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Shining Force Kouryaku to Tebiki (ASCII Guide Book)

Cover of the guide book, featuring Max's default art over a black background.

Scans available at Imgur.

Published by ASCII, this guide book's production was spearheaded by Masaki Wachi, one of the writers of the game, and was intended to be a guide that actually expanded upon the worldbuilding as opposed to just focusing on game data. Thanks to that, it has a lot of extra information. As usual, I'll be focusing on that and glossing over basic gameplay info and walkthrough details.

Masaki Wachi would later become the writer for the GBA remake as well, and thus a lot of the extra content of that version has its origins here as well.

Navigation:

Character Profiles
Villain Profiles
NPC Profiles
Country Guide
Max's Diary
Epilogue Interview
Yogurt Ring

Character Profiles

This section is solely dedicated to the characters' personal info, separate from their gameplay data,

As usual, translation notes from here on are under the horizontal line, and the characters' original names in the JP version are noted [in brackets] when different.

Note: Images may take a while to load.

Select a Character
Map sprite of Max.Max
Map sprite of Mae.Mae
Map sprite of Ken.Ken
Map sprite of Arthur.Arthur
Map sprite of Pelle.Pelle
Map sprite of Vankar.Vankar
Map sprite of Earnest.Earnest
Map sprite of Luke.Luke
Map sprite of Gort.Gort
Map sprite of Hans.Hans
Map sprite of Diane.Diane
Map sprite of Lyle.Lyle
Map sprite of Guntz.Guntz
Map sprite of Tao.Tao
Map sprite of Anri.Anri
Map sprite of Domingo.Domingo
Map sprite of Alef.Alef
Map sprite of Lowe.Lowe
Map sprite of Khris.Khris
Map sprite of Torasu.Torasu
Map sprite of Gong.Gong
Map sprite of Balbaroy.Balbaroy
Map sprite of Amon.Amon
Map sprite of Kokichi.Kokichi
Map sprite of Bleu.Bleu
Map sprite of Zylo.Zylo
Map sprite of Adam.Adam
Map sprite of Musashi.Musashi
Map sprite of Hanzou.Hanzou
Map sprite of Yogurt.Yogurt
Cropped image of the guide, with Max's profile.

Max (Human)

Class: Swordsman -> Hero

The young hero who faces battles, spurred on by destiny

As protagonist of the game, he’s the young hero who leads the Shining Force. One year ago, he lost his memory, and was found unconscious by Lowe in the coast near Guardiana¹. After that, he continued to train his swordsmanship in there. His real identity (?) is descendant of the family entrusted with the duty to protect Dark Dragon’s seal.

As revealed in the later half of the game, he is the younger brother of Cain from the Runefaust army, and the two were fated to fight Dark Dragon.

The black armor (reinforced clothes?) he wears after changing class to “hero” were designed for this mission, much like Cain’s white armor. It seems the armor itself has been among his belongings even when he was still in Guardiana, but before becoming “hero” class, he didn’t know how to put it on, and thus could not use it in battle.²

¹Lowe finding him at the shore is mentioned both in game (by the priest in Guardiana's church) and in the manual from what I recall, and the interesting thing is, the manual contains a pixel art illustration of Lowe carrying him into Guardiana. It’s the only time I’ve seen a pixel art scene in these extra materials, so I wonder if it was made for an intro in the game itself and got cut.
Pixel art illustration of Lowe carring Max into town. Max is limp over his back, wears tight fitting black clothes, and because he's much taller than Lowe, his feet drag through the ground. In the distance, a centaur rushes over to them.

²The armor thing is a detail mentioned only by this guide, but Max’s backstory and family are explained in the original game, the english localization just did away with all of it because it is uh, Bad, to put it mildly.

Villain Profiles

Select a Character
Map sprite of Cain.Cain
Map sprite of Mishaela.Mishaela
Map sprite of Marionette.Marionette
Map sprite of Elliot.Elliot
Map sprite of Balbazak.Balbazak
Map sprite of Ramladu.Ramladu
Map sprite of Chaos.Chaos
Map sprite of Colossus.Colossus
Map sprite of Darksol.Darksol
Dark Dragon's eyes..Dark Dragon
Cropped image of the guide, with Cain's profile.

