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claire-starsword · 9 months

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Shining Force Pre Release Coverage

yes i have made a post about this before but i was a baby with one magazine. Now i’m a big 90s kid who has gone through the entirety of the Beep Megadrive archives from 1991-1994, as one does. Get ready for what might be my biggest post ever, I don’t wanna break it into parts for the timeline vibe.

To contextualize the following dates: the game came out in Japan on March 1992.

October 1991

More cool sword animations for Max. Also it took me way too long to realize this background is also not anywhere in the final game, though the final Gate of the Ancients bg does take a lot from it. Apparently it was once meant to be an indoor location with torches.

Here are screenshots of the map itself. Icons were completely different, and Gort and Mae are there. Obviously this could be just the use of debug features to test the characters, but I suspect their story roles were actually changed and they were meant to be starting characters. More on that later.

there’s also a screenshot of Guardiana with a slightly different layout. There are centaur NPCs in town as opposed to only in the castle, the old man sprite is different, and the little girls are normal as opposed to dragging cats around. In the final version, this little girl sprite is only for Karin, Krin and Koron, the important little girl trio. The bed sprites are also different and kinda failing at perspective.

Besides screenshots, we also get a synopsis.

Centuries before Mephisto’s uprising in Shining in the Darkness... In the continent of Rune, far to the east of Thornwood, many countries big and small lived in endless days of peace. However, the great nation of Rune Faust, wanting to take over all of Rune, plotted to get its hands on the “Legacy of the Gods” inherited by the country of Guardiana since ancient times.

The Legacy of the Gods is said to be both a superweapon and a frightening beast. Whoever attains it can become a god or a devil... But even though the Rune Faust army has invaded Guardiana and ravaged the country for its plans of domination, it hasn’t succeed in finding the legacy...

Meanwhile, the soldiers of Guardiana, forced into a life of wandering after the fall of their country, have risen to the task of defeating Rune Faust. And as they resist against the unknown evil power controlling Rune Faust, people have come to call them “the forces of light”, Shining Force...

The grassy plains of Guardiana, mountains full of precipices, jungles, deadly deserts, rivers where piranhas live, those and other stages await our heroes.

After all, who is the one controlling the powers of darkness? And what is the truth behind the Legacy of the Gods? Hiding many mysteries, a new legend begins now!!

Very basic stuff, but while it might just the drama vibes, it does feel that Guardiana was supposed to get more wrecked, or get wrecked earlier, which would explain Mae and Gort joining earlier as well. Simone narrating the king’s last wishes right in the intro supports that idea as well.

Lastly, we get some character art and info:

(i know it’s hard to see the og text with this resize but hey, that’s why I linked the magazine collection before)

These are the forces of light, “Shining Force”!

“I’m the swordsman protagonist, Max!”

The protagonist of this story, Max. He’s human, but is an expert with the sword and can also use magic. He roams across the continent, leading the Shining Force in its way to defeat Runefaust.

One more for the “Max was meant to have magic” pile.

Archer - Hans

An elf who used to work at Guardiana’s palace. His skill with the bow is first-class.

Very nitpicky detail: Hans’ class is written with kanji here, when it’s written in katakana in the final version.

Knight - Mae

A young centaur warrior. Daughter of the late Knight Captain.

Priest - Lowe

A dwarf who’s a great friend of Max. Currently training at magic.

Shining in the Darkness already had a hobbit priest so i wonder if there’s some miscommunication here. The hobbit discourse is even older than I’d imagined.

Warrior - Gort

A hotblooded dwarf old man and Mae’s servant.

Told you there were changes on these two. There’s no indication of any connection between the two in the final version, especially since centaurs tend to be arrogant towards other races, a fact that does not come up here at all, nor does Mae’s tough personality. Even more evidence will come up later that those things were added late in development.

Knight - Ken

A centaur in knight who admires Max.

The enemies don’t get descriptions and all have their final names except the Rune Knight, who is only Centaur Knight at this point.

November 1991

This is a big one. The beta title screen is the least interesting thing about it.

We see more of Guardiana, and the centaur NPC was actually Varios all along, meaning the intro was really different.

Max and Mae get to smile! Given the story is kinda obvious why this was changed, but I always did find it weird that their artwork had different expressions to begin with.

Plenty of screenshots of a field battle with completely different graphics. More on this later.

Also a different and apparently pretty big shop.

But now for the part that really rocked my socks, a whole beta map:

Here’s the final map so you can compare the geography yourself. This map doesn’t label pretty much any town and instead brings up a bunch of new names for the natural areas.

The Gate of the Ancients, or what I suppose is it, it’s not labelled, sits atop the Mountain of Guidance, which seems to be a single mountain as opposed to the big mass that stretches up to Rindo in the final version. The gate also seems drawn like a little castle, which would explain the indoor bgs shown so far.

