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Shining Soul II Sprite Data

My ongoing task of ripping all Shining Soul II sprites, while also documenting other ROM hacking info, such as addresses and palettes.

Because it's an ongoing task, it will be messy for a while until I nail down the exact addresses for everything.

For now, all info here refers to an US version of the ROM, other versions might have the data in different places. If you have a ROM you can verify these addresses by yourself with the GBA Sprite/Tile Viewer I coded here.

Playable Characters

Playable characters have a whooping 16 palettes in this game. The first ten are the palette options you pick from when selecting the character. The next is the holy palette, for when the character equips the Angel's Necklace, and it's usually some mix of baby blue and pale yellow tones. The next is the evil palette, for when the character equips the Fiend's Necklace. A small warning that this one usually has the unfortunate colorist trope of darkening the skin of humanoid characters most of the time.

The remaining four are monochrome palettes for temporary status effects, in the order of: freeze (blue), poison (purple), death (white/pale blue), and blindness (black). Below are the warrior's palettes as an example.

The warrior's palettes. First ten have varying hair and armor colors, with all being light skinned save for the last one that has brown skin. In the row below are the special palettes. The holy one has very light blue hair, eyes, and armor, with a light yellow cape. The evil one has white hair, dark eyes, red cape, black armor, and tanned skin. The other four are the monochrome status palettes as described before.

The sprite data for playable characters is... very, very redundant. Characters have fully different sprite sets for each possible weapon they can equip in game (except the ninja with knives), and a base set, used for when the characters are wielding the Force Ring (and when the ninja is using knives), and also when they're being carried by the angel. Each of these sets loads its palette set (the 16 palettes described above) from a different address, despite all these palette sets being identical for each character.

Each sprite set has idle, walking, damage, death, and sleep animations. The base set also has unique sprites for summoning a Shining Soul and for being carried by the angel. The weapon sets, of course, have unique sprites for their regular and charge weapon attacks... Which also get separate palette addresses. For some reason.

While odd, all this redundancy can make ROM hacking pretty flexible. I made my Karna hack with only sprite and palette replacement, and was able to use different colors for each of her weapons, since the existing identical palettes can be replaced each by a different one if you want. You could easily push this further and make characters who change their whole design depending on weapon, or something like that.

There's some peculiar things about the spellcasters as well. First of all, their book set has only regular attacks, as charging with a book charges spells instead. But more importantly, while all other sprite sets are together in the data, the book and charge/spellcasting sprites are way, way further in the data. Given how clunky the idea of books as weapons is in game, it makes me wonder if they had some other idea at first, and had to implement this wonky one in a rush instead.

Finally, sprites from the character select screen are the only one to not use their own palette set, they use the same as the base set. While working on this page I found out that they still have their own palette data however, which is not the same as the others and goes unused. See the Unused Content page for details.

The majority of character sprites are 32x32, with some expanding one or both dimensions to 64, especially attacks, which have extra effects for swinging etc.

That's a long enough preamble, let's list some hexadecimals.

Sprite and palette addresses

Warrior

Full spritesheet here

Sprite set and previewSprite address (US)Palette address (US)Notes
Base: Base sprite of the warrior.9bd4d89c3ed8
Sword: Sprite of the warrior with a sword in the left hand.9c40d89ca2d8
Axe: Sprite of the warrior with an axe in the left hand.9ca4d89d1cd8Even some idle and walking sprites are 32x64 to fit the big axe.
Spear: Sprite of the warrior with a lance in the left hand.9d1ed89d80d8
Sword attacks: Sprite of the warrior swinging a sword to the side.9d82d89e06d8
Axe attacks: Sprite of the warrior raising an axe above his head.9e08d89e76d8
Spear attacks: Sprite of the warrior thrusting a lance forward.9e78d89ea0d8Same sprites are used for both regular and charge attacks.
Character select: Sprite of the warrior sat down on the ground.b4da589c3ed8 (same as base set)

Dark Wizard

Spritesheet here (still incomplete, missing Book and Character Select sprites)

Sprite set and previewSprite address (US)Palette address (US)Notes
Base: Base sprite of the dark wizard.9ea2d89f0ad8
Rod: Sprite of the dark wizard with a rod in the left hand.9f0cd89f70d8The side death sprite has some stray pixels and ooooh i can't unsee it now.
Rod attacks: Sprite of the dark wizard swinging the rod down.9f72d89fded8
Charge and spellcasting: Sprite of the dark wizard with his arms outstretched and his head raised upwards.9fe0d89ffed8
Book: (not found yet)(not found yet)
Character Select: Sprite of the dark wizard turned back, looking over his shoulder.b526589f0ad8 (same as base set)

Archer

Sprite set and previewSprite address (US)Palette address (US)Notes
Base: Base sprite of the archer.a000d8a066d8
Bow: Sprite of the archer from the side with a bow in the left hand.a068d8a0cad8
Bow attacks: Sprite of the archer pointing his bow horizontally.a0ccd8a0f7d8Includes the arrow sprites, which therefore use the same palette as the character.
Also, same sprites are used for both regular and charge attacks.
Spear: Sprite of the archer from the side with a lance in the left hand.a0f9d8a15bd8
Spear attacks: Sprite of the archer from the side raising a lance above his head.a1c9d8a1fdd8Includes the spear sprites, which therefore use the same palette as the character. Does not include, however, the effect from charge attacks.
Book: (not found yet)(not found yet)
Character Select: Sprite of the archer sat on the ground with his legs arched forward, giving a thumbs up.b4f658a066d8 (same as base set)

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