A quick update to let everyone know V17 is on pace. If everything goes to plan, the V17 test patch will be available sometime in early Nov. I’ll give it a month or so as usual before posting officially sometime in early Dec.

The new wording for the Sc2 titlescreen is in question. The initial and primary concern is that we can’t quite get the image right. A question of whether it should be changed has also come up. I would agree “Child of God” has a certain epic feel to it as a title, but I’m not sure how I feel about having the title not match the common dialog. At any rate, that may not happen this time.

Polishing is complete up through Sc2 Ch2 with work continuing in Ch3 currently. I’m also planning to incorporate all the playtesting comments received (mainly for Sc2 and Sc3) this year. Much of this work may come between the test and official V17 posting.

Tasia continues to make progress reviewing Sc2. There are only a handful of files remaining to be reviewed in Sc2! That will be a nice milestone.

As always, I appreciate everyone’s input in the forums.

legalize freedom!

The polishing of Sc2 continues. I’m not sure how far I’ll get before it is time to release V17 (November time frame), but it should be another good chunk done. In addition, the reviewed sections of Sc2 continue to be incorporated.

Tasia continues to make progress on the Sc2 review in between other commitments and is now working in the final chapter.

One other special thing to note. The titlescreen image for Sc2 is in the final stages of being updated. Previously it read, “Target: Child of God”. It will now read, “Target: Godchild” to make it consistent with Gracia’s title throughout the dialog. Up until a couple of versions ago, both phrases were used in different places. At some point the dialog was made consistent and Godchild was used everywhere. It wasn’t until recently that I noticed the titlescreen still used the old wording.

Until next time!

legalize freedom!

Just a quick update to apologize for the weirdness here on the site. We are trying to figure it out so please be patient. In the mean time you can still download the patch from the Patch Instructions page.

I can also report some progress on the review. Using the images created by last year’s effort, new volunteer Kaivokz (Tasia) has been working through a few of the files. We are closer than ever to having Sc2 completely reviewed for accuracy.

Edit: All is well now thanks to Moogie!

legalize freedom!

The Shining Force III Translation V16 is now available! Download from the button to the right.

In addition to the many, many minor improvements across all 4 discs, the following will probably be the most visible:

• Sc1 is completely finished! Any changes at this point will be very minimal.
• The Sc1 ending now accurately reflects the true ending of Sc1 not seen in the official english release. It came out great if I do say so myself.
• The Sc1 Hero’s test is now known as the Ancient Hall of Shrines. It was called palace one place and shrine another. It seems logical to be a series of shrines given the layouts of the rooms.
• The Titan’s attack previously known as X-Spark was renamed to X-Laser. It’s a pretty obvious oversight on the official translators’ part. It is obviously a laser when you see it. It was even listed in another placeholder line as laser.
• Several save locations have taken more appropriate and descriptive names through the versions, but this one might garner attention. The last two battles of Sc1, both previously known as King’s Battle (originally King’s city Battle) have been renamed to The Titan of Aspia and Battle for Aspia respectively.
• Hero meetings 1 (Saraband) and 2 (Railway Switching Point) have been coordinated between Sc1 and Sc2.
• Bookcases in Saraband and Balsamo have been coordinated between Sc1 and Sc2 (Ch1 and 5 for Saraband).
• You may also notice Sc2 Ch1 (and in to Ch2) has been polished. Lots of little details corrected and a couple of big ones. The cutscenes flow much smoother and are more accurate overall.
• For Sc2, Sc3 and PD, a new font style has been implemented for the bold/blue text in battle messages as well as friendship levels to make them stand out a bit more. For some reason in the Japanese titles the colour used here made the bold text a little hard to read. The new font style for these bold parts slightly increases the text size and makes them much clearer. Please give feedback.

Medion is now Level 8!

Learned the Spark spell!

The Freeze spell is now Level 2!

Friendship with Grace becomes Trusted!

 
I hope you enjoy the new version! Please continue to report any issues you may have in the forum.

legalize freedom!

The SF3Patch V16 test files have been posted to the FTP. I will take feedback for about a month before posting the official V16 release.

I encourage everyone to test this new version and let me know if you have any issues. Please also verify any issues you have submitted have been resolved.

The V16 test package is located at the typical location on the FTP. You can download with the button to the right.
Please report any issues to this SFC Forum Thread

I’m happy to report the image capture effort has been completed thanks to the following volunteers:

Christine
Rickard Kostlevy
BKGrila (Dan Sustacek)

Thanks also to Swalchy for helping with this effort and looking into a few oddities (I think we still have a couple outstanding, BTW Swalchy).

Now that the images are ready, we need translators to work their magic with them. We have one or two translators who have previously worked on the project that have again stepped forward to help, but no work has been done on that front as of yet.

I would like to once again call on capable Japanese to English translators to volunteer to help us get this project where it needs to be. 100% reviewed and accurate.

legalize freedom!

Hello shining fans!

I’m currently polishing in chapter 2 of Scenario 2. Having endured the cutscene fest at the beginning and Saraband (which is like 3 cities in one) in Ch1, I’m just finishing up the Stella battle in Anafect. It’s exciting to be able to consider such a large chunk of the project completed, but there is still obviously much to do. The most difficult polishing is ahead.

