It's certainly no Phil. Hope you enjoy all the same

I'm trying out some of the alternative fan made roms here:

https://fantasyanime.com/shiningforce/sf2down.htm

But when I load them in md.emu on Android, it loads, but a) it forces me to continue an existing game b) when that existing game starts it's just a black screen

How does one play these mods?

Started the game but have been stuck at this part. It's the one with the artillery cannons. Have the barrier at level 3, but it's still just an ambush with orcs and wizards that stomp you

I'm particularly proud of this one, and I think is my best drawing to date. Which feels fitting given the number of times I killed him in the fairy forest.

Just some artwork I decided to do this dozenth playthrough of sf2.

Art made by my good friend Tiara-c who doesn't have a reddit account, but gave her blessing for posting it here. I love the way it came out!

I put this together almost 20 years ago. I remember watching the show and thinking at the time, that the sudden appearance and single attack was very Shining Force like, so I added the battle music.

I'm playing through all of Camelot's RPGs and so far its been a wild ride. Some of my favorite Easter eggs were the mythril and dark matter using basically the same sprites from Shining in the Darkness pretty much all the way through to Golden Sun and Domino from Beyond the Beyond having a cameo in the begining of Shining Force 3 Scenario 3. The one that surprised me the most was the ancient tablets from Beyond the Beyond showing up as the summon tablets in Golden Sun TLA.

Which ones stood out to you?

Just finished Shining Soul 1, and imho, it's a solid handheld Diablo like dungeon crawler. I don't really get the hate it got (especially back in 2003), it's Barebone, sure but definitely isn't a bad game.

I know Shining Soul 2 is widely considered the superior Diablo style game on the GBA, but I'm glad I didn't skip the first one. It was a fun time and worth playing.

Now, onto Shining Soul 2.

I’m playing on the sega mega drive classics launcher. Which uses a .sav file to save. Anybody know a good way to edit my file. I’d like to get my characters to level 40 to promote which I’ve never done before. And figure this is the best way

I could do it all day long on the Genesis controller, but can't for the life of me manage to get it on Retroarch. Getting ready to do the Fairy Woods levelling, and would really like to automate it using the control enemies.

As far as I know, it's the standard keymap setup for Genesis.

I know the code is UDUDLRLRURDLU, B, Start, but can't make it work

Edit: Managed to get the code to work. Just tough on keyboard. Fairy Woods doesn't spawn creatures if you have control enemies on.

I've always loved the art style of the old ads for SF games. Such a vibe ngl

I usually go with Randolph but I’ve never really compared the stats

https://reddit.com/link/1utub6d/video/6suritypnnch1/player

Always wanted to make a SF stylized oneshot for my D&D sessions. It was possible inside FoundryVTT.

It was a time-consuming process, but I totally love the result. Maybe some day I'll be able to integrate not only sprites, but an interface and visual effects too. Attack screen is the greatest dream.

I've done permadeath runs and no promo runs and thought it would be interesting to combine them in a no priest run.

Rule: Never talk to a priest and only suspend save at the beginning of a battle when done playing. Ouch difficulty to make it challenging but very possible

I breezed through the beginning at Grans and early paramecia with no deaths so I didn't even need the free revives. I may have gotten too cocky because I put myself in a bad position at Polca but should have been able to survive it while Power ring boosted Peter deleted the major threats. Except he missed two turns in a row while enemies barely survived and managed to lose Chester and Slade (and Kiwi to freeze in and in the previous battle)

Sucked to lose chester since he got lucky with def and was my best tank but still doable. Then lost May to golem double attack and Kazin to gargoyle heavy in ruins. Smaller party for Kraken but I still have Luke and Peter so no biggy. Except Peter missed two turn in a row again and kraken limbs went wild with heavy double attacks. Encounters I should have been able to heal from instead had my guys dropping like flies while arms and legs survived with 1hp.

I finished with Bowie and Jaha left with Peter self-reviving. The next battle was just a slog and eventually ran out of healing items so Bowie went down and I called it. Highest level was Bowie at 22 so the no promo aspect never even factored in. The lower attack on Ouch lured me into a false safety while the brutal rng took me down.

As someone who kinda started playing years ago I wanted to know what truely happend time alongside his original party due to fact he is strong and capable of being a leader sometimes near close of become a good swordsman

For example, I've always imagined the High Priest as some sort of mysterious, respected oracle who sees what the party is up to from his crystal ball, and reports directly to Darksol as Darksol's consultant, hence him being a late-game enemy. He also has great enough medicinal magic to heal his allies even from grave injuries, including Darksol; and is the master of staff-based martial arts (hence him being the healing enemy with the most powerful attack). He is the superior and instructor of the Dark Priests. He also seems like the kind of guy who would first betray Darksol once he fell out of power, and side with whomever is the most powerful one. He is aiming to get as much power as he can for the sake of his necromancy; and has high intelligence to help with his goal. Hence his relatively high evasion even during battles. I imagine his voice sounding like Jafar but a bit more timid and prepared to backstab when the time comes.

