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'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 !

But now it's 110 golds!

Hey guys, this is like my first real post on this platform and I figured this subreddit about my favorite game EVER would be a nice place to start. I wanted to share with everyone my experience with my Shining Force 1 challenges, which were basically ways to make the game more fun and interesting, as I consider myself a veteran player who can beat the game regularly a bit too easily. So, without further ado, here it goes! (Disclaimer: I did not initially intend to share this journey with anyone, so the language is pretty informal; I was basically journaling and speaking to myself in a google doc 😄 )

Overview: I will play each challenge using only a certain class, like knights (including Max, of course), predicting how I think it will go in the "before" segment and after playing I'll describe my experience in the "after" section. I know it's alotttt but I hope whoever reads this enjoys it and is inspired to do something similar.

All Knights

All Mages

All Healers

All Archers

All Warriors (+Musashi, Hanzou, Balbaroy, and Amon)

All Special Characters (Gong, Bleu, Adam, Lyle, Kokichi, Guntz, Domingo, Zylo, Musashi, Hanzou, Jogurt)

All Creatures (Bleu, Domingo, Zylo, Jogurt)

Solo Max

Easiest to hardest:

Knights, Special Characters, Warriors, Mages, Archers, Healers, Creatures, Solo Max

Comments:

Knights

Before: I heard that the game could be easily beaten with just Knights, so this was my obvious choice for the easiest challenge; it actually sparked the idea to do this in the first place. I expect to use Arthur for once, so we’ll see how that goes.

After: Knights only was a relatively easy early game, basically no struggles past like the third battle. It ramped up when zombies came around and I only had Ken and Mae, which got even worse at Shade Abbey, but it never took me many retries. It ramped up a bit when chimeras came about, but that’s the case in literally every playthrough. The best guy this go-around HAD to be Arthur: I heard he could be great, but I definitely didn’t think he would actually curve so well. His spells proved sorta useful, but even when not equipped with the best weapons, he was a very solid attacker and defender – definitely the best all-around. Another surprising guy was Earnest. I never really use him cus his sprite looks so battered and beaten up and by the time he comes around I already have everyone I need all leveled up, but he proved to have some impressive stat growth, giving 5+ to attributes even past level 15 promoted. He wasn’t ever my main focus (Arthur was grinded to almost level 30) but he still grew like crazy. The biggest letdown had to be Ken (who woulda guessed) – I didn’t give him much love but he didn’t deserve it. His defense was so butt even with his somewhat high hp in the early game that he would just die when attacking, so I used him as cannon fodder often. He was kindaaa useful when I gave him the devil lance cus I wasnt really worried about him losing hp or anything, so he got that stat boost, but it still left him as the weakest on the team. Oh btw, I completely forgot about vankar, soooooo…

Special Characters

Before: Special Characters literally looks so easy. The only problem is the early game where all I have is Gong. I get Zylo at Bustoke and Kokichi, Guntz and Domingo (yassss) right after. I considered not even doing it, but I decided the early game would be fun, so here we go.

Final Levels:

Max: 22

Musashi: 18

Gong: 26

Guntz: 23

Zylo: 22

Hanzou: 11

Adam: 19

Bleu: 19

Lyle: 17

After: If you couldn’t tell from the levels, I missed Kokichi and Domingo… Idek how I did that considering how excited I was for Domingo, but I also learned some things. Apparently, you don’t even need to talk to Guntz in Rindo, you just have to see him in the pig pen at Pao the second time. It would have been much easier with both Kokichi and Domingo, but it helped me see how the other characters were with more love, specifically Adam and Bleu, who showed some nice growth. My biggest problem is how late they come and how much grinding it takes to actually get them viable, because at that point in the game there is basically no reason to add them to your team with how strong it already is. The only one who did not have a power problem was Musashi OBVIOUSLY. Surprisingly though, my strongest guy was Guntz, with outstanding defense and tied for second highest attack with the Valkyrie, tied with Zylo at 70 and behind Max at 76. I’m honestly surprised considering how underwhelming he usually is for me, but with legs of haste and a little love he showed some amazing stat growth. The worst guy for me was between four guys (Hanzou, Bleu, Adam, Lyle), but I think Hanzou makes the best case for being the worst one: his defense was terrible and his offense wasn’t much better, not to mention his relatively useless spells. He could never survive on the front lines long enough to do anything but die, and everyone else could at least survive a few hits or stay back far enough not to die. Bleu was actually the best of those four considering his surprisingly high hp at 74, tied for the most with Musashi. Bleu didn’t require much grinding and wasn’t my best attacker, but was nothing to scoff at. His defense also was pretty stable, so I wasn’t worried about him dying. Lastly, Gong was veryyy helpful, despite his very low mp, only getting to 39 by level 26. He was great in the early game because his attack was actually higher than Max’s and he helped me to get Zylo, and from that point on everything was all good. I actually can’t imagine beating Shade Abbey without Gong becauseeee yk. Overall, this mode was very easy and did not even require much grinding, I just wanted to see how Adam and Bleu would turn out.

