The official Shining Force Neo website from Sega Japan has been updated today with some new pictures and information.

Screenshots have been added to the ‘World’ page, showing the three main lands explored in the game: Yukurist, Ferdland and Elanora (which seem to correspond to Earth, Ice and Fire). Click on the flags to the left on the page to show a screenshot of the location (access more by clicking the arrow on the screenshot) and some information about the area. Unfortunately the only words I can read in the text are character names, presumably the ones who originate from each area.

If anyone can translate the other text, it would be most appreciated.

For those of you who have not seen the translation Aspartate kindly provided for the World setting and Story, here they are:

The new additions to the Story page tell a little more of the game’s story.

Apparently Max is returning home to his town of Greensleeves after two years away from it and his childhood friend Meryl. His father is the leader of a sacred guard group (the name Gaea is mentioned, this may be the name of his father, the world or the group… or something else entirely), and Max originally fought in the Soldiers of Force in a war 13 years ago having been trained at the Rahkail stronghold.

Regarding Legion, the page explains that the Dependants of the Moon summoned the monster from a strange world. It passed through the eye of the moon and destroyed seven countries in the great war 13 years ago.

At the end of this section about the story, there is a link to a new section in the System area of the site.

This new section is all about the power known as ‘Force’. In the world of SF Neo, the power of Force is the energy of the natural world. Those who use the powerful phenomenon are called Soldiers of Force. Magic is one possible result of the use of Force energy. ‘Soldiers of Force’ is an abbreviation of the full phrase ‘Of the soldier which works Force’.

A person who shows special ability in using Force powers must pass the ‘Ordeal of Force’ to be designated as a Soldier of Force. The Ordeal of Force involves the attachment of a Force Frame – an item to manage Force powers – to the person’s body.

I’m having difficulty understanding the rest of that bit, from what the Babelfish has spewed out, but it seems that the Force should be used for protection, not for aggression – those who use Force powers do so for their people. There is then something more about the Force Frame, which I’m trying to figure out…

Secret stones are removed from the large Crystal of Force, which is used as a catalyst the efficiently convert the Force power. The power can take the form of vital force, muscular strength and magical powers. It seems these stones are a part of the Force Frame.

An interesting idea for a story perhaps, but I’m not yet seeing how it at all fits in with the other games – has Sega finally taken the leap of moving the Shining games to a new planet, with a whole new storyline?

Next up, the Battle System page has been updated.

The transfer gate is a portable transporter, capable of one-way or bidirectional transit. It was used frequently in the Great War 13 years ago, but because it uses Force energy they are not often used these days due to the decrease in the amount of Force energy available. It seems that once you have a few companions, they can wait in HQ and power the gate for you, allowing you to travel out and back.

An old faithful spell makes an appearance in SF Neo, in the form of Return (better known to many SFers as Egress). Do I really need to explain what the spell does? Hehe 🙂 In a pinch, it allows you to escape from battle. It’s been made a bit more complex in SF Neo, or so the translation makes it seem. Some kind of secret stone is needed to make it work. I tseems that the spell won’t return you to the exact position you were at in Greensleeves, but returns you to just outside Greensleeves. The translation also seems to imply that with the stone, members at HQ can see what Max is doing and allow them to converse. Or something.

Okay, so the info is a little garbled, but you get the gist… I’m still not overly keen on anyting I’ve read, but March isn’t so very far away now so we’ll know soon enough if the game is any good or not. Want to find out what the game’s like when it’s released? You can pre-order it from Lik-Sang now and take advantage on their free worldwide shipping for games offer, here. Buying your imports & peripherals from Lik-Sang helps to support SFC through a little bit of commission 🙂

Ah, and while I remember – something I posted at the forums a while back but forgot to post here – there’s going to be an official Shining Tears guidebook released in English. Amazon USA and Amazon UK have it available for pre-order, and the price is very reasonable. Amazon UK have also reduced the price of SF GBA by UK£9, putting it down to just UK£16 brand new!

