Shining Force III

Shining Force III
Also known as: Shining Force III Scenario 1: Outo no Kyoshin (JP) Developers: Camelot Software Planning, Sonic! Software Planning Publisher: Sega Platform: Sega Saturn Released in JP: December 11, 1997 Released in US: June 1998 Released in EU: July 11, 1998 This game has unused animations. This game has unused areas. This game has unused playable characters. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused items. This game has unused abilities. This game has unused text. This game has debugging material. This game has regional differences. This game has a notes page This game has a prototype article This game has a prerelease article

Shining Force III was the first of a highly ambitious trilogy. Unfortunately, Part 1 was also one of the very last Saturn games to be released in English.

To do: Unused Characters: They seem to have some graphics associated with them, and it may be a case of mismatched file names that keep them from loading. Domaric with his mouth tied has unique talking animations. Unused Enemies: See if any of the ones with Dummied out models are still functional, some may be reusing other models. Unused Text: Piece together untranslated text buried in rom. Either by painstakingly ripping the text from rom, or trying to find the unicode characters, it's gonna be agonizing. Also one of the lines for forgetting magic may be tied to the unused spell Tsunami Weapons: See what Force Blade and Ultra Axe specials are, if any. Also finish Japanese text

Subpages

Regional Differences They really didn't want you to know there were any sequels.

Unused Areas A massive amount of unused places.

Unused Text "A strange feeling eminates from it."

Debug Menu

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  Demo

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  Japanese

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  US

Entering 3602205E 0001 Will enable a debug mode. It has multiple functions, including a menu that replaces the Configuration menu. It's functions are as follows:

Name	Explanation
Scn	Area Warp - select the map where you wish to go, hit A then close the menu. Has a bit below the area name, setting it to anything other than 0 doesn't appear to do anything.
Flg	Sets event flags.
Prm	Roster editor. Add or remove character, change their levels or classes.
Itm	Gives you any item in the game, provided you still have space. There is also an option for Max Gold.
Sav	Saves file
Lod	Loads a save file
Snd	Sound Test
12P	Removed option in the US. Selecting it will just reload the menu. In the Japanese version and Scenarios 2 and 3, this is called "12P" and in the demo "???", along with another deleted option, "MAX"
Cfg	The normal Configuration menu

Additionally, pressing X+Y+Z together will pause the game. In this mode, pressing any button other than Start will advance the game 1 frame, and pressing L will enable some printout information, pressing Start will exit this mode. Also, holding Z while in control of a character will enable you to walk through walls, and holding Z during battle instantly ends it(Pressing start during an enemy's turn kills that specific enemy.). Holding R during a cutscene will skip through massive chunks of dialogue, though this can sometimes crash the game.

(Source: [1] Knight0fDragon)

Error Handler

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The game has a fairly robust Error Handler, separated into two parts. The first loads from 1ST.BIN and are as follows:

DSP Activated By Illegal Process
What ?
ADDRESS ERROR
DMA ADDRESS ERROR
GENERAL UNDEFINED INSTRUCTION
SLOT UNDEFINED INSTRUCTION
MATRIX PUSH-POP ERROR
Caution!! Re-Entry SyncJob!!
PageChanged fb00!
PageChanged fb01!
FBCOPY PID ERROR
CD READ ERROR! PLEASE CHECK CD AND PICKUP LENS
Error
Loading ID Cannot OPEN
Illegal WaveMania Param
Illegal TexMan Param
Illegal TransMix Param
DSP -[Letter]
Lost DSP Int
DSPJOB FULL

While these seem to be only for battles, and load from X014.BIN. These can be enabled by enabling Debug mode, pressing X+Y+Z to freeze, pressing L, unfreezing with start, then entering a battle.

• STA [#]
• EXP [#]
• END [#]
• DSP - [Letter]
• Poly
• Anim
• Stag
• Text
• TVer
• TPol
• DPol
• OBJ
• PART
• SEFF
• frmA
• frmB
• Time [###](Load speed)

Oddities

BLACK.MPD

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  Notice the Airship from the Intro that is normally obscured by the logo, the US copyright, and the much lighter coloring

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  For comparison

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For some reason this controls the black bars in the background, but that's not the interesting part. Switching this file with another on the disc makes the game go completely haywire, sometimes just crashing at the NOW LOADING screen, but depending on the file it is swapped with can also reveal some extremely odd things, such as the title screen being replaced with a version of Shining the Holy Ark that's fairly different to the one used in that game. Also, the file select has a strange background, and some geometry hidden away behind it.