Cain (Human)

The face hidden under the mask is...?

Commander of Runefaust’s elite group, the “Silver Knight Squadron”. By Darksol’s orders, he led a squad to the Gate of the Ancients, and another to raid Guardiana, overtaking Guardiana’s castle.

His weapon, the demonic “Sword of Darkness” carries the magical power of “Desoul”, and, together with Cain’s power, can also spread the scorching flames known as “Flames of Hell”¹. He's the protagonist’s greatest rival.

¹These flames of hell are mentioned in the JP version, as the power he used to kill Varios.

NPC Profiles

Select a Character
Map sprite of Nova.Nova
 
Map sprite of a king.King of
Guardiana
Map sprite of Varios.Varios
 
Map sprite of Ward.Ward
 
Map sprite of a king.King of
Alterone
Map sprite of an old man.Mayor
 
Map sprite of an old man.Crock
 
Map sprite of robed wizard.Otrant
 
Map sprite of a little girl.Koron
 
Map sprite of a little girl.Karin
 
Map sprite of robed wizard.Mahato
 
Cropped image of the guide, with the NPCs' profiles and a picture of Nova.

Nova

The Shining Force’s tactician. Without taking part in battles, he gives lots of advice to the protagonist, supporting the Shining Force from the sidelines.

He used to work as Guardiana’s tactician, but since he accompanied the party that went to the Gate of the Ancients, he then became the Shining Force’s advisor. He’s a dragonewt¹, and over 200 years old. The name “Nova” is a name passed down through generations of tactictians and advisors², and means “wise one” in an ancient language of Rune.

¹The GBA version states that Elliot is the last dragonewt left in the world. I guess they forgot what Nova was, and it’s a very weird change that doesn’t even go anywhere.

² Screenshot of the king's room in Shining in the Darkness

Nova's name is a reference lost in translation. There was an advisor with the same name in the castle of Shining in the Darkness, but he was renamed Theos in the localization of that game. The lore in this guide is likely giving a reason as to why they share names, but it's worth keeping in mind that SitD doesn't take place in Rune.

Country Guide

Perhaps one of the most unique parts of this book, the country guide gives a lot of worldbuilding for each town/country seen in game, including their lifestyle, political organization, and even population ratio by species. It also has some discussions of the continent of Rune as a whole and a whole timeline of events from the thousand year span before the game starts. All of this made it the most technical and hard to translate text of the whole book, so I apologize if the translation feels more stiff than usual. You can read it all here.

As usual, I did skip some of the gameplay-oriented parts of it, like list of items in shops and the checkpoint section listing in-game events. Some things in these section will be brought up when interesting enough, though.

Max's Diary

Ever wanted to read a Let's Play written by Max himself? We got something here pretty much like that. For every battle except the last, this guide has small snippets of a "Protagonist's Diary", with jokes and observations about the battles. It's nothing serious from a story perspective, but good fun, with silly doodles to boot. You can read it all here.

I assume they didn't make one for the final battle because these official guides tend to avoid spoiling the very end of the game. It makes the diary end a bit abruptly, unfortunately, so I threw in an extra section of the guide about the ending too, to compensate a bit.

 Doodle of Max snoozing, while an archer behind him fights off an enemy.

Epilogue Interview

Doodle of Nova and an interviewer sitting in a couch. The interviewer has a notebook and pencil in hands to take notes. Nova has his eyes closed and a thought balloon over him, showing Tao happily waving a hand, Anri with a crown, Gort looking a little dejected, and Domingo in the background.

The guide provides an epilogue of sorts to the game, in the form of an interview with Nova, where he discusses the fates of each character after the war.

You can read the full translation here.

Yogurt Ring

Among the small sections in the guide commenting on secrets and the like, the only one I felt like translating was the Yogurt Ring one, as it has some goofy pieces of lore.

Snippet of the guide.

What’s the Yogurt Ring?

The weird animal, Yogurt. It is said he came from Planet Yogurt to turn all people into Yogurts. The Yogurt Ring is supposedly a tool for that purpose, but no one really knows the truth.

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