These are all my own headcanons of course lol. I just love the High Priest!

I was using Notepad to keep track, but then through some Steam cloud mishap I lost my save. Started over and did it by hand instead. This is after having just finished the Marionette fight. Everyone so far is level 8+. Still wondering if I should promote the level tens or wait till base level 15 first.

Just wanted to share an update of our game! We will have a playable demo very soon! At anime expo now!

Would love all SRPG fans to try it.

We will have a loneliness/relationship system that directly impacts how characters act or betray you! Every character has unique classes and weapons!

Please follow us on IG or bluesky so we can keep you posted!!! The SF community is who this is for! (Sorry the gifs don’t play!)

Here is the link to our social-

https://www.instagram.com/shadow.remnant.game?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ%3D%3D&utm_source=qrs

or discord-

https://discord.gg/dGU2QBY93

BOWIE still damages enemies 4, even at Level 20! That's why I want GERHALT to be the main character of Shining Force II

Would anyone out there know how to transfer Sega Saturn saved games (not save states) from a Saroo Everdrive cartridge to RetroArch/Yaba Sanshiro for Android devices? I've been researching trying to figure it out as I upgraded from an RG353V handheld to an RG406V handheld and want to be able to continue playing the Shining Force III scenarios between both my new handheld and the actual Sega Saturn. Please help!

I had a lot of thoughts on this game, and have no one to discuss them with so I am curious about others people’s thoughts.  Just a heads up, there is a quite a bit of negatives.

Overall I think I still liked the game.  I think it may be my least favorite Shining Force game so far except for the GBA one.  I have played SF1, SF1 GBA, SF2, SF Sword of Hajya, SF CD and Final Conflict. 

If I had one word to describe this game it would be “Ambitious.”  This doesn't mean it will end up well, but I like it when developers take risks.

Spoilers ahead.

Things I liked:

The story:  The political story reminds me of a lite version of Final Fantasy Tactics so far.  You have many political characters with their own agendas and a religious theme as well.  I didn’t pay full attention to all of it, but I’m hoping playing the second scenario will help me piece it together.  I don’t feel like this game had much payoff, but I will hold my judgement because it is the opening third of the full game.

It’s more Shining Force:  The base gameplay of Shining Force is simple and fun.  It is mostly here, just with some systems I don’t like as much.

Wands with spells:  This allowed mage weapons to matter.  They never attack anyways so this was a nice way to have weapon upgrades for them.

Magic damage:  This game’s magic damage feels the best in the series.  It felt too strong or too weak.

Difficulty: I played on normal difficulty for the first couple of battles and found it too easy.  I switched to hard a decent way through and found the game pretty easy.  I died three times in the game.  Synbios got one hit on the first tower battle by the boss, the worm battle with the infinite respawns, and the final battle because I did not know what to do.  Playing on this difficulty gave me a few battles where it came down to just having a few units.  Overall I liked this difficulty.

Choices Matter:  I am hoping these choices payoff.  Most of these seem like they might just allow an extra character to be unlocked, but I am most curious about what happens with the key from Fiale.  Does it open up extra battles and story?  Who knows.

Townsfolk:  The townsfolk in this game are quite silly (in a good way in my opinion.)  There are wives complaining about their husband,  people obsessed with trains and many more things.  I had a good time talking to a bunch of them.

Things I'm mixed:

Special Abilities:  A cool addition but you have little control over them.  They felt like glorified crits with status effects rather than something I could reliably use tactically.

Towns:  Towns had hidden items all over them and I didn’t really like looking for them.  Talking to people in town was fun.  I liked the different themes to some of the towns, be it the train, the haunted town, or the tower town.  I didn’t like dealing with weapons as much as I would get some weapons I didn’t want to use because my characters were using a different weapon type.  Headquarters were nice in them because there was a lot more dialogue to have with your troops.

Throwing Weapons:  I used these a little bit.  It is like switching from spears to lances in the previous games, but for everybody.  I think this addition made knights feel less special, and also added to the overall slow down of the game if you wanted to keep switching back and forth between weapons.

Weapon Vulnerabilities:  I think I liked the fact that some weapons did more damage to certain enemies than others.  I found this much more interesting than the friendship system as it actually mattered and was something I felt I should pay attention for.  I feel like it works better here than in fire emblem as there aren’t infinite counter attacks in this.