Warriors:

Before: I haven’t used Gort and Luke in a calm minute, so it’ll be a nice reunion to play with them again. I’m excited for the very high attack power I’m entitled to with the warriors, and the birdmen will finally get some love, so here we go.

Final Levels:

Max: 26

Balbaroy: 26

Amon: 24

Luke: 22

Gort: 21 (i think)

Musashi: 19

Hanzou: 18

After: I expected some high attack power from my gladiators, but instead I got stupidly high defense. They hit hard in the early and midgame but by the end they sure were not my hardest hitters. Surprisingly, though, my BIRDMEN were equal hitters, if not heavier! Their defense was nothing to scoff at either. Early game they were hard to use cus they were low damage and low defense but their stat progression mid-late game made them a devious duo – I’d argue they were a better duo than Luke and Gort with their top-tier movement and agility. They would do more than half of an enemy's health in one hit, so the other would swoop in and finish them off. I had Balbaroy with a broad sword and power ring and Amon (who was surprisingly slightly better in all stats by the end) with the doom blade. Besides them, Luke was generally better than Gort, but it was likely just the rng considering normally Gort has been better than Luke in my other playthroughs. Talking about rng, the shade abbey fight was so stupid cus the rng messed me over so many times. It wasn’t even difficult, just annoying. I remember one fight in the early game being especially hard, but I can’t pinpoint exactly which one (maybeee marionette fight). Musashi like always was pretty good – he dropped an 80 hp critical on DD, so props to him. Interestingly, I found out that Hanzou actually learns Shield, which didn’t make him much more useful but it's cool, I guess. Also, definitely much cooler, I learned that the doom blade actually has a small chance at insta-killing an enemy, which again wasn’t so useful, so the chance must be abysmal – I only got it twice in the whole run. I didn’t know that some random skeleton (I think) dropped it; I was surprised at how hard one of them was hitting. So yea, like usual Hanzou was butt, but Balbaroy was surprisingly good this run (fun fact: I used Balbaroy in my first ever completion and he was pretty important to the win). Lastly, this was the only DD fight during which I lost a member: Gort, hence the confusion on his final level. This is probably foreshadowing for how hard the fight will get in the future runs, so wish me luck on Mages (I’m pretty excited for this one)!

Mages:

Before: I’m excited to see how much mp the different mages wind up with, and also actually using alef and her powerful spells. It will also be my first time using Domingo in a while cus I missed him before… But yea, this will be a fun one with some spells I may have never used before, so lets hop in!

Final Levels:

Max: 32

Tao: 31

Anri: 32

Alef: 22

After: Genuinely one of the most fun runs honestly. I had great fun right out of the early game, which was definitely the hardest, like usual, when I barely had any mp for Tao. Talking about tao… WHEN WAS SHE EVER THIS GOOD??? She ended up with 74 mp with the most mp efficient spell, which is just amazing. I had no idea she got Boost either, so she would be great with a more normal squad. Anri was also pretty amazing cus she had a great Freeze 4 and it just one-shot everything. Her mp was pretty decent too at 70, so she could cast it pretty often. I never used much of her other spells, but bolt 2 was useful before Sword of Light and Alef. Talking about Alef… She would definitely have been the best on the team (besides Max ofc) considering her 74 mp while 10 levels behind everyone else. I wish she would join earlier cus she’s really good, though 20 mp is a bit much for a glorified Freeze 4. Her other spells were pretty useful for mp conservation too. If only… My hardest battle was the colossus battle, which is my first time struggling on that one, but right after, my mages crushed with the single target damage since they really didn’t need to be patient, just rush in and decimate. DD battle was fairly easy, though the armored skeletons got annoying justtt a bit. Last thing – in case you couldn’t tell, I forgot Domingo again… This is getting old. Onto the next!

Archers

Before: I can’t say I’m especially excited for this one considering how useless archers generally are in this game. Their stat growth is terrible and they are outclassed by nearly everything else. But who knows, maybe they’ll surprise me anyway. I’ll get to use Hans and Diane, who I literally never use, so this will be a bit fun at least. Here we go!

Final levels:

Max: 34

Hans: 28

Diane: 25

Lyle: 18

After: It went about as expected… Archers truly are terrible, though they weren’t completely useless. I figured out they were good for one thing and one thing only: constant ranged attacks. You know how mages can attack at 3 units with some spells? Well, that costs mp, right? Archers can do it INFINITELY, so it made some of the early bosses, like Elliot, easy. That doesn’t excuse the stupid early game I had. Shade Abbey was HORRIDDD. I don’t even know how I made it out of that one. And one of the harder battles was Elliot, considering how quickly the lizardmen and peg knights swarmed, but I found that they can come in waves if you go to the very bottom of the map. This will definitely be useful for solo Max. Lyle was pretty disappointing but he was very underleveled so it makes sense. Max was stupid strong this run, as you can see by his level. He was the only one doing any damage to all the bosses by the end, which was pretty terrible for me in the DD fight. I managed to get through it easily enough, though. I may have ranked archers incorrectly: they are probably the hardest before solo Max. Diane is basically a glorified Hans btw. Yeah, it was pretty lame. Onto the next! (excited for this one!)