Alterone is to the northwest of Guardiana as opposed to the northeast. It is also right next to the Beagle Mountain Mass, which, makes A Lot More Sense with how much we hear it is a mining town. I’ve been wondering where their mines were in the final map. They must have mined too much though, because in the final version this mountain mass is largely gone.

Further to the north is Rindo Harbor, and you, english speaker, might think, “oh yes Rindo that’s the final name” but nope, in the JP version the town’s name is Rindorindo, for some reason, so that’s a difference. A difference that matters to no one.

There’s no river near Rindo, and Manarina and Shade are not labelled, though its concepts seem to be around. Manarina also seems to be surrounded by a lot more forest than in the final version, which might explain its guide book entry.

The forest near Manarina has a name that deserves its own post, Kaien, in katakana so that it is harder to discerning its meaning of course (and intentionally allow double meanings). Possible interpretations are the start of a performance (開演), the opening of a park or garden or banquet (開園 and 開宴), a superb performance (快演), or an eerie yet fascinating performance (怪演). I’d say the last one is the most fitting for Manarina, but localizing it is still a pain in the ass, the english staff dodged a bullet here. Right now most I can think of is Enthralling Forest, but you still miss some charm.

I also have to wonder if Mishaela was conceived as a boss for this place. Puppet performance and all that. She also ends up having a forest stage in Shining Soul.

All the white mass on the north is Pao Plains, no sign of the bridge or the forests of Bustoke, although there is a town in the mountains. Was this a Shining Force without Zylo? Inconceivable. But might confirm something I’ve been suspecting due to my debug mode escapades. In the battle test mode, egress usually takes you to the last church you’re supposed to access in that chapter. Yet for chapter 2 battles, it takes you to Bustoke, which is on Chapter 3. The editor also shows Bustoke as one of the first map in the data, between Rindo and Shade. It is likely that Bustoke was meant for Chapter 2.

In fact the reasoning for going to Shade Abbey is very shaky, you can see in the final map that there’s a lot more mountains between Shade and Bustoke than from Manarina. I guess the point is that guides work there, but in that ase they should work somewhere else. I’m not complaining though since Shade Abbey is one of the most iconic parts of the game.

The Pao Plains are surrounded by the Boho Mountain Range. Boho is short for bohemian, the romanticized view of nomadic/alternative lifestyles, so it’s very fitting for Pao.

Waral was a single island instead of an archipelago, and the ocean between the two sides of Rune is Cypro Ocean, a name that eventually made its way to the guide book. The region in the center of East Rune is Conga Basin, which we’ve also seen in another book, and Dragonia is to the north already. Finally, the Crescent Mountain Range is the bunch of mountains to the east of Runefaust.

Note also the big isolated structure south of Runefaust. Perhaps the Castle of the Ancients has not always been under the ocean. I also see no sign of Prompt, while all other towns are in (except Waral but Waral isn’t even in the final map, it’s tiny). This might explain why Chapter 7 is cursed on debug mode, frequently failing to load an egress point.

All this rambling was just for the map itself. There’s more written about it, I’ll just translate things directly because I’m a bit tired of taking screenshots.

This is the Rune Continent where Shining Force will take place

There’s no comparison between the world of Shining Force with that of Shining in the Darkness, it is far larger. There are mountain ranges, towns, large coasts, and even islands as well. The adventure starts at Guardiana to the south of West Rune, and the you’ll move clockwise to north, and then to the eastern part of continent, shrouded in mystery. That region to the south of East Rune, could it be Runefaust...?

East Rune and West Rune

The two continents and the Cypro Ocean between them are all referred to as the Rune continent, and are far to the east of the land where one day Thornwood, the kingdom where SitD takes place, will be built.

Guardiana, where the journey begins, is on West Rune. West Rune, compared to the eastern side, is more developed, with many countries living in peace and abundance.

In the eastern side, it is said an ancient civilization once lived there, but currently there are no countries other than Runefaust, and a wide spread of steep mountains and eerie forests.

Because of that and Runefaust itself, the people of West Rune regard the east as a dark land full of mystery.

They’ve thankfully chilled a bit on the “light side versus dark side” in the final game, possibly because they needed churches/HQs/shops to welcome the heroes gameplay-wise. I do see something drawn in the map here where Rudo should be, so perhaps other settlements in the east were already in the cards, just not very developed.

