As usual there’s a new comic strip, new MP3 & poll 🙂
The February contest is now over & the winner has been announced – which means that the March contest is now open!

I translated a little more of Final Conflict yesterday… but haven’t done a lot else on the site. I’ve finally found a flat, and the homebuying process is not only exciting and scary, but also very hectic. I must’ve made about thirty phonecalls today, and received a bunch too. Ugh! This is tiring… still, hopefully I’ll have some time to do some more updates over the coming weeks, but my apologies if that isn’t the case. Things should be more or less back to normal once the move is complete, which I estimate will be in about a month.

I guess you didn’t really need to know all of that, but I’m quite excited! 😉

Still lots of updates planned, so do watch this space!

I’ve just added some more sections of the Scenario 2 translation. I’m away for the weekend, but will continue on Sunday night 😉

I’ve just added some more sections of the Scenario 3 translation, and split up Chapters 1 & 2 into faster-loading pages.
More later!

Where to begin?!
Well, I’ve been doing a lot of work on the site these last few days, and though I wanted to get a lot more done before I put anything up, I figured I’d upload what I’ve done so far as something of a taster 🙂

Before I forget, Daria has kindly offered to let me link to the ROMs on her site. The Japanese ROMs aren’t yet uploaded there, but I’ll try to set up the links in the next few days.

I’ve re-arranged the navigation a smidgen to help you find everything the site contains 🙂 The game production credits for most of the games are up, and a lot more of the Shining Force II script. Thanks to various members of SFC, I’ve now got Chapter 3 of the Scenario 3 translation online, and I’m currently working on putting the Scenario 2 translation up. A few volunteers are working on other scripts (as well as some of the missing story summaries and credits), though I still need (and have no volunteers for) the Shining in the Darkness script and Shining Force III Premium Disc credits (my save is on my spare Saturn, which is packed away *grumble*).

What else? Oh yes, about 20 new pieces of fan art have been added, and various pieces of Shining merchandise too. I’ve done a very quick update on the database of links, to include some of the new Shining Soul information. Also, Aspartate has translated the Shining Soul Story Introduction from Sega’s Shining Soul site.

There’s still lots I’m working on and planning to add, but I hope you like what’s been done so far!

Oh, also, I hope you don’t mind, but to help my host out (this site uses a *lot* of bandwidth), I’ve added the tall banners to each page, on the right-hand side. Hopefully they’re not too obtrusive, but visible enough to keep the advertisers happy (after all, the ads will be viewed by people who are looking further down the page than just at the top, ne?!).

Last, but by no means, least… the Campaign is now less than 500 signatures away from being sent off to Sega, Nintendo and Camelot. If you haven’t already signed it, please do!

Well, gotta go upload all of this now, and then carry on working on everything else 😉

Thanks to Richter and Lineage, the translation of Shining Force III Scenario 3 chapter 1 is now up at SFC 🙂

Ah, today has been my first day without work – I now officially have a whole lot of free time! =)
Oddly enough, I’ve spent most of the day tidying my room and planning some of the things I hope to do over the coming weeks and months. So, nothing extra really in this update, although I do have some fanfic, fan art and related merchandise to add to the site, as well as my collection to update 😉 As usual, I’m expecting some items through soon. I also have some individual Shining Force Gaiden and Shining Force III trading cards for sale, email me if you’d like to buy some.

Although Dragon’s web host went down and so I have nowhere to host my ROMs, a friend of mine named Olivier has kindly allowed me to link to the MP3s on his site, for the MP3 of the fortnight. I’ll do my best to sort out some ROM hosting as soon as I can.

This fortnight there’s a new MP3, new comic and new poll for you to enjoy…

I’ve got so many plans for things to work on for the site over the coming weeks, here’s a quick (but by no means complete, or in any particular order!) run-down of things I’ll be working on:

• Putting more Shining game scripts online
  
• Typing up the scripts for the games that I don’t yet have the scripts for
  
• Typing up the end credits for each game
  
• Add more fan art/fan fic
  
• Update the related merchandise section
  
• Update my collection, and add a “want list”
  
• Organise the new sections of SFC better, to make it easier to navigate
  
• Work on the Final Conflict translation
  
• Continue adding maps and screenshots to the Shining Force II guide
  
• Redesign and complete the Shining Force I guide
  
• Work on shining3master’s Shining Force III guide design & build
  
• Perhaps enhance my Shining in the Darkness guide?
  
• Play Shining Soul when I get it at the start of April – review it, put up pictures, scans etc
  
• Add more desktop wallpapers and greeting cards
  
• Find a new ROM host
  
• Send off the Campaign to Sega, Nintendo and Camelot.
  
• Set up a PulpChat chat room instead of IkonTalk
  
• Adding more quotes to the random quotes at the top of the site
  
• Preparing some more comic strips in advance
  
• Continuing my fanfic
  
• … and probably a lot more besides all that!

Thanks to shinsachiel, the first three chapters of the Shining Force III Scenario 1 script are now available here at SFC 🙂 To recap, here are the links to the scripts currently available (I hope to get these organised properly into the site soon!).

Shining Force CD Script
Shining Force II Script
Shining Force III Scenario 1 Script
Shining Force III Scenario 3 Script

More soon 😉 Also, I’m compiling all the credits from the games to add at some point in the future, and I’m also planning to add pages listing the original Japanese names of all the characters. So much to do, so little time!