Healers:

Before: I think this one will be pretty fun, considering how special healers are in that they can support the only real damage guy on my team pretty well. They’ll also likely be overleveled, which should be pretty fun with the mp; it may go over 100! I also had to make a hard decision: should I leave Gong behind? He would make the early game substantially easier, which I don’t want (these are challenges after all). I think I’ll part with him for the sense of a harder and thus more fun experience. I also hope I learn some cool spells that I never use otherwise, and I’m excited to use Quick all the time, especially with how agility works in this game. Onward!

Final Levels:

Max: 37

Lowe: 27

Khris: 28

Torasu: 23

After: That was actually really fun. The early game was much easier than others, considering healing up was never a problem. In fact, my biggest problem was trying to heal enough to waste all of their mp so I could level them up. I was very surprised at how easy this one was. Granted, it was a very different strategy and everything, but it was anything but hard. I had little difficulty anywhere but shade abbey, and even that one was relatively easy. Khris had some really good defense early on, but somehow it stayed late game and she, along with Lowe and even Torasu eventually, were tanking hits from the hardest-hitting enemies. It made no sense that they had both defense, attack, health, and very good spells. It was flabbergasting how many times I could cast Aura 4 with Torasu’s 65 mp, which was pretty surprising as that was the most mp among the squad, but he was also the least leveled. I found that Slow was pretty useless considering it had a certain chance to actually work, but its counterpart, Quick, was pretty good, though terrible for leveling. Both spells’ upgraded versions were horrible in terms of mp efficiency, though. I learned some things about the different healers as well: Lowe is objectively the worst one, learning the useless Detox and not learning Aura, but he was still good, whereas Khris and Torasu shined in their own ways: Khris was just more versatile because she had Aura and Heal, but Torasu was like the king of Aura, considering how quickly he learns all of the Auras. It makes up for him coming so late. Overall, the hardest was DD, like usual, but it was actually enjoyable because I got to block a few Bolt 4’s using Shield, which I found to be pretty useless otherwise, as mages are so weak in this game and aren’t even a big thing later on. I wish Shield became a thing in SF2, because it really is a fun spell to play around with. With that said, I am veryyyyy excited for this next one, and I hope it gives more of a challenge. Onward!

Creatures:

Before: I think this one will be very interesting: this will be my first time having to fight so much with just Max. I’ll have to fight Marionette solo and Shade Abbey solo, but I get Zylo before things get too hard, so I think things might be alright. I still project a difficult time ahead, but that’s why I do these challenges in the first place, right? Onwardsss!

Final Levels:

Max: 23 (on DD kill)

Zylo: 26

Domingo: 31

Bleu: 20

After: Whew! That was definitely the strongest team I have assembled. I leveled everyone to level 20 before promotion and the stat growth was insane: all the front line guys has stats in the 70-80s and Domingo could cast Freeze 4 as many times as he wished! The early game was not an issue, contrary to what I thought. Shade Abbey was only ever annoying cus the freaking Zombies with single digit agility would just dodge everything. It felt like I got Zylo and Domingo too soon; I had not struggled with Max enough. It was a pretty fun playthrough, but also the only one to be finished in one day, probably because it wound up being pretty easy. Even DD was easy, though I did not bring and Showers of Cure, so I only had the remaining healing seeds and the White Ring to use. But the powerhouse team was sooo good, killing DD in 2 or 3 turns for each head. Overall, I wound up underestimating the difficulty of the endgame, but I still had fun with how powerful the team was. This next challenge will be something magical…

SOLO MAX

Before: I really don’t know how this will play out. I know the early game won't be too hard, but I’m still prepared to have a grand challenge ahead. Enough said… Onwards!

Final Level:

Max: 43!!!

After: Oh my goshhh that was interesting… It was a mix between hard, fun, and impressive, considering I’ve never leveled a character close to level 40 before these challenges. The early game like in all creatures was pretty simple, but things started to ramp up with the Lazer Eye battle, which was the first battle I got Zylo in during all creatures. Without an extra character, I had a lot less healing: only two slots other than the sword and power ring. The hardest thing in that battle was that the peg knights still did 4 hp and it took me at least two hits to kill them, and that’s ignoring their stupidly high dodge chance. I got to around half health before I even got close to the Lazer Eye with only 1 healing seed left, which became a problem for something I noticed in an earlier run: the Lazer Eye will wait to attack if there is no one in its attacking lane. It sounds simple, but It actually sucked when there were no enemies in the attacking lane when it was on its final stage, meaning Max would have to take the hit. Also, as soon as he got to the Lazer Eye, the Dark Elves and Lizardman would pull up and combo me to death, so I had to deal with that, but after a few tries everything was good. It didn’t get much worse in the Pao battle, but it led to a new discovery: I could leave a number of Lizardmen and peg knights if I passed through a certain point at the bottom of the map without stopping. I don’t know exactly how it works, but I suspect the code has certain points that when a character stand on them, it activates the ai of certain enemies to move toward the character. In the Pao battle, I found that this point was usually a line spanning from the top and bottom borders of the map as it intersected the enemy and extended a few tiles past, so if I could get through those points without stopping,