The country of Alterone

A neighboring country of Guardiana. It was originally a mining town built to extract rare and magical minerals from the Beagle Mountain Range around it, and then developed into a country. With the minerals excavated, Alterone amassed a lot of money, which was used for its own development. The common citizens began to live in luxury, and even despite other countries. Of course the royal family too has filled the castle with loads of luxury items and art, and the army is small and lacks zeal despite its extravagant equipment. The cultural level of these people with not much history, is not very great. A rising rich country. One could argue it’s a bit like today’s Japan with its excessive liquidity, or maybe not?

oh i am unequipped in so many ways to understand that jab

The country of Guardiana

A country that prides itself in having the deepest history in all of West Rune. It is said this country was built by people who inherited the duty of protecting the “Legacy of the Gods”. Because of that they’ve grow a tradition of respect for the military arts, and the royal family believes in maintaining a humble lifestyle, so the castle has no ornaments or luxurious items. However the long time of peace has weakened these traditions and the people, and they could not defend themselves from Runefaust’s ambitions, being destroyed...

Being a small country, it has little stock of weapons and such, but it is blessed with fertile land and the agricultural production is plentiful. The story of the Shining Force will somehow begin around this country.

Nothing I hadn’t seen in guide books already, but I’m somewhat surprised the worldbuilding was all already there and not refined for the guide books only. I guess it just didn’t find its place in game.

Speaking of that, here’s a long interview with the devs and I don’t have the energy to translate it all. Here’s the summary:

Unsurprisingly, the game’s biggest challenge was data size. Without compression it was around 30MB, around 15x the size of its final ROM, and definitely not fitting a Mega Drive cartridge. The interview only talks about compression but I wouldn’t be surprised if they had to cut things as well.

It’s brought up that they could have solved that problem by making a CD game instead, but they wanted to reach a wider audience.

Lots of comparisons with SitD, how the game was bigger and more complex, requiring more work and graphics and maps and everything basically. Again it is said that the story happen centuries before SitD.

When asked if there's a connection with the SitD, Masaki Wachi (writer for SF and the GBA remake) enthusiastically replies “Yes! Oops, I said it (laughs)”. He then elaborates that there were big clues about it, but that he wouldn’t comment on the connection with Mephisto and the ending of SitD.

Kenji Orimo (director and writer) does add though that if it was meant to be a direct sequel, it would just be called Darkness II. He also mentions seeing more potential in expanding the Shining World from Force than from Darkness.

Yoshitaka Tamaki (character designer, art director) mentions SitD characters having more of a fairy tale vibe, while SF characters were more grounded, with some pretty scary enemies in the late game, with more of a “war spectacle” vibe.

Lots of hyping up the battle animations.

Also hyping up the unique spin on tactical games, where characters and enemies all have their own agility instead of just alternating between an ally and an enemy phase. I don’t know anything about tactical games to comment on this.

December 1991

We get a better scan of Mae’s old portrait :)

Max on the other hand has already changed to his final one. Character description are largely the same as October with a few more tidbits on personalities such as Ken being a super honest boy. Gort is still referred to as Mae’s old servant, Lowe is still listed as dwarf, and no mention of Mae’s tough personality yet. Max’s class is also listed as warrior, but he was mentioned as swordsman on October so I assume it’s just a mistake.

We do get more characters this time though.

Tao Class: Mage Species: Forest Elf

A mage in training, but her talent is huge. Has a close relationship with Anri, the princess of Guardiana.

The forest elf thing is very curious since Hans and Diane are not listed as such. I have seen the term float around for Nigel of Landstalker, but I didn’t play that yet so no comment.

Diane Class: Archer Species: Elf

A wild girl who lives in Bustoke. Being raised in the mountains, she’s vigorous in battle. Scary.

Zylo Class: Werewolf Species: Beastman

Leader of Bustoke, the mountain nation. Focused in hand-to-hand combat, he does not equip weapons, and instead fights with his sharp claws.

Guntz Class: Steam Knight Species: Beastman

A knight of heavy power who wears an armor powered by a steam engine. Well known through the world as a mercenary specialized in castle assaults.

Well, that’s not my chill guy. Seems his personality wasn’t nailed down yet, which surprises me as his artwork very much implies the gentle guy we know now. Worth mentioning though, Guntz does join the team right as you’re going to assault the fort, and the GBA version even elaborates a bit on that invasion by requiring you pick a bomb from Crock, though Guntz isn’t involved in any of that. Perhaps this sequence was intended to be a bit more elaborate from the start.

Khris Class: Priest Species: Cantaul

A priest who used to work in Alterone. Despite being both priests, she’s stronger than Lowe in battle. Let’s see who is the best at magic.

Kokichi Class: Wing Knight Species: Human

An old gramps from a noble lineage of knights. Entranced by the dream of flying, he spent fifty years researching flying machines.

We then get a bunch of monster art i won’t even try to fit in a screenshot, and more description than they ever got in guide books as far as I’ve seen.

Dwarves

Skilled at close combat due to their strong body, but has low defense. Their lethal axes are menacing.

Dark Priests

Runefaust priests, wearing white masks as per the army’s regulations. Working on an attack with focused magic.

rip dark priests you did not learn blast in time if that’s what they’re implying here

Also, they’re called Dark Priests here, Priests in the final game, and Dark Priests in the english localization. I don’t know why I bother paying attention to that.

