#also i am like. not a dev or associated with dev team. my word isn't final or inherently correct

[emdotcom]

I like that Security Breach Ruin has so many hoaxes, rn. It's like a 90's game, in here -- every copy of Ruin is personalized

Some fun hoaxes I've seen (YOU ARE ENTERING SPOILER TERRITORY, PROCEED AT UR OWN RISK X3):

"If you get under-par/a specific score in each hole/a hole in 1 in Gator Golf AR-cade, you can get Monty's Claws" You cannot ever get this item. I've heard people say that you can get a trophy/achievement for going under par, too, but I didn't get either? Also, I stg, there is at least 1 hole that is literally impossible to hole-in-1. I can accept that my inability to do it on hole 1 is a skrill issue, but I refuse to believe ANYONE can hole-in-1 the big spinny thing.

"There's a bowling arcade game in Bonnie Bowl" There is no bowling minigame -- they didn't finish it.

"You can collect animatronic parts/repair animatronics/get all items/etc for an alternate ending" There's just 3 endings, the only thing that decides which you get is whether you find the secret cams or go left or right on the 3rd series of turns at the end

"There's a 6th faztoken in Bonnie Bowl" I legit don't know if this is true or not, I have heard it several times but never seen the token, & it seems like Mr. Candy Cadet's story finishes after the 5th token, as he makes his air horn sound. Hard to imagine what a 6th coin would glean.

"There's a secret 4th ending" There's a 4th ending in the files, listed as "None," & it's most likely just a placeholder/to indicate a lack of ending (? My grasp on game development is too limited to properly describe this. In short -- no actual 4th ending)

"You can spare Roxy/you can press Esc instead of old yellering Roxy" To my knowledge, I don't think the game lets you leave that view until you hold E to do the deed? Even if it did, the game railroads you into offing the dog. Also, no previous actions/any objects in the room allow you to spare her. Door stays closed until you kill Rox'.

In general, Chica's Voice Box exists in the debug menu, but there's no Monty's Claws or Roxy's eyes. There's apparently a Monty's Photo, but nobody has been able to find it in-game? It seems as though repairing Chica is just an Easter egg that goes nowhere.

People seeing the leaked Funko merch (thanks again, Funko....) & thinking it would be for the DLC, which is par for the course, but is obviously untrue.

"If you get to the Bonnie room, you can revive him/give him Chica's Voicebox to fix him" You can only choose wether or not to deactivate the 4 Wet Floor bots.

I think this is fun stuff. Hoaxes are neat-o, especially bc they're a good vehicle to talk about the actual functions.

[claire-starsword]

Shining Force Pre Release Coverage Part 2

"Claire didn't you just say you didn't have time to look at this now" didn't I also say recently I have no self control? Exactly. Also there's not much new so I might as well just get it out of the way.

Part 1 here

This time we'll be looking at recently scanned volumes of another magazine, Mega Drive Fan. Scans are here and here. Also despite the obvious enthusiasm I sure am busy lately so I won't be pointing out everything, I'm here more for translations as you can see the pictures yourself.

November 1991

okay I lied I need to start with the most important pictures

Meow

They owe me this so bad.

Also it has its tail up like in the final unused version, I don't know what's the deal with that footage I showed at the end of the previous post.

We get a better scan of Max's beta portrait. He has no Egress, which I think I have already pointed out in the previous post, I don't know it was a big post okay. He has a short sword with a weird icon, and two iconless items (the placeholders seem to be showing the item's index): the Hex Whip from Shining in the Darkness, and, uh,

"Ring of Infidelity".

Care to explain, Max???

According to my searching this isn't any carry over from SiTD, but I haven't played that in japanese yet so, grain of salt here. I was gonna say, why is a likely joke item so early in the game, and then I remembered the bunny girl in SFII so yeah, this is regular SF dev behavior.

[Edit: I'm reviewing this now and I might have misread the ring's name, it seems like the うわき (infidelity) is directly applied as an adjective so Infidel/Cheater/Fickle Ring would be better translations, which matches the japanese name for the Hex Whip, which is something like Fickle/Whimsical/Moody Whip, but with a different word that has no "cheating on your partner" connotations as far as I know. So maaaybe it's just implying the ring is cursed and does effects of its own, but by all my searching うわき is still far, far more associated with these cheating connotations at least nowadays, so either the word's usage changed a lot in the past decades or it's still a cheeky joke name]

Also, in the previous post I was clearly too taken by Mae's smile to do my job and didn't talk about the items there, so let's talk about them, or rather it, now. Max and Mae in those screenshots have the inventory full of item index 9, "Old Medical Herb". Perhaps there was some sort of expiring mechanic for the herbs. Max also has the same Short Sword and Mae has a Bronze Lance with a sword icon.