Finally in brief SFC news, there are a bunch of things I need to get added next week – new collectables, more scripts, some wallpapers, new midi files and more. Of course, there’s a new contest on the way too (it was held up by the hecticness of Christmas, sorry!)… so keep those eyes peeled, and expect me to be back on track with updates as of next week. I spent a lot of time working on my Tatakai mod over the last month or so to help with a development, and didn’t get much done here 😉 Also expect a review of BaBS in the next week, and at some point soon my full lowdown of Shining Tears. – I should have a few hours to play it this avo 🙂

Another update today on Sega Japan’s Shining Force Neo Site, in the System section.

Titled ‘Variable Arms’, the new section details the way in which different equipment (sword, axe, bow, staff, shield etc) may conceal special powers, and how the player can make their character more unique by customising these special powers.

It seems the equipment may have up to two (of almost 200) random special powers, and by attaching different powers to the same item, the efficiency of the player can be increased. The screenshot beside the info shows a Battle Tomahawk having the special power of (I think) 20% extra damage against harpies. Okay. Not only does the equipment have special powers, but also it can be modified further with other power boosts, allowing many possibilities. With two types of power to modify for each item, they hope the enjoyment will be even greater for the player. Right… but where are the tactical battles? 🙁 That’d be more enjoyable IMHO.

As in Shining Tears & the Soul series, unidentified items with unknown powers may be found in battle after killing monsters or by opening chests. These need to be identified before they can be equipped and their powers used/upgraded (by the blacksmith). No surprise there.

So, SF Neo would appear thus far to be a badly (okay, non-Shiningly) illustrated, 3D, more advanced version of Shining Tears. I’ll stick to Tears, methinks.

Merry Christmas (or Happy Holidays, if that’s more apt for you).

Sega Japan have today updated their Shining Force Neo site to include brief details of a pre-order gift. Anyone ordering the game in advance from a shop will receive a bonus DVD with the game, subject to stock availability. The DVD contents will include a promo video as well as TV spots, and more.

There is also an update related to the music in the game, and I think, the release of a single. The names ‘Kawashima’ and ‘I WiSH’ are mentioned, probably singers/musicians… anyone know anything more about this? Babelfish was a bit muddled with this translation 😉

In case I don’t update again before, here’s wishing you all the merriest of Christmases!

Last night, and this morning I spent several hours typing up the Shining Tears theme song lyrics from the karaoke version, and cross-referencing the kanji to get it all right. Now we can all enjoy a good ol’ sing along 🙂 I’ll try to translate the lyrics soon, it shouldn’t take long as the song is only short.

Anyway, that’s the least of the news. I was quite surprised when I dropped by Sega Japan’s Shining Force PS2 site this morning, as they’ve overhauled the entire thing (wasn’t like it last night!)… the game is to be called Shining Force Neo… er… I’m still reserving judgement, though it’s hard to imagine this game’ll be much good. Maybe I’m just annoyed that it’s being called a Force game when it’s clearly not. Also, it was recently announced in Famitsu that the game will be released on March 24th 2005 in Japan – thanks to SFCer Three of Nineteen for posting this info, which is now confirmed on the new Shining Force Neo site.

Right, back to talking about the new Shining Force Neo site (guess I need to update it’s name here at SFC, as it’s not Shining Force PS2 anymore!). I’m not sure I’m keen on the name, as it implies this is going to be the way forward for Force titles… let’s hope not!

I’ve not been able to make much sense of the info Babelfish has spewed out for me, but I’ve been able to ascertain that the battles are indeed in realtime: “The battle system which operates the character in real time and keeps annihilating the many enemy” (this is under the title “Action Game”, doens’t bode well, eh?). There is also some kind of multiplayer mode. The site explains a little about how weapon choice is important to the progress of the game, and some of the pictures on the battle system page disturb me greatly – what’s with that massive sword?! Why can the hero equip swords, bows(!) More importantly though, how does this in any way resemble a Shining game more than generic RPG? I know graphics don’t make a game, but this is as un-Shiny as a very un-Shiny thing, and the gameplay doesn’t seem from the description to be anything special. The first two pictures show Max using different kinds of swords – the lighter variety allow him to equip a shield too, while the heavy one (guess which one that is!) slows him down and doesn’t allow for a shield in defence. The third pic shows him attacking from a distance using a bow and arrows (which are, apparently, unlimited), and the last picture shows him as a magic user. Magic is said to outweigh all weapons in terms of range and strength, but is of course limited by MP. I can’t quite understand what the section below is talking about, but it refers to a ‘Monster Gate’, and somehow this adds tactical aspects to the gameplay. Or something.