What I’m not so excited about is the roadblock I see not far ahead. Translators have only reviewed up until the middle of chapter 5 in Scenario 2… and there is still Scenario 3. I can’t stress enough how important this review is. Beforehand, much of the dialog is clunky and there are question marks. After the review everything flows smoothly and sense can be made of every line. The actions of the characters on screen also become apparent and are matched with the spoken dialog. That’s where we want to be.

There have been a few translator volunteers over the years, but only a couple have produced anything meaningful (thank you, thank you, thank you Atolm and Ryuu). I believe I know why. The translator program has been the method of communicating the lines to the translators and I hear from every one of them that the characters are jumbled or otherwise not correct, making it very difficult to translate.

I believe the solution is to screen capture the lines straight from the game. This should make things much easier on the translators, but will require some effort.

That’s where all you beautiful shining fans come in! I’m taking volunteers for this screen capture effort. The requirements are pretty simple. You need to be able to run SF3 on SSF and have Windows 7 (for the Snipping Tool) or have other means of quickly capturing windowed portions of the screen. If you are interested in helping out with this very important task, please EMAIL me. We can also discuss any specifics in the forum thread HERE.

Along with this effort, we obviously also need translator volunteers. Reading the lines will be much easier for you now, so please volunteer if you are qualified. I will be reaching out to all the previous volunteers. Wish me luck!

The next time you hear from me (around the first of Nov) I will be posting V16!

legalize freedom!

I’m very excited to announce work on Scenario 1 has been completed. The ending is all ironed out and the transition to Sc2 is smooth. I’m really happy with how it came out. Sc1 will still receive updates if specific issues arise, but it can now be considered finished.

This content will obviously be included in V16 that will release near the end of the year, but to celebrate this occasion, I thought I’d make the updated files available to those interested in seeing the updated Sc1 ending in all its glory. You can download the files HERE. Just copy them to the SF3Patch > files > s1 directory (overwriting all) and apply the Sc1 patch with Isomaker as usual. Let me know in the forum if you see any issues.

I’ve also updated the Game Saves directory with a complete set of Sc1 saves including a Complete save in it’s own internal memory file. In this directory you’ll also find a Sc1 Records.txt file that has descriptions for every save. Get them HERE.

Now to begin polishing Sc2!

legalize freedom!

I hope everyone is enjoying V15! The release went very smooth.

As I wrap up my thorough review of Sc1, I think the time is right to start beta testing. In the next few days I’m going to be contacting those who have volunteered previously for testing roles. In addition, I’d like to invite anyone interested in beta testing Sc1 to email me HERE.

legalize freedom!

The Shining Force III Translation V15 is now available! Download from the button to the right.

Pardon the long post, but I wanted to expand on some of the changes.
Along with the usual plethora of improvements, you can also expect the following in this version:

Several proper nouns were introduced and/or made more consistent. These are the most visible:

• Bulzome Temple which was previously known by a handful of names including shrine and palace, is now consistent throughout. The main building is known as the Temple while the 2 smaller buildings are known as Shrines.
• The previously referenced “ice field” among other less descriptive names, is now known as
  the Frozen Sea. A particularly attractive translation of the otherwise clunky previous description(s). This is the frozen water area around Bulzome Temple.
• The terminology of the save game files is now consistent. They are now referred to as Records throughout. Previously they were called a handful of names such as files, saves, save games, records, etc. Other related terms have also been made consistent such as Overwriting records.

Some hard decisions were made on several class names. Those changed were deemed too long. They made the on-screen character box too long and contributed to the status screen ghosting issue.

Penn
Champion               (2nd)
Emperor                 (3rd)

Penko
Diva                       (2nd)
Queen                    (3rd)

Harold and Jade
Gunner                   (2nd)
Buster                    (3rd)

Hazuki
Ninja                      (2nd) Previously Master Kunoichi. Hated to change this, but just too long.

Robby
Mecha God             (3rd)

Gracia
Godchild                (2nd) He’s known everywhere else as Godchild, but his class was Holy Child.

Due to a far-out revelation that Hedoba and David were named after the early 70’s singing duo, Hedoba is now known as Hedva. They were apparently a hit in Japan back in the day. The two Davids look exactly alike. Search for “Hedva and David”. Here is the forum thread: http://forums.shiningforcecentral.com/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=24596
and a video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ_K6aeDSz8
David really turns on the charm 1:00 in.

Some weapon descriptions were updated thanks to research by Special T for his work on the Jumesyn site. Most were values that were off by one point. Most of the gloves were affected and a couple of the regen and spell levels were corrected.

And saving the best for last! The text on the PD images was re-imagined. Again thanks to Special T for his image work. They came out great!
http://sf3transftp.shiningforcecentral.com/Images/PD1.jpg
http://sf3transftp.shiningforcecentral.com/Images/PD2.jpg

Released in time to enjoy it over the holiday break. Enjoy!

legalize freedom!

The SF3Patch V15 test files have been posted to the FTP. I will take feedback for about a month while also finishing up a couple of outstanding things.

Everyone is encouraged to try this version out and make sure everything is working properly. Please also verify any issues you have submitted have been resolved.

The V15 test package is located at the typical location on the FTP. You can use the button to the right.

Please report any issues to this SFC forum thread:
http://forums.shiningforcecentral.com/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=24739
 

legalize freedom!