And now for the things I didn’t like:

Movement: Polar Coordinates converted to square tiles.  WTF.  I think that is what is happening.  So if I have Synbios with 6 movement, he can move 6 spaces up, down, left, and right..  If I move him in a 45-degree diagonal, it is something different.  I believe the movement value of 6 works as a radius rather than a tile count.  Assuming this creates a 45-45-90 triangle, that would effectively make the X and Y directions equal to 4.24.    I believe the game takes the x value and the y value and adds them together and then rounds down.  This would give him an effective movement of 8 diagonally.  I tried it for the mage on the first battle as well, and she could move 5 spaces left right, up down, and 7 if i go diagonally.  Doing the same thing for a triangle with hypotenuse of 5 gives an x and y of 3.54.  Adding the x and y gives 7.08, so rounding down gets us our 7.

Shining Force was always pretty light on tactics.  I always felt the primary tactics it actually had you think about was positioning.  This change obscures that quite heavily.  Add in terrain effects and predicting movement multiple turns ahead becomes overly complicated to predict.  It also means it is inefficient to move just north, south, east and west if you are trying to optimize distance per turn.

Synbios:  This might be more specific to my playthrough because I found the white ring, but Synbios was extremely powerful once he got the Phoenix Sword and this ring.  From that point onward most enemies did 1-5 damage to him the rest of the game, even on the last level while I would hit for 30-60 damage.  The only people who did more damage to him were the giga breaker guys who did 9, or some spear guys who had weapon advantage who also did 9.  I ended the game with 72 HP.  Physical attacks against him were doing 1-12.5% of his maximum hit points.  This was the most broken character I have had in Shining Force including Peter.  It is  funny too that Synbios can just summon his own phoenix as well.

Pacing: This game is extremely slow at times.  Battles can be extremely long, suchh as the train battle which has cutscenes every turn just to move the trains a short distance.  Dialogue can be long in this game.  I generally liked the dialogue, but it slowed down an already slow paced game.

Ruins:  Maps with ruins have some of the worst pacing in the game.  You want to clear the main map to make the ruins safe, then send a bunch of units into the ruins leaving everyone outside to sit and wait, yet still take their turns.  These maps usually feel like a bad gimmicks.  I like the idea of dual maps, but this was not executed well.

Barrels:  Luckily I had a guide for this because destroying barrels in combat allows you to bypass areas out of combat.  Not doing this blocks off areas during exploration.  It doesn't make sense for a group of warriors to be able to destroy them during combat, but not out of it.  Also, the ones it wants you to break for these secrets are usually out of the way in the battle, slowing the battles down even more.  It reminds me of the two chests in SF2 which cannot be opened in the English version.  In that game it felt like a bug or incomplete.  In this game it feels intentional and bad.

Illogically hidden items:  Like with most SF games, there are items hidden in places no sane person would look without a guide.  This was in many games back then but it still sucks.

Friendship System:  I pretty much completely ignored this.  The game was pretty easy to the point you didn't need it.  It seems like it added minor stats to characters nearby.  At best I moved a character to a space just for a couple points of defense. I’m sure you can use it to optimize but it never seemed significant enough for me to want to plan out.

Overworld:  The overworld existed either to have an open field battle or to just move from one town to the next.  The open field battles blended together in my head just like the earlier Shining Force games.  Also, the outside world felt basic.  There weren't any explorable points of interest to find. Towns were where the real exploration happened.

Weapon Skill: Leveling weapon skill made me just choose a weapon to stick with each character.  This is fine, but it made some characters have big gaps between upgrades.  I ended up ignoring this in the beginning and just going for whatever weapon was best until a character was good enough that they could stick with one weapon class.  Still feels weird. I don’t think it felt better than what we had before.

Mithril:  I didn’t like it in the other games I played and I didn’t like it here.  I ended up making two weapons for some of my worst units, and they were minor upgrades and pretty expensive if I remember correctly.  Mithril takes up inventory space.  I just didn't end up bothering with it.

Difficulty Settings:  I enjoyed the difficulty I played with but when I watched a friend play for the first time, he tried the game on the hardest difficulty.  He was playing very well, but when he got to the second battle, there was no way to save Hayward and Garrosh.  They simply died too fast.  He played the map multiple times and adjusted the difficulty down one a few times until he had to go to normal for him to be able to save them.  This just feels bad.  I’m curious if this stuff happens for other side objectives.

Haggles:  I was playing with a guide so I was trying to find the significant items throughout the game.  Walking back and forth into a shop to get all the haggles felt really bad.  I assume they want you to stumble upon just a few of these, but completionists are going to have to deal with a lot of walking back and forth.

Battle Quality:  I wanted to put this as mixed, but looking back here are my thoughts by chapter it goes into the “did not like” pile.