The main system page has an overview of the game flow, it seems you’ll start off at HQ, where you select two companions to fight with (though at times there may be more than two, temporarily), and then go to prepare for battle by purchasing items and strengthening equipment (much like Shining Tears here, I’m guessing). The party then goes out to battle, kills the enemies and then (I think) finds/destroys the monster gate, after which the area is considered clear and the team returns to HQ. So, it’s like Shining Tears, but doesn’t look as nice and allows one extra character? It’s gonna take far more than that to convince me that this game is worthy of the Force title, be it Neo or not!

Another page talks about the ‘Force Frame’, an accessory (or something like that) which is used to bring about the power of ‘Force Art’. It has something to do with levelling up, it would seem, as levelling up alone is apparently not enough to become strong enough to defeat the enemies later on – one needs to develop one’s ‘Force Art’ (whatever it is all about) more to become a really strong fighter. From the screenshots on the page, it looks to me like some kind of Skills List, a bit like in the Soul/Tears games.

If anyone can translate the info on this page, it would be much appreciated, as it is something about the world and setting of Shining Force Neo. The screenshots look way to realistic for my liking, but I suppose it has to match those awful ‘realistic’ characters (Ugh! Where are the dumpy little sprites I’ve loved so dearly?!). Likewise, this page has a story prologue, and would be nice to have translated: any volunteers? 🙂

There’s now a characters page on the site too, in much the same format as on the Shining Tears site. Some of the characters’ details haven’t been added yet – they must be special characters. What on Earth is with those eyebrows though?! We do now, however, have the official ‘translated’ names of the characters, along with their races, some vital stats and voice samples etc. So, that poor excuse for a Kyantol is officially called Chiquitita, the Wolfling is Baron, the angry looking chap is named Rhinos and is in fact a Titan, the male centaur is Graham and the female is Mariel, the winged chap is named Klein (and is apparently a Birdling although his only birdlike traits are his wings) and the female ‘Birdling’ is Freyia (given her flame weapon, I would have thought Flare would be more apt…). The robot (Guardian class) is named Adam and bears a similarity to our ol’ SF1 Adam with that floaty head, the little Dragon is called Dryu and his voice is so sickeningly cutesy I can’t stand it (this will almost certainly haunt me forever), the little girl is Meryl, we already know the awful looking ginger chap with the eyebrows is apparently ‘Max’ (I really hope he’s not meant to be the original Max)… his voice is as annoying as his appearance, the big bloke with the eyebrows is called Gaia, and the mysterious man in red armour is called The Man of a Mask. Well isn’t that all just lovely? Sorry, I know, I should try to be more postive about this, but nothing about the game so far looks any good to me… except the anime clip (but even that includes some questionable matter, IMHO).

Although the FAQ and Download pages aren’t available yet (I’m sure they will be soon), there is a brief page about the staff for the game. Apparently Tamaki-san is working on the enemy design again, which is hopefully a good thing. The character designer is Nishiyama, a French-born artist who is responsible for mangas such as Harlem Beat and Dragon Voice. I can’t say I’m at all keen on his style here, and it certainly doesn’t seem as though it could mesh very well with Tamaki’s work. The story scenario is devised by a chap named Wachi, the sound by Sagisu who was apparently behind the music of the Evangelion movies and of course Shining Tears (ah, at last another good thing about the game!), and the anime sequences are by a company called Studio 4Â?c, who it says were involved with The Animatrix.

So, that’s it for the new Shining Force Neo site. Meh, I’m not convinced. In short, I’ve never looked forward to a Shining game less… but I’m still trying to reserve judgement until I play it.

Finally, over the next couple hour or so, I plan to add some more cover scans, Shining Tears collectables, a new contest and more of the Shining Force: RotDD script… watch this space. I’ll do as much as I can, but I promised myself some gaming time this afternoon, as it’s seldom I get more than a half hour playing time (and even those are few and far between) 🙁

First, I’d best go check Yahoo! Japan, and see if the site overhaul coincides with the release of SF Neo promo items.

Take a look at the Neo site, and see what you make of it. Maybe someone out there will like the game…