting the SFIII Sc3 scripts up last week, and also the complete SW USA script. I should have time to add them this week, now most of the upheaval in our home is finished for the time being 😉 I’d do it now, but Lee’s off work again and is doing a bit of work on the new version of Tatakai! Yay! Oh, and the contest winner will be announced here this week, along with the launch of a new contest 🙂 Good luck!

Sega Japan have today updated their Shining Tears site with another streaming video.

The clip is around a minute long and is a bit of a sneak-peak at the bonus DVD which is to be included with all purchases of Shining Tears.

Promotional movies, TV commercials, the game’s intro, and – most importantly, IMHO – the Shining Tears stage event from TGS will be on the DVD. The clip includes a few shots of the stage event, and I must say it’s really wonderful to see and hear the emotion of the theme song on the singer’s face! Beautiful stuff – and not long until the release now 😀

Remember, it’s not too late to place a pre-order and play the game months before its US release – drop by Lik-Sang and take a look – you’ll not only get to play the game early, but also be supporting SFC! 😀

That’s right folks – Sega Direct have today revealed the exact goodies which will be received by those who have ordered the Shining Tears DX (Deluxe) package from them.