X5STRI_H.Bin

This file contains most of the plot important dialogue for Railhead, while X5RAIL.BIN and X5RAIL_S.BIN are only used for the train blocking scene and some Shop/NPC dialogue. STRI is an internal name for Storich, the town that houses the Republic's train station. This combined with other evidence both on this and the subpages suggests the plot was changed wildly during development

Relearning Magic

If the game detects a character does not have the Spell that they should at the proper level(i.e. replacing the return spell), it will force you to learn it upon the next level up. As is it's not entirely unused(i.e. if you promote a character before getting all of their spells) but what makes it odd is the town scripts all contain dialogue relating to forgetting Magic, similar to that of the Move Deleter from Pokemon

The magic has been
completely erased!

{12}{1C} magic
will all vanish.
Is that all right?{Yes/No}

Partially Deleted Battle

Files related to a "BTL99" are still present in the game's files: X1BTL99.BIN(Binary) X5BTL99.BIN(Dialogue) and XBTL99.CHR(Sprite controller). As the battle is not referenced internally, it's not known if an associated map still exists. In fact, the only things known about it are that it involves the blue Mask Monk enemy, and it's dialogue, which when loaded into the game reads as follows:

Just a teaser to begin with.
You will win by killing off all the enemies. 
I would not tolerate it if {Synbios} gets killed.
The commanding officer cannot go to such a place...!
Name of the savior is {JuMSy}.

Unseen Behavior

File Select

Editing the party to include 14 active party members alters the file select to include 2 extra portraits. Their positioning is far too neat to be a coincidence, and adding more than 14 doesn't change the file select in any meaningful way.

HOME.MPD

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If this map is loaded in directly, instead of the normal entrance/exit, you will spawn right next to the train doors.

Unused Audio

Track 02

If inserted into a CD player, the Sonic! Software Planning jingle will play. The announcer typically present in previous releases has been removed, and there's no logo present in the title screen.

Toshi.SAP

Japanese only. A CD quality version of the Title Screen, used in earlier versions of the title. The Final uses a Sequenced Midi.

Music

Scenario 1	Scenario 3

Track 40 in sound test is an early rendition of The Lone Wolf, a song later used in Scenario 3.

• Deleted Music Tracks

Entries 07-09 in the sound test are all repeats of the track "The Mercenary Soldier"(Julian's theme), and Track 10 is a duplicate of "Soldier of the Republic"(Synbios's theme). In Scenario's 2 Track 9 is replaced with "Devil's Fury" and 3 replaces 10 with "Apostle Of Light". Track 8 is never changed.

Sound Effects

To do: Document the things, at least one(track 5) never seems to get used.

Voices

To do: 6 voices are missing from the American version.

• 0A

Voice 10 in Sound Test. Plays when Masqurin's Special Attack ID is set to 00(Nothing), which when playing normally can't be done. Generic Specials use the ID 01(Critical Hit), and the only weapons set to use this ID are the Spark Wand and the Negate/Divine Cane, all 3 of which aren't used.

• 7D

Voice 125 in Sound Test. For some reason they decided to dub Fiale's first line using a completely different voice and or "actor".

Unused Characters

There are 60 character slots present in the game, only 19 are used In-Game, with another 6 containing unused characters! To add these characters, use the following Action Replay codes to add them to your main force (or swap the corresponding digit from 1 to 9 add to that character to reserves, though doing so will crash the game if you attempt a transfer):

AR Code	Icon	Name	Has stats?	Notes
6202F3FA 0010		Campbell	No
6202F404 0001		Glacia	No
6202F3FA 0001		Medion	Yes	Starts with a Steel Sword, Lv 1, and 5 ATK
6202F3FB 0001		Syntesis	No
6202F3FB 0010		Uryudo	No
6202F3FC 0001		Zero	No

• Glitched character portrait.png

  Larger character portraits in the US version

• Unused characters iconSF3.png

  and the Japanese version.

