Tuesday 13 May 2008

Shining Force III English translation

Say what you want about GameStop, but sometimes visiting the monolithic game store has its advantages. During a conversation with a GameStop clerk, he revealed that the second chapter of Shining Force III (released only in Japan) had been translated to English by fans of the series, with a translation of the third chapter in its early beta stages.

He didn't have a direct link to the translations, but he did offer a few key words that would aid me in a Google search. Sure enough, entering the terms "sudden dusk shining force english translation" revealed this entry on the Shining Force Central web site:

http://www.shiningforcecentral.com/news.php?m=0&story=281

Personally, I was never a fan of the Shining Force series... even Golden Sun, Camelot's spiritual successor on the Game Boy Advance, didn't do much for me. However, I know that there will be plenty of other Saturn enthusiasts who will be thrilled by this news, if they didn't already know about it. If you're one of those individuals, you can find more about the translation project by visiting this link:

http://www.shiningforcecentral.com/forums/index.php?s=069db84fd7636160d7fe9630fc685f76&showforum=34

10 comments:

elend said...

Oh, it's still being worked on? That's nice. I think that's a great Idea, since the games were never be available in english language at all. I don't like RPGs actually, but I like the amount of work and dedication is put into projects like these.

I'd LOVE to have a Grandia translation, actually. I know there is a US Version for Grandia on the Playstation but that's not the same as playing it on the Saturn, which gives the gorgeous 3D graphics quite a different note. Boy did that game look great.

Caleb said...

Hmm...

I looked into it and I am a bit confused.

It looks like there is a patch and such to download but if you don't have access to the japanese version of Shining Force 2 or 3 it looks like you are out of luck.

I would be happy enough to play shining force 3 episode 1 if I could find the thing...

NebachadnezzaR said...

I actually knew about this, but for some reason it never occurred to me to post it here.

Anyway, these kind of projects are always great, even when we don't care about the games (I also don't like strategic RPG's).

And Golden Sun was a spiritual successor to the Shining Force series? I had no idea! I absolutely love that game, it's my favourite GBA game of all time!

ArugulaZ said...

Golden Sun isn't officially a sequel to Shining Force, but the games were both developed by the programming team that eventually became Camelot. Compare Golden Sun directly to the Shining Force games and you'll find that they have a lot in common!

Caleb: Try a site like Sega Saturn World... you should be able to find the games there. Then you should be able to patch them without too much trouble.

http://www.sega-saturn.us/beta/news.php

Caleb said...

Hmm Shining Force 3 episode 2 maybe.

I dunno. I have to figure this out alittle. I have never actually patched a game like this before.

Caleb said...

In any case I gotta beat episode one first.

fatherkrishna said...

Superb and enlightening post dear Arugulaz! Are we due a new video masterpiece any time soon?

Anonymous said...

I'm currently playing the translated version on my saturn. Works flawlessly.

http://www.snesorama.us/board/forumdisplay.php?f=65

Download it here!

Great great blog.


nice to see my collection here;)

Anonymous said...

You don't actually need to patch the Japanese version of the game - that is just one way of doing it.

You can download a patched version of the game.
You then just burn it to a CD and either play it in a chipped Saturn.

Or (like me) you can play it on a Saturn Emulator on your PC.
-I use SSF.
It's easily the best out there. I'm running v8 Alpha 9 (I think they are on v10 now) and the game runs near perfect.

But you should know that the translation is not perfect.
There are some graphical glitches with the new writingm and some areas the writing comes up as a code.

But the good news is they are still updating it apparently.

Definitely worth a look if you can't read Japanese and like Shining Force.

Anonymous said...

Hi everybody, I just want to say hello! How is everyone??