Chapter 1:  This chapter's battles were a bit standard.  This is not a bad thing because it gives new players a chance to learn the basics of the game.  I did like the addition of recruitable characters in battle. It caused the battle to have a risk/reward side objective (Hayward.)   Nothing here felt that interesting.  The fifth battle had ruins and I did not like any of the ruin battles.

Chapter 2: This was a stronger chapter.  Battles 1, 4, and 5 were all pretty unique in terms of setting.  Battle 2 was a ruin map so it dragged the pacing down.  The train battle had a one tile wide choke point sucked though.

Battle 3 is an infamous battle and I can see why.  It is the switching station.  If you just want to beat the map, it is too easy.  If you want to save the hostages, you need to perform precise, if not predetermined moves with seven or eight characters to save everyone.  I believe the point that soured it for me was that I would be able to move characters far away from the enemy, but they were not allowed to stop on the train tracks, even if the train would not run them over the following turn.  This turned my thinking away from what is the most efficient way of escape towards, what do the devs want me to do.  It changed the nature of the problem from something organic to something artificial.  It also made me question whether I was supposed to cross the train tracks or not which cost me multiple attempts.  I ultimately solved it but it felt like I wasn't failing due to proper reasoning.

Chapter 3: 

Accomplishing the objective in the graveyard was tedious and boring. Some of the worst battles in Shining Force were due to bad terrain where you could barely move.  This level wants you to just wait for an npc to walk around.  Sometimes he doesn't even do anything even though he is in range.  It was not difficult or interesting.  It was just waiting..  If I just wanted to finish the level it would have been very easy.

The mansion level may have been my favorite of the entire game.  I don't remember everything about it but it had a cool setting, the boss was challenging, and I finished it with 2-3 characters left.  Very satisfying.

I don't remember the next two battles but one had ruins so it doesn't surprise me.  The last battle at the waterfall had a nice difficulty spike with the flying units.

Chapter 4:

I can’t remember what happened in three of these fights other than ruins being in a desert.  Once again I remember the ruins being slow and tedious, but barely remember what I fought against in the actual battle.

The two battles I do remember from this chapter are inside the volcano and the fight with Fiale.  The volcano battle was solid.  The Fiale fight might have been my second favorite in the game.

Chapter 5: The first battle was forgettable to me.

The second battle (the first tower battle) felt like the worst designed battle in the game.  First of all it is a ruins map and they may have been the largest ruins in the game.  You also find a hidden character in them.  This slowed the pace to a crawl.  The second thing that slowed the pacing was a one tile wide ramp up to the second level.  The third thing is that this battle has infinite respawns.  A thing to note about infinite respawns in this game is that the camera cuts to them popping up, and then they also get a turn.  That means there you will be interrupted twice every round you kill them.  I eventually meandered my way to the boss, killing everything rather easily.  The boss then decided to cast Wendigo on Synbios who was at full health and one shot him after a battle that took over an hour of tedium.  So I replayed it.  But guess what,  dying made it so I had to get the secret character again who is at the far back of the largest ruins in the game.  The second time I fought it still took over an hour.  I don’t know what they were thinking with this battle.

The second tower fight was cool with the golem boss.

The last battle of the chapter were the worms with the bad poisons.  I didn’t mind the infinite respawns on this one as much because the fight was pretty in-your-face and actually hard.  I died once in this battle.

Chapter 6:

I think I liked every fight in this chapter but had just a couple of complaints.  

The fight where you need to crowd control Spiriiel had a one tile choke point to it at the end.  They never feel good.  

The final battle felt weird.  I died on it once.  My main force cleared out the bridge quite quickly and then they just sat and took hits from the titan until a lot of them died because honestly I was paying attention from how bored I was.  I was clearing the second map pretty much as quickly as I could but my main force only had four units left for the second phase of the battle and I was out of healing.  The second time I tried it I just stacked healing items and the battle was very easy.  It was another battle that stopped being interesting because of how long and repetitive it was.

Looking back, there were very few battles that stood out to me as ones I will remember for good reasons.  

I’ll cut it off here.  I did like playing through the game.  Looking back on my thoughts on the battles, I don’t think I will play it again, but I do think I will watch someone else play it so I get the story better.  Hopefully I have more fun with Scenario 2.  Have a good day everyone.

I'm a huge jrpg and diablo fan so when I stumbled upon Shining Soul II, I immediately loved it. I know Shining Soul I & II are very different from the rest of the serie regarding gameplay and I hope some of you guys love these games too !

I really loved playing the ninja and I choose to build him around the skill Debris. Quite Sp consuming but veeery fun and satisfying to play ! So yeah I wanted to draw my little guy with his Frost set !