For various reasons, this fortnight’s update has been postponed until next week. Please bare with me meanwhile.

Added another section of the Scenario 2 translation.

This fortnight’s comic strip has now been added. Sorry it was a couple of days late!

Chatper 5 of the original Shining Force script has now been added, many thanks to Dragon for typing it up! The Shining Force script here is now complete 🙂

And now, onto the most exciting news… a huge thanks to Aspartate and Landius for translating the letter I received from Camelot for all of us Shining fans! When SFC is redesigned the answers will be added to the Shining Studies section, but for now, I’ll post it all here. You can see scans of the letter I received from them here: page 1, page 2, page 3, page 4, page 5. Note that the questions were re-typed by Yas Taguchi of Camelot Software Planning – the typos were not in the original letter, as you can see from the questions below 😉 If Taguchi-sama is reading this, I’d also like to say a giant thank you to him for all his help over the years, especially for taking the time to reply to these questions. Arigatou gozaimashita Taguchi-sama!

[Edit 27/08/04 – article translation can now be found in the Shining Studies section]

What a mixed bag! Some very exciting and pleasing answers… and also some that make me sad beyond words. It seems Camelot is no longer involved in developing the Shining series, and never will be. I sincerely hope Sega can find a developer at least half as talented as Camelot to continue our series… but, as Taguchi-sama points out, the Shining spirit does indeed live on in Golden Sun.

Well folks, that’s all for today. Thanks for submitting questions for me to send all that time ago.

As usual, there’s a new MP3 and new poll for you. I’ve almost finished working on the comic strip, but it may be a day or so late, please bear with me!

Having hunted for weeks for a new host, I’m now what seems to be a step closer, albeit a little more than I was prepared to spend. I’ll keep you posted on that front.

A big thank you to karachiking for finishing off the HTML version of the Scenario 2 Chapter 5 script. It’s now online here at SFC. Jameth is still working on chapter 6, which I hope to add to the site soon, along with Chapter 5 of the Shining Force script, which Dragon is working on. I still need to split up the Scenario 1 script into sections, but that shouldn’t take long.

Some exciting news today… you may recall several months back I sent a letter to Camelot Software Planning, full of questions about the unsolved mysteries of the Shining series. Well, this morning I received a letter from them in reply, with an apology for the lateness. The letter is, however, in Japanese – Taguchi-sama didn’t want his meaning to be lost through his “strange English” (his words!), so I’m currently trying to get it translated. Some of the answers are quite short and would seem to be along the lines of “I don’t know/can’t say”… but there are several longer answers too. As soon as I have a translation available, I’ll be sure to post it here!

The SFC redesign is coming along nicely, though it’s going to take me quite some time to transfer in all the old content, and add in the new. At the moment I can’t give a set date as to when the new site will be up and running, but I’d like to think it will be within 6 weeks. Maybe 😉

Well, that’s about all for now, I’d best get back to the comic strip.

Added the Final Conflict script translation.

Chapters 4 & 8, the Epilogue and HQ quotes of the Shining Force Script jave been added, many thanks to Dragon & Gryz for providing them. I’m now working on adding the Final Conflict script too.

Added the majority of the European Shining the Holy Ark Script, many thanks to Silender for providing it. The final sections should be supplied, and added, soon..

Finished adding the Shining Force II game script.

I’ve added some more sections of the Shining Force script, thanks to Gryz and Dragon for those 🙂 Thanks also go out to Jameth for his work on Chapter 6 of Shining Force III Scenario 2, and to Lineage for re-translating Chapter 5, Section 1 of Shining Force III Scenario 2. It’s much clearer now 🙂
I’ll be working on adding more of the Shining Force II script to the site today, perhaps also the Final Conflict script and UK Shining the Holy Ark script (thanks Silender!). I’ve also had volunteers to work on the Shining Wisdom scripts, so a big thank you goes out to SilverShadow (USA version) and raevynlocks (UK version), known also for their work on One Thing Shining.

I’m still looking out for an alternative host for the site, probably a pay host, however, having just found out exactly how much bandwidth the site uses, and how much it’s increased over the next year, it’s doubtful I’m going to find somewhere within my budget. I need about 500MB of webspace, and an absolute minimum of 35GB bandwidth per month, preferably nearer 50GB… and all that for around $20/month. Anyone know a good host that can offer me that kind of deal? I’d really like for the forums and site to be more stable, and I only see that happening if I can move it to a paid service.

Well, back to the grindstone for now, but lots more for you to look forward to over the coming days!

All of the game scripts now open as a more printer-friendly version in a new window, without the SFC navigation around it.

Big thanks to karachiking for his work on Scenario 2 Chapter 5 – half of it is now available here at SFC.

Another big thanks to Gryz for his work typing up some of the script for the original Shining Force. Chapters 1-3 and 6 are now online, with the rest coming soon!

Oh, and I added Landius’ translation of the final conversation between Elize and Galm to the end of the Scenario 3 Epilogue page.

I’ll be focussing on adding more scripts over the coming days, so watch this space.

For those of you who are curious, I’m currently looking into alternative hosting solutions, for more reliability (hopefully no more errors at the forums) and less adverts. I may try to find a banner ad scheme for along the top of the site, to cover hosting costs, as the first year alone is going to cost me in the region of US$300. Any donations towards the site move are welcome!

As usual there’s a new comic strip, new MP3 and a new poll for you to enjoy. The winners of last month’s contest have been announced and there’s a new contest for you to try your luck at this month.
I’ve also finished adding Chapter 4 of the Shining Force III Scenario 2 translation. Volunteers are currently working on typing up the scripts for Shining Force, Shining Wisdom and Shining in the Darkness, so those will be on the site in due course. Also, thanks to Lineage for his kind offer of re-translating the bad sections of the Scenario 2 Chapter 5 translation.

A few sites have been added to the listings here at SFC, and I’d like to take this opportunity to encourage you to report dead links at SFC when you find them, in order to keep the directory useful and fresh. With so many sites there I can’t possibly keep an eye on all of them, and some are bound to vanish at some point.

The merchandise section has been updated to include a whole bunch of items, including the extremely rare “Jogurt’s Little Box”. I’ve also updated my collection, and want list. Not much left to go now! Oh, and the Shining & the Darkness OST obi (spine card) has been added to the cover scans/artwork section. I’ve got some more artwork to scan in at some point, but that’s going to have to wait for now.

Seeing the results of last fortnight’s poll (regarding the addition of magazine article scans to SFC) has been very encouraging! I will be including a Shining Magazine Articles section in the new SFC, and in anticipation of this, I’d like to invite you to send in your scans of magazine articles about any game from the Shining series. The article could be a review, preview, cheat, hint, walkthrough, comic strip – pretty much anything! Before you send them to me, please email me first to let me know the following:

The magazine, publisher, issue number, date and country of origin
(so that I can tell you if I already have it)

The number of magazine pages the article covered, and the filesize
(so I can let you know when’s a good time to send it)

What the article is about
(ie, which game it’s about and is it a walkthrough, review etc)

Once we’ve arranged when you should send the file, don’t forget to include your name/alias, so it can be credited to you!

And now, before I go and get on with more additions to the site, I’d like to make a plea to all Brazilian viewers out there… I’m desperately looking for the TecToy releases of Shining Force and Shining Force II, complete with box and manual. If anyone out there is able to help, or is willing to sell theirs, please do let me know!

That’s all for now, more updates soon!