Brazilian Gamer Remakes Shining Force II For The DS

[Earnest Cavalli]

Brazilian Gamer Remakes Shining Force II For The DS

​

If you're anything like me, you've been whining about the lack of new Shining Force strategy games for years. If you're anything like Brazilian programmer Renato Bittencourt, you decided to do something about it.

Of course, just saying you're going to revive Sega's long-forgotten series is one thing. Renato however, has been working on his project for more than a year, adding new "graphics, music, characters, secrets, and more," according to Tiny Cartridge [http://tinycartridge.com/post/205973840/homebrew-shining-force-ii-remake-for-nintendo-ds], and has just released a video documenting his progress.

Honestly there's something about the main theme song that doesn't sit right with me -- it totally fits the series and the game and the setting, but something just seems slightly off -- but otherwise this looks like the faithful work of a man who knows the game inside and out. Even the icons blink at the appropriate speed!

Sadly, you should probably not get your hopes up for the remake to ever appear on U.S. shores. Sega will most likely come down like a bag of lawyers on Bittencourt's head the moment they hear of this. His being in Brazil will likely protect him from being sued into the Stone Age, but it may very well prevent his project from reaching the audience that Sega is seemingly happy to neglect.

Permalink

 

[Nimbus]

Why dosn't SEGA just offer to buy the thing off of him once it's complete?

C&Ds seem like such a waste.

 

[Krakyn]

I would be surprised if Nintendo wasn't on his ass about this. He's creating and using homebrew.

You know, I find it weird that most of the time the Escapist is in support of homebrew, but against the modification of consoles, which is how people run homebrew.

 

[Eric the Orange]

Eric is a sad Eric from lack of Shining Force strategy games

 

[happysock]

Aaaaaa man that looks sweet, hope he can sneak off onto our shores though.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

Why dosn't SEGA just offer to buy the thing off of him once it's complete?

C&Ds seem like such a waste.

Legal precident mostly. Buying the project/taking it off their hands seldom happens. If they set a legal precident for allowing/purchasing these projects it makes it harder to C&D them later.

 

[Snotnarok]

Wow, that's impressive, this just blew my mind. I didnt think there were many big fans of Sega RPGs since SNES seems to get all the attention in that dept even though genesis had some great RPG titles.

 

[hansari]

Legal precident mostly. Buying the project/taking it off their hands seldom happens. If they set a legal precident for allowing/purchasing these projects it makes it harder to C&D them later.

Then why not hire the guy to revive all of Sony's classics...the Brazilian will probably squeal like a girl and think he's the luckiest fanboy alive...

 

[Grampy_bone]

Ah, that brings back memories.

I doubt anything positive will come of this; Sega was more interested in making shitty hack n slash games with the license than anything else. And the DS is such a have for Strategy/Tactics games too, it would make a lot of sense.

 

[Valiance]

If Sega really has a problem with this, I'd employ them to get off their asses and port ShiFoIII and make ShiFoIV.

I've been dying to play them.

Unless of course they're saving it for a release title with the Dreamcast 2.

 

[Georgeman]

Hey I don't mean to be hurtful with this, but could you freaking stop reporting about these games until they are done?

Look it's hard enough when your working on a project that can be C&D without everyone and there mum running around the net talking about it!

I mean how would you feel to spend years working on a game as a labour of love, only for the progress to be reported and that report being used as a way to shut you down?

Now obviously I don't think HE is thinking about this if he's reporting about it to other news sites but if he had any sense he would shut his trap until it was done, out there and ready to be distributed.

Maybe he is doing this because he specifically wants Sega to notice him? I don't know... Just a thought.

 

[Lord_Jaroh]

I would be surprised if Nintendo wasn't on his ass about this. He's creating and using homebrew.

You know, I find it weird that most of the time the Escapist is in support of homebrew, but against the modification of consoles, which is how people run homebrew.

I never understood this anti-modding scene. I mean, I can buy a new mustang and add all sorts of toys to it to make it go faster, look prettier, make more noise, and it's all perfectly fine. But you start doing that to a console...

I mean, I bought the damn thing, let me do what I want with it! (The same with games for that matter).

On a more on-topic note: I want this badly. I would prefer a version to sit on my couch to, maybe 1 and 2 on the same disk on my PS3 (wishful thinking, I know) but I would love to get my hands on this and play through it. Go Bittencourt go!

 

[Ghalleon]

As a member of the SFC forums, I have been fairly up-to-date on this project's progress.

At the moment, SEGA and Nintendo (among other companies) have said nothing good or bad about the project. However, as long as it's a fan-made projet, there isn't much they can do. It'll be downloadable to the DS Flash Card, so that may be a hiccup in his plans.

The music he's using in the video is actually from Shining Force CD (a collection of Sega Game Gear Shining Force games remade for the Sega CD, as well as some other content), so that is why the music sounds "a bit off". He's having someone remake the actual SF2 music so that it is orchestrated and more modern.

As for it hitting US shores, it's in the works as well. As long as the project is allowed to continue, he's having a friend of his do a translation, and then it'll be corrected by people who speak english regularly. Granted, it's in the early stages of production (really early), but he says that, once the basic programming is done, the rest will be fairly simple (building maps, placing characters/enemies, etc).

He's working on contacting some publishing companies (ATLUS is the only one that comes to mind at the moment), but unless that happens, it's pretty-much a solo project. That is good, however, because (aside from adding in extra content to tie together loose ends) he's sticking to the original game, I don't know if he's using the script word-for-word or not (I don't know portuguese, so I can't tell from the videos).