Snipers

With superior footwork, they attack from a long range with bows. The double team kind, working as pairs with the Rune Knights.

Puppets

Evil marionettes, it’s unknown if they have consciousness. Part of the Monster Corps, they attack swinging swords.

Except they don’t in the final game. They don’t even have swords in the art either, so I’m unsure if that’s a change or an idea that never made it in.

Hell Pierrot

It seems they are not really pierrot, just disguise as such. Those who are fooled and approach them carelessly end up hurt.

That’s the final JP name for the Dire Clown as well.

Gargoyles

They are statues, but had temporary life breathed into them by magic. Seems not all of them turned into flesh, some parts remain stone.

Cerberos

Guard dogs of hell into a deep sleep in the caves under Alterone. Trained by the Runefaust army.

Worms

Giant mutant earthworms dozens of meters long. Don’t have any senses other than touch.

Dullahans

Headless ghost knights who used to be Rune Knights. No comparison between their power though.

And now a special boy that does get to be screenshotted:

Mimics

Transform immediately as you open them thinking it’s a chest. Their lids grow sharp fangs, and they sprout legs to move.

It’s worth noting that while these guys didn’t make it to any classic game, SF2 does have a mechanic of monsters spawning from chests, we just don’t get to see because the search in battle option was removed in the english version.

To finish the parade of weird creatures, Yogurt is here.

What is this Yogurt creature, after all?

Yogurt, a mysterious characters that shows up around Guardiana and toys with the enemies. No clue if he’s an enemy or an ally, but he certainly has a likeable vibe, you could even call him cute. He’s not docile enough to be raised as a pet, and seems prone to quick mood swings. Does a lot of weird things as he pops up in the adventure. You could say he’s kind of a versatile performer.

Yogurt’s Data

He’s 80 cm tall, weights 10 kg, walks on two feet, while the front paws have atrophied and become small. His main food seems to be berries, but he’s omnivorous. From what’s been observed, he can swim, is fast and has strong jumps. It’s unknown when he started wearing the helmet on his head. No one has seen him take it off either.

Insides:

Tail - Uses it to balance while walking in two feet.

Feet - Way better for jumping than for walking.

Head - On par with humans. Seems to be very intelligent.

Hands - Cannot use tools

Belly - Quite fat but he’s still agile.

There are also doodles of his secret appearances which I’m not gonna translate now. They’re very much just describing his antics.

January 1992

Pink haired Simone appears. Sadly there’s no dialogue screenshots.

Guardiana is already pretty much the final version, only the entrance still seems unfinished, some NPCs are different.

Remember that field battle with different graphics? There’s more of it here, including the map.

It’s horrifyingly large.

Finally, there’s some talk of critical hits being capable of special effects like one-hit KO, but it’s very vague so it might be the magazine staff not knowing this was attached to a specific weapon.

February 1992

Pink Simone is still around, and so are unfinished weapon animations and the old knight battle sprites. Max still shows up with zero MP. Guardiana and the starting maps seems mostly finished with a couple odd spots.

Guardiana castle is full of chickens, and has a gate.

The king’s room has a couple more flags in it.

The Gate of the Ancients now looks like the final version, though battle screenshots still show the indoor background. The starting team is also the final one, with Mae and Gort no longer there.

The Alterone battle shows enemies inside the shops.

The article ends with a recipe for yogurt.

March 1992

The game is released, and I too am released from this long ass post. From here on, every article, ad and official material I’ve seen uses only screenshots from the final version of the game. If that sounds obvious to you, wait for the SF2 post.

Update: ??? 1992

Joke’s on me, I was not free from the post. I found some old footage, sadly i don’t know which date it is from, but it shouldn’t be too early in production. Simone already has brown hair, the Gate of the Ancients is already outdoors.

There are still things to note though. Simone still talks of the king of Guardiana in her intro as opposed to the final one. The intro to Chapter 1 is a placeholder text.

Anri’s dad does not have a unique portrait and uses the default king one. Also, the castle still do not have centaur knights, even though their sprite already exists. In the place are not chickens though, and instead some weird placeholders you can see at the top right corner here.

Unlike every other battle scene in this post, the final sword sprites are in, but their animation for Max is still unfinished. Also, having footage we can hear some audio, and while Simone’s theme and the field map theme are in, the town and battle scenes use placeholders from SitD

More importantly,

cat.

Their sprite isn’t exactly the same as the unused ones in the ROM though, as those have the tail up like a properly happy cat. This means these sprites still got further polish before being ultimately scrapped anyway :(

#shining force #shining series #sf yogurt #sf max #sf mae #sf gort #sf simone #sf guntz #long post #reeeeeeally long. i am dying #second time trying to update this because tumblr disappeared the first one somehow. if it goes wrong i'm gonna start biting

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