In the final version, the indexes 7, 8, and 9 became the Legs of Haste, Turbo Pepper, and Bread of Life respectively.

The item shop has a different sign. Also it seems to be just an item shop, while in final Guardiana the item and weapon shops are combined, with two sellers.

The other magazine showed yet another item shop and sign, either these are actually different towns, or different builds, which actually they sure are given the next picture.

I have been long looking for you... I have heard of the situation. Please, you must let me join you.

While both magazine issues are from the same month, here we have Arthur portrait for this character instead of Varios, and more than that, he is joining the team, there's even another screenshot in the magazine with the "has joined the force" message. Given that this is Arthur's map sprite, and Mae has been described since the start as having a dead father, I feel this is the intended version. Perhaps Varios' portrait was done first and used as placeholder?

Also I need to correct something from the previous post. This isn't a generic NPC sprite, it's just Arthur's knight sprite. The generic centaur NPC sprites are... Arthur's paladin sprite. Like, the exact same sprite. I never looked too close so I assumed there had to be some small difference, but no, they can reuse whatever sprites they want.

Arthur is not given a profile in any of these magazines so it does feel he started as a very generic recruit. Very funny considering he's now the specialest most magical centaur in the block.

Character profiles this month don't have much so I won't translate them in full. Max is referred to as capable of using magic. Lowe is again referred to as a dwarf even though the magazine points out how similar he is to Milo, and wonders if he's an ancestor of him. No mention of Mae's personality, Gort mentioned as an old servant of hers again. Hans' bio states many elves who live in forests choose bows as their weapon because they have excellent vision. This a regular fantasy thing but I don't remember seeing it in Shining content before.

There's one battle screenshot where Max has less HP and is named Hans so I feel his battle sprite wasn't done at this point. Also I didn't bring attention to it in the previous post but a lot of these battle scenes have misnamed enemies as well, it seems this skeleton was a placeholder for a lot.

December 1991

Again Max has his final portrait at this point. He has 99MP and Blaze and Heal 4, Heal having a placeholder icon. He carries the Sword of Darkness, which has a different icon, the Power Ring, and the Forbidden Box, a well documented debug item.

Nothing new in character profiles, Guntz is again referred to as a beastman, Tao is again referred to as a forest elf unlike the others. I will again bring up that the term is used for Nigel in Landstalker, and Tao and Princess Lara there have basically the same art. Does this mean something? Likely no.

Also something I failed to notice in the previous post: at this point, Tao's shoulder gems are miscolored in her portrait. Her art is already done so I assume it's a small mistake.

Enemy descriptions are mostly the same, and again the Mimic shows up.

Again there's a section dedicated to Yogurt, which is mostly the same. It specifies he eats bugs besides berries, and says he "understand human speech, but can't (won't) talk". In the JP version he does say only a single sentence, "I don't get it", so perhaps this was dropped, or he is learning.

It is also said that he's kinda popular with the force members, especially the girls, but again no one could make him a pet. We then get doodles of his secret events, and yes different doodles than last time.

January 1992

This issue gives a good look into the beta menu icons. I won't show them all here, but the icon for putting characters on the active team shows a centaur which, really gets what the game's about i guess.

There's a screenshot with Earnest's portrait but the name is actually Vankar, perhaps his portrait wasn't done yet. Or these guys changed names during production.

On the screens showing off battle graphics, Hans has Diane's palette. That is to say, the exact same palette but pink hair.

Also not to get distracted but I took a quick look at the editor and yes, despite being one of the first characters, the archer sprites are index 9 in the data, preceded by Gong and Khris, and more curiously, Guntz and Domingo, who are at index 3 and 5 respectively.

February 1992

This one was already scanned in Sega Retro and is actually how I started looking into these things. The new scans are likely better quality though, they're really good.

March 1992

The game's released, but unlike the other magazine, early build material still slipped into this one.

"Am I being of service to you? Since I'm fighting to the ends of my MP..."

Tao had this goofy, less immersive line at HQ (remember to compare it to the final JP one, the english version is its own beast). Curiously, the GBA version changed her first line back to a question. Note also that she still has the wrong portrait here.

Veeeery small detail but there's a screenshot of the Rune Knight at the first battle talking only to goblins as opposed to goblins and dwarves. Coupled with all the screenshots we see from this battle it's safe to say the dwarves were a late addition.

Finally, minister Ward had his own portrait.