Also, some bad news 🙁 Although my friend Dragon was able to offer me hosting for the Shining ROMs and the MP3 of the Fortnight, his host is closing down, and so Dragon is unable to host them anymore. If anyone has any ROM-friendly webspace that they are able to offer (and approximately 3-4GB of bandwidth per month), please drop me an email. I don’t want to have to stop offering these downloads, but I may be forced to.

Firstly, my apologies for the downtime over the last few hours. I’ve no idea what’s been going on, looks like some kind of server problem. As I’m typing this update, the site is still down, so I don’t know when you’ll actually be able to see this update!
As always, there’s a new MP3 and a new comic strip. I can’t get onto the site to edit the poll, so the old results and the new poll will have to wait until everything’s up and running again *grumble grumble* Many thanks to Dragon for hosting the MP3 now I’m without my company webspace 🙂 If anyone wants the lyrics to this crazy Shining Wisdom MP3, drop me an email – I’ve got them at home 🙂

I’ve added a lot of new things today: lots of fanart (Shining Force, Shining Force II, Shining Force CD, Shining Force III Scenario 1, Scenario 2 and Scenario 3). We also have some great midi files from Magnus Andersson, mostly for Shining the Holy Ark (two of which are currently exclusive to this site!), and one for Shining in the Darkness. Great work, Magnus!

I understand some users are having problems finding their way to the newer sections of the site, as it requires going to the relevant game and then to the section. To make things easier, I will be adding an entry page for each of these sections (rather like the greeting cards etc).

The Shining Force Webring has finally been updated 😉 Lots of dead links have been removed from it, and it needs more submissions! I’ve got to get the webring code added to each of my Shining sites, but I’ll have to wait until the server is back up before doing that.

I’ve got a few items to sell at the moment, namely a few single Shining Force Gaiden cards (contact me if there’s a specific card you’re after and I’ll see if I have it) and a Shining Force II Attack Special (Japanese booklet that came with Megadrive Fan magazine many years ago). I will soon be in possession of some Shining Force III cards too, contact me if you need some to finish off your collection and we’ll discuss a price.

There are still lots of areas I need to add to, right now I’m focussing on the game scripts. Thankfully, a few brave souls have volunteered to help with putting them into the right layout. I’m still in need of the Shining in the Darkness script and Shining Wisdom script. I’m hoping to type up the UK Shining Wisdom script, since the translation is better than that in the US version. However, if you already have either of these scripts typed up, please let me know if you’d be willing to let me use them here.

The Campaign is now at over 4,300 signatures… less than 700 to go until I send it off! I’ve decided to only send it to Sega, Nintendo and Camelot, due to lack of finances for sending to Sony and Microsoft too. It seems clear that Nintendo has the Shining series now anyway, so it shouldn’t matter. If you haven’t already signed the campaign, what are you waiting for? Sign it!!

Right… I’d best go and upload this now, so it’s ready for when the server stops playing up 😉 The new poll & results of the last poll will be online later, when the site is back up.

I’ve finally gotten around to updating the SFC links database, although there are still a few I need to double-check. So, there are some revised listings and a few new sites added.
I’ve been through the merchandise sections, and updated the items I now own 😉 I’ve still got to update my collection page though.

I’ve started work on adding the game scripts in English, so far I’ve finished off Shining Force CD, chapter 2 of Shining Force III Scenario 3, and almost finished the first part of Shining Force II. More to come soon!

I’ll be adding the credits for each game soon too, to save people asking me who did the artwork for each game, who composed the music etc!

Other plans include updating the Shining Force Webring (I was unable to do anything after the merge with Yahoo! due to some error, but all should be well now).

Finally, I’ve added the Japanese Shining Force ROM to my Shining Force II site. I still need to update the emulation section on the Shining Force site, maybe I’ll do it later today. Many thanks to Dragon from the SFC forums for providing me with hosting space for the ROMs. Since I’m leaving my job I’ll be losing the server space I had there, and would have had nowhere to host the ROMs. Likewise, due to my situation, I’ll be moving my www.shining-force.co.uk domain – if you try to email me during the move, it might bounce back 🙁 All should be well within the next couple of weeks. I will also be moving my Final Conflict site back onto the shining.zophar.net space shortly.

Anything else? Ah yes, I need to archive January’s news too 🙂 More updates tomorrow!

The new contest has been launched, and the winner of January’s contest announced!

Whoah, has it really been 2 weeks since I last updated? Time is going so quickly these days! I’m spending a lot more time with my other half… but you’ll be glad to hear that I’ve handed in my notice at work and will be leaving my job at the end of February – which means… more time for me to update!!
Well, since I intend to spend another evening with my Lee, I don’t have time to write too much here. Basically, as always there’s a new MP3, poll and a new comic (yes, I had time to do one this fortnight 😉 It’s not great, I was in a rush). I’ll be updating my collection in the next few weeks, and I’m also working on something that I’m sure you’ll all love: I’m going to put up all the game scripts in English! I have a good amount of them so far, I just need to put them into the right format, which – needless to say – will take some time. As always, I strive to keep SFC the most extensive resource for Shining information on the web 🙂

Only a few days left to get your contest entries in, and I’ll be launching the new contest next week. So, you’d best get your entries in soon! Also, please do keep your fan art coming in, I love to see it and so do a lot of other SFC viewers!

Look forward to lots of updates in March, when I’m free to do what I like (and play Shining Soul!) 🙂

A big thank-you to cullsoft for providing me with a great comic strip for this fortnight!