Shining Force: Legacy of the Gods Translation Project
The Shining Force: Legacy of the Gods translation project is an ongoing production maintained by editors of this wiki that includes a fully playable English translation patch for Shining Force that is drawn more closely from the Japanese source material than the already available English localization released in 1993.
The Shining Lore & Translation Wiki was originally established to compile translation notes in service of this project.
Editor's Note
|
This section is a spoiler-free editorial. |
See alsoː Who Made the Shining Series? and Nothing Is Canon |
Legacy of the Gods
We have chosen the name Legacy of the Gods for our translation in reference to the game’s original Japanese title (シャイニング・フォース 神々の遺産, Shainingu Fōsu: Kamigami no Isan), which translates to English as Shining Force: Legacy of the Gods. This title is not as well known among English speakers as the game's alternative English title, Shining Force: The Legacy of Great Intention. This English title was used in Japanese marketing materials, the game's English release, and on the title screen for both versions of the game. The Legacy of Great Intention is a title that continues to perplex players to this day, and the more recent realization within the English-speaking community of Yoshitaka Tamaki's inclusion of a power known as the Great Intention in the Shining and the Darkness prequel comic Doom Blade has only led to a deepened sense of mystery and additional speculation.
In Shining Force, the idea of a legacy of the Gods is central to the game’s plot, and yet many longtime fans of the series will have difficulty identifying the idea or entity to which this legacy refers. We strongly believe that by the end of the story, players should clearly understand the legacy's thematic significance.
One of the most damaging rewrites in the original English localization was the revision of most references to the Gods to instead refer to the Ancients. Does the distinction really matter? We think that it matters a lot, but explaining this point in detail here would spoil the impact it has on how the game's original story unfolds.
Why This Translation Is Necessary
Many fans of the game are aware that the English localization of Shining Force leaves out some key plot details. Interested players might think they can play the game’s official English release and contextualize its story alongside a few missing facts if they want the whole picture. But they will have been cheated.
The very nature of how the player's understanding of the story and its themes progresses are altered in the English localization. Compared to the intent apparent in the original Japanese script, the game has an entirely different meaning. The changes are sweeping to such a degree that to express the full ramifications of them here would be to spoil the experience. It is possible to play and enjoy the official English release, but if the original story conceived by the game’s creators is a work of art, then the English script is someone else’s. They may as well be two separate stories.
It is with tremendous disrespect to the source material that the English localization changes not only the big details, but the small ones as well. Dialogue is often rewritten in a way that suggests the localizers did not even read portions of the original script. In comparison to the Japanese, parts of the English script feel fabricated entirely from visual context.
Consider an example from the beginning of the game that contains no spoilers. A merchant in the starting Kingdom of Guardiana refuses to sell any weapons to the player. The English localization: “Sigh, not another customer! Buy, sell, buy, sell. That’s all I do! Just go away!” In the original Japanese, the merchant is instead frustrated because the weapon trade has stalled during peacetime. What is the significance of this alteration? It would seem to be arbitrary. But then what can explain the rewrite? Why not just translate the script as it really is? Does the fabrication of a new context not require more work than a direct translation? It is as if the localizers said to themselves, “OK, we have a merchant who won’t sell to the player. What can we invent for them to say?” But with the realization that the nature of peace becomes a major theme of the Japanese script, it becomes apparent that the change truly does sabotage the story's artistic message. And changes like this are numerous.
A more obvious example is dialogue from the priest in the Guardiana chapel, a character among the first whom players will encounter. In the English localization, the priest has a nightmare of the city under attack. In the original Japanese, he has a dream that recounts his history with the protagonist, Max. In a few lines of expository dialogue, a significant detail of Max’s past is given that is completely missing in the English localization. It is a detail that alters Max’s place in society and his significance to the plot as a whole. So why would the English writers decide to change this detail?
Much of the English dialogue reads like less of an artistic interpretation of the original Japanese and more like a total invention. If the localizers did in fact read and grasp the original Japanese script, then they would have chosen to perform rewrites in preference of their own creativity. Perhaps they imagined a version of the protagonist and the setting that they thought might more readily appeal to their American target demographic. But the discussion of the legitimacy of these types of changes is long, and it is beyond the scope of this article.