Most are little more than a name and their profile image, their stats are all 0, the sprite files are mostly missing, and most models were dummied out of the game. Only Medion has a defined slot in SRAM as well, so even if they could gain stats, they'd revert to 0 after turning off the game. Some of their graphics still exist, but none appear to load, or just crash the game if forced.

Unused Enemies

Buried in the game are a slew of unused enemy entries all of which still have model files present, though most had their contents dummied out. An unusual amount of these are from previous Shining Force games. They follow X8PC[###].BIN(### being the values below)

Japanese	English	Number	Notes
???	???	700	Whatever this was originally is unknown. In-game it uses the Phoenix texture.
ｻﾗﾊﾞﾝﾄﾞ{0291}	Sara Sldr	701	A recolor of Aspia Sldr and Dest Sldr. It's model is used by other enemies, namely Def Comdr, but this specific entry is not.
ｸﾞﾗﾃﾞｨｴｲﾀｰ	Gladiator	703(Dummy)
ﾍﾟｶﾞｻｽﾅｲﾄ	Pegasus Kt	706(Dummy)
ﾎｰｽﾏﾝ	Horseman	708(Dummy)	Shining Force II enemy
ﾌﾞﾗｯｸﾅｲﾄ	Black Knt	710(Dummy)
ﾎﾜｲﾄﾅｲﾄ	White Knt	711(Dummy)	Spiriel's soldiers are called "White Knights" in a cutscene, but the used version is "White Lord"
ｾｲﾝﾄ	Saint	712(Dummy)
ｷﾞｶﾞﾝﾄﾅｲﾄ	Giant Knt	714(Dummy)
ﾄﾞﾗｺﾞﾝﾆｭｰﾄ	Dragonewt	716(Dummy)	Shining Force II enemy
ｳﾙﾌﾊﾞﾛﾝ	Wolf Baron	724	Later reworked for Scenario 2.
ｺﾞｰﾚﾑ	Golem	725(Dummy)	There is a Golem used in game, but that is entry 731
ﾃﾞｭﾗﾊﾝ	Durahan	727(Dummy)	Shining Force II enemy. Later used in Scenario 3.
ﾏｯﾄﾞﾏｯｽﾙ	Mad Muscle	732(Dummy)
ﾀﾛｽ	Talos	734(Dummy)	Mistranslated Taros. Shining Force II boss, later used in Scenario 3.
ﾌﾞﾛｰﾊﾞｰ	Brover	735(Dummy)	Possible mistranslation of "Brother", which is backed up by the Promotional making of referring to Synbios as the "Eldest Son of Conrad."
ｺﾛｯｻｽ	Colossus	736(Dummy)	Not to be confused with the final boss. Was later used in Scenario 3.
ｽﾗｯｼｭﾊﾞｯﾄ	Slash Bat	738(Dummy)
ﾄﾞﾗｺﾞﾝ	Dragon	741	Crashes the game mid battle
ﾄﾞﾗｺﾞﾝB	Wyrm	742(Dummy)
ﾄﾞﾗｺﾞﾝﾅｲﾄ	Dragon Kgt	743(Dummy)	Dragon Knight. English doesn't follow the usual naming trend for Knight.
ｷﾒﾗ	Chimera	747(Dummy)	Used in future scenarios
ﾍﾙｽﾅｲﾊﾟｰ	HellSniper	751(Dummy)
ﾁｬﾘｵｯﾄ	Chariot	753(Dummy)
ﾀﾞｰｸｶﾀﾊﾟﾙﾄ	Catapult	754(Dummy)
ﾈｸﾛﾏﾝｻｰ	Death Mage	758(Dummy)	Shining Force II enemy
ﾃﾞｰﾓﾝﾏｽﾀｰ	Demon Mage	759(Dummy)	Shining Force II enemy
ﾓﾝｸ	Monk	763(Dummy)
ﾌﾞﾙｰ	Blue?	765(Dummy)	Shining Force II enemy, seems the translators didn't know what to make of it. Later used in Scenario 3.
	Friend?	791(Dummy)
	Bat Leader	796(Dummy)
	Mask Monk	801	Unused Brown variant with Knife

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  ???

