Just finished pic related. Overall it was great. Already have

>>4235707
The only explanation I have for the ending is that Max found horse pussy disgusting and decided to fake his death to get away from Mae.

Also it really depends on who you use, if you have a bunch of knights or don't find the good weapons for your characters or even level them enough it is very easy for loads of people to fall behind.

>>4235707
>I had maybe 6 OP characters by the end with everyone else being almost useless

This tends to be the case with most SF games, unfortunately. I don't like the character balancing or the level up system at all. The randomization of some levels makes it possible (and later frequent) to get absolutely no stats from a level up. So save scumming is necessary to avoid getting stuck with weak characters.

Since the AI has a bloodlust for Max, his stats are probably the ones you want to pay the most attention to. He's supposed to get some pretty crazy level ups after promotion, but it is still statistically impossible for him to get stuck with insufficient HP or defense power.

>>4236014
>statistically impossible

* statistically possible

>>4235707
There's a heavy random element to level gains. Some characters take more training than others, but unless you're power gaming I think it's fair to say that regularly using any character makes him or her useful. Don't worry too much about it.

Your interpretation of the ending is actually correct, lol. The ending is elaborated upon in a pretty retcon-esque way in Shining Force: Final Conflict for the Game Gear. Since you're playing Shining Force II next, I think it's worth noting that 1 and 2 have like, almost nothing in common in regards to plot, or should I say absolutely NOTHING save for one specific item. Final Conflict retcons a bunch of stuff to bridge both games' plots, so check it out if the story interests you.

Also, there's a GBA remake that has a slightly altered story, but most of the "alteration" is perceived as such because the Genesis translation omitted a bunch of stuff. The GBA remake actually brought back the writer from the original game and as such it's completely incompatible with the shining series canon, but if you want to see what the original writer had in mind you could check it out. It also has new gameplay gimmicks that make it different enough to be interesting.

>>4236020
>Also, there's a GBA remake

Yeah, but the translation is really bad, and making over all the battle sprites into palette blobs didn't help any either.

I think I'd recommend playing SF1 on Genesis / MD, then later Final Conflict for additional clarity.

>>4235707
cool blog post

>>4236025
If we go by which translation conveys the meaning of the original text better, the GBA translation is far better than the Genesis version.

I do agree that the sprites look funky, although I do like the style of the redone portraits.

>>4236020
>Your interpretation of the ending is actually correct, lol.
That's unfortunate. Dark Dragon was only resurrected by Dark Sol after sacrificing himself when the battle was lost so it only maked sense for the hero to do the same to make sure he stays dead. Teleporting everyone out and selflessly sacrificing himself is a noble end. Being alive working in some field while everyone thinks your dead kinda takes away from that.

>>4236014
>AI has a bloodlust for Max
Him and archers. They fucking hated my archers.

Wasn't someone working on a retranslation for SF1?

>>4236152
>If we go by which translation conveys the meaning of the original text better

But it doesn't, Anon. The English translation (if that's what we're referring to) is incredibly butchered.

>>4237824
If we're talking about Atlus' English translation for the GBA version, then what you read in English is exactly what you get in Japanese, whether you like the style it has or not.

The Genesis translation is the one that's incredibly butchered. What >>4237754 is talking about, as far as I know, is this: https://forums.shiningforcecentral.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=25976

The patch is incomplete, but that page does link to a series of posts where a full retranslation and comparison of the MD/Gen scripts is available, so you can tell just how butchered the Genesis translation was.

Incidentially, that page also talks about how the GBA translation is much more accurate.

>>4237834
>then what you read in English is exactly what you get in Japanese

No it's not. I've played both versions. I ended up sticking with the Japanese ROM because too many liberties were taken with the English translation. Which is not untypical of Atlus and third-party IPs.

(Incidentally, I did 100% this port just because I was curious about the added content. But in all honesty, I still prefer the original game for Gen / MD.)

>>4237864
That's why I mentioned style. The style of the English translation takes liberties and give characters manners of speech that didn't exist in the original script. But, at its core, the content of what they're saying in English is the same as what they're saying in Japanese, which is pretty different from the MD translation, where you have a bunch of plot points vanishing for no real reason.

>>4237874
>But, at its core, the content of what they're saying in English is the same as what they're saying in Japanese

Um, no it's not. I really don't want to dig up the scripts and give you a blow by blow description of every arbitrary change that was made. And you said it yourself,
>The style of the English translation takes liberties and give characters manners of speech that didn't exist in the original script
This isn't the only thing wrong with the English script, but man, you are really understating just how massive of a liberty this is. I don't think a single character retained their proper dialect (or rather an equivalent one, since we are talking about Japanese to English)
So much shit is made up on the spot that it's not even funny.