Textual Accuracy and Authorial Intent
Our English translation seeks to represent as accurately as possible every denotation of the original Japanese presented in clear and appealing language. We have increased the number of text boxes that appear in the game to accommodate the increased length of a more complete English translation. Our philosophy is to omit nothing and invent nothing. We do not seek to alter or embellish any detail. We want players to finally be able to experience Shining Force in English as close as possible to the original authors’ intent.
We have chosen not to use media external to the original Japanese game script to inform our translation choices. We have avoided influence from decisions made by the game’s historical English localizers, and we have not looked to subsequent game releases like the 2004 remake. We are also unconcerned with the canon presented by any later Shining games. It is not possible to determine the veracity of previous localizations or even subsequently established “canon” to the intent of Shining Force’s original authors.
The first Shining Force had many creatives involved in its development who were absent in the production of later games and works in the series. It is impossible for any sequels to be completely faithful to the vision of authors who did not work on them. Shining Force was not the work of any single artist or studio, but a collaborative project between the many hardworking people at Climax Entertainment and Sonic! Software Planning at the time. In particular, consider the following credits:
Scenario: Masaki Wachi, Yoshitaka Tamaki, Hiroyuki Takahashi
Subscript: Masaki Wachi, Kenji Orimo, Haruki Kodera, Hiroyuki Takahashi
Scenario Assistant: Ritsuko Hisasue, Tadashi Iwase
Directed by: Yasuhiro Taguchi, Kenji Orimo
Produced by: Hiroyuki Takahashi
Much attention is given to the producer credits on the Shining series, but it is without question that the world and the story Shining Force was formed and sculpted by the hands of many artists. We do not know exactly what each of these people and those around them specifically contributed to the game, but we can see that Shining Force contains a plurality of visions. It is likely that these individuals and many others had a significant impact on what we see in the game’s original story and script. This is no doubt evident in the game’s unique setting, characters, and other story elements, along with its overall themes and the tone of the work. It is their legacy glimpsed through the first release of Shining Force that we wish to honor.
There is simply no other Shining game quite like the original Shining Force.
Character and Place Names
Shining Force has many names in the original Japanese script that are fantasy in origin. Some names are more clearly inspired by a source in English than others. But it is not possible to look at the kana and translate many of these names any single way. For example, the name Max is written as Makkusu (マックス) in the original Japanese. The only way to arrive at the name Max is to look at the precedent of the usage of the transliteration in Japanese and to make an inference. In this case, it is pretty easy to infer from how Japanese kana represent English pronunciation that the original intent is Max based on usage conventions alone.
Conversely, consider a name like Bariosu (バリオス), given as Varios in the English release. Through what process can we arrive at a satisfying interpretation of this? How do you take this name, which follows the rules of Japanese phonology, and extract an English approximation of its derivation? We have to imagine what the person who created the name might have been thinking. Japanese does not have a phoneme for the /v/ in "Va-", but it would be typical to represent the sound using the transcription va (ヴァ) or even the historical va (ヷ). It would also be possible to transcribe the English /va/ using the ba (バ) that we do see in Bariosu (バリオス), but this usage is identical to the transcription of /ba/, for which it is more common. We can conclude that Barios is a more likely candidate for a name that a Japanese writer might be thinking of.
Is there any precedent for the usage of this transcription to represent a particular foreign name? Looking in a Japanese dictionary, Bariosu (バリオス) is a typical transcription of the existing Spanish name Barrios. This seems like it could have been a plausible reference. But a perhaps more likely reference for a centaur character in a fantasy setting is the immortal horse from Greek myth named Balios (Βάλιος) in Ancient Greek, pronounced something like /ba.li.ós/. The modern English name is Balius, which has the much different pronunciation of /ˈbeɪliəs/, and is based more on the Latin.
Did the writers of Shining Force know any of this? Is this really what they had in mind? It cannot really be knowable, but we have chosen what we believe is the most likely reference. Although we at first leaned toward the name being a reference to the unrelated Spanish Barrios, it seemed the mythical Greek horse Balios was the more plausible thematic point of reference to the game’s Japanese authors. And so we have settled on translating the character’s name to Balios in our script.
A similar process has been used for the other fantasy names presented in the game. Apparent Greek points of reference are common. We have chosen not to incorporate name localizations from the original English release or materials external to the game like guide books, as there is no way to verify whether any of these English spellings were at all informed by the specific intent of the game's original authors.