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  Wolf Baron

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  Dragon

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  Mask Monk

Unused Items

Multiple unused items exist in the game. To access them, use Action Replay code 16032060 ???? (where "????" is one of the below) to place the corresponding item in Synbios' first item slot.

Value	Image	Name	Description	Stats	Notes
000E		Booty Sword	Katana	6 ATK
000F		Iron Ninjato	Katana	12 ATK	Early game Ninja weapons. Goes unused as Ninjas join very late in the game.
0042		Scimitar(シミタ一)	Sword(ン一ド系統の武器)	5 ATK	Enemy only weapon
0043		Gladius	Sword	5 ATK	Enemy only weapon
0072		Sneaky Knife(シーブスナイフ)	Knife(ナイフ系統の武器)	ATK 13 AGL 5	Translates to "Thief's Knife"
0073		Joker Knife(ジョーカーナイフ)	Knife(ナイフ系統の武器)	ATK 13
007D		Dark Rapier	Rapier - has Special Attack, Curse	ATK 28 Crit + 5 Dark 30	. Special Attack is "Demon Call"
0082		Force Blade	Sword - has Special Attack	ATK 28 Dark + 30 Light + 30	Used in the sequels, but not here.
008A		Beast Spear(ビーストスピア)	Spear(スピア系統の武器)	ATK 18
008B		Comet Spear(コメットスピア)	Spear - has Special Attack(スピア系統の武器 必殺技発動)	ATK 18	Special Attack is "Meteor"
0098		Ultra Axe(スカイ トマホーク)	Hand Axe - has Special Attack(トマホーク系統の武器 必殺技発動)	ATK 20	Also known as Ultra Tomahawk
00A9		Holy Cestus	Cestus - recovers HP every turn	ATK 19 Crit + 5	Also known as Dragon Cestus.
00B2		Spark Wand(マーリンズワンド)	Wand - has Special Attack, Spark(ワンド系統の武器 必殺技発動 スパーク)	ATK 19 AGL 5 MP Regen + 2	Also known as Pyra's Wand, a reference to Pyra from Shining in The Dark. Special Attack is set to 00(Blank). The idea would later be reused for Scenario 3's Eternal Wand. Here, however, it's not terribly useful, 2/3 units that can use this already know Spark and it's stats are fairly redundant.
00BC		Caylon's Bow(クイロンの矢 )	Bow - has Special Attack(矢系統の武器 必殺技発動)	ATK 24 AGL 3	Special Attack is "Charm Arrow".
00C0		Needle X-bow	X-bow - has Special Attack	ATK 22 AGL 2 Crit + 5	Also known as Needle Crossbow. Special Attack is Charm Arrow.
00C4		Pulsar Bow	LBow - has Special Attack	ATK 23 DEF 7
00D7		Stealth Wing	Wing - Confuse L1 if used	ATK 21 DEF 5 Crit + 5
00D8		Light Anchor(ライトアンカー)	Anchor(アンカー系統の武器)	ATK 8	An early game weapon, but the only anchor user joins fairly late in the game.
00E6		Negate Cane	Controls Giant (Basanda only)	ATK 16	Divine Cane but without the item use. Appears to have some connection with the Bld-Cane spell.
00E7		Divine Cane	Helps recover (Basanda only)	ATK 16	This is used by the game in a single battle, and is clearly not intended for player use. Despite this, the item has its own unique description which cannot be seen during normal gameplay, and can be used by Masqurin and Noon. No model is used, no critical hit exists and item use, but no range was defined.
00E8		Spark Blade	Spark(Arrwnt only)	ATK 24 Counter + 20	The final boss' weapon. Can be equipped by any blade user.
N/A		NOT SET	N/A	N/A	Entries 240-253 all contain placeholders. Most oddly use the unused Light Anchor icon, but 2 have unique graphics.

Most of these weapons either are or tie for strongest in the game, or are thoroughly redundant to used weapons.

Unused Spells

To access these, use Action Replay code 36032264 00?? (where "??" is one of the below) to replace Grace's first spell slot with these.

Value	Image	Animation	Spell(Japanese name)	Max LV	MP	Range	Description	Notes
06			Inferno(ｲﾝﾌｪﾙﾉ)	2	30/30	3/3	Blinds with light	Functional, but doesn't appear to be fully complete. Was eventually reworked for Scenario 3 under the same name..
09			Pacify(ﾒﾛｳｽﾍﾟﾙ)	2	5/9	1/2	Increases magic resistance	It's description is similar to Resist. Using it in battle plays a blue Resist/Support animation, yet despite text existing for it, nothing happens when used..
0F			Charm(ﾁｬｰﾑ)	1	7	2	Charm the enemy	Uses the Elemental icon from Shining the Holy Ark. The spell is unused, but the status effect is used in-game by a few special attacks, including those by the Succubus enemy.
10			Tsunami(ｽﾌﾟﾗｯｼｭ)	1	7	2	Dispells magic power	Seemingly works in Scenario 2, despite also being unused there. Here, it does absolutely nothing, and it's unknown if any text related to it exists.
13			Chant(ﾘﾌﾚｲﾝ)	2	6/12	1/2	Recover HP for 4 turns	Uses the Restore spell icon from Shining the Holy Ark. Text related to the spell exists in rom, but no effects are applied when cast.
2A			Berserk(ﾍﾞﾙｾﾙｸ)	1	8	1	Brings berserker rage	This spell is functionally complete, only missing a proper Icon. The status effect it applies is completely unused as well, acting like a cross between Attack and Confuse.
2B			HolyCane	2	0/0	2	Missing Item - Priest Cane	The name and description suggest this is a prototype for the Shining spell. As is, the spell does nothing.
2C			*Orb	1	0	2	Elbesem's Treasure Orb	Has a unique description compared to the other Item spells. May have originally intended to be a equip spell.
33			Bld-Cane	1	0	3	Full magic recover w Negate	Blood Cane, a Long-range healing spell similar to Aura Lv 2. Like *Orb, it seems this was also originally intended to be a spell. Appears to share a connection with Negate Cane
34			???(???)	4	1/18/2/1	0(self)	????	Half functional/Partially deleted Self-Destruct spell. Oddly loads X3BUTTFL.BIN for animations, and ONLY targets allies. 1 and 4 does no damage whatsoever, while 2 and 3 will claim the user expired, then apply damage based on the spell level.

Items/Enemy Attacks

Each item in the game, and certain enemy attacks are considered Spells internally, though it seems they were commented out. Attempting to load the ID, results in it being set to 00(???/?????). It is possible *Orb was suppose to be broken the same way, if it wasn't originally intended to be a spell.

Name	Description	Notes
*Heal	Med Herb, Heal Drop, Potion, Heal Rain	Description is a list of items that call the spell.
*Restore	Goddess Tear, Holy Rain, Magic Ring
*Cure	Antidote, Fairy Powder
*Return	Angel Wing
*Raise 1	Power Wine, Armor Milk, Quick Chickn	Chicken was mispelled.
*Raise 2	Agile Onion, Happy Cookie
*Raise 3	Health Bread, Brain Food
*Level	Brave Apple
Fire Brt	Spit fire
Bliz Brt	Spit blizzard
Thun Brt	Spit lightning
Windwing	Wind attack
DemonBrt	Summons evil spirit
Aqua Brt	Spits water
Acid Brt	Acid burns and slows
Chaos	Summons chaos vortex	Not used by the game at all. Later used in Scenario 3 by Galm.
X-Spark	Colossus,Multi-Target Laser
Hammer	Colossus,High Damage Punch
Boomrang	Colossus,Multi-Target Punch	Shortened Boomerang.
Panic	Harpy hyper-sonic blast
Tremor	Golem Right punch L1, Left punch L2
RockFall	Golem's Boulder-throwing Laser Eye

Unused Status conditions

• BERSERK

• Berserk icon.png

{Character} is going berserk!
Gone berserk, attacks anyone nearby
{Character} regains self-control!