Shining Series Emulation

• What is Emulation?
• Emulating Genesis/Mega Drive Shining games
• Emulating Sega CD/Mega CD Shining games
• Emulating Game Gear Shining games
• Emulating Saturn Shining games
• Emulating Game Boy Advance Shining games
• Earl's Emulation FAQ
• Got questions? Visit the SFC Emulation Forum

While emulators are the programs used to play these games on your computer, the games themselves come as files called ROMs for cartridge-based games and ISOs for CD-based games. Do not ask me where to find any ROMs or ISOs.

Since I'm no expert on emulation - nor do I desire, or have the time to - I'll leave the description at that. Should you wish to learn more about emulation, I recommend you search the web for relevant sites, try Zophar's Domain or ask questions at the SFC Emulation Forum. I cannot provide technical support for the use of emulators. If you have emulation problems, please do not ask me. Someone at the SFC Emulation Forum can probably provide you with the help you need.

I no longer offer the emulators for download from this site. Since emulators are always under development and changing all the time, I think it's best that you go to Zophar's Domain for all your emulator needs.

Remember that although emulators aren't illegal, ROMs are illegal. They are pirated software and unless you own the real game you really should not download the ROM or ISO. Of course, since the systems are very old now and the games no longer available in shops, it probably doesn't really matter anymore (although let's not get into legal/moral arguments here!). If you download the ROMs and are caught by any organisation that works against software piracy, on your head be it. That being said, it's quite unlikely that anyone will know you're using it. The decision, in the end, is yours, and I cannot be held responsible for any actions taken against you (or any loss/damage) as a result of using ROMs, ISOs or emulators.

Some popular emulators include: Gens, GeneCyst and DGen; though others are available and you'll need to find one that runs well on your system. The emulators offer a range of features, including the ability to save at any point of play, capturing screenshots and even creating save files that can be modified by other programs to change your stats and so on. They ought to run well on almost any computer. You can find a selection of emulators at Zophar's Domain.

You can also play an original copy (or CDR) of the game in some of the emulators, if your Sega CD/Mega CD is broken.

There are a number of reasonable Sega CD emulators available. I suggest you look at Zophar's Domain to find one. Alternatively, the original system can be picked up quite cheaply, and is able to play game CDRs (ie, burn the ISO to a CD) without any modifications.

Sega CD/Mega CD emulators require a Sega CD/Mega CD BIOS ROM file, which is usually distributed seperately. You'll need to search the web for the relevant BIOS file, usually details of this will be in the readme file that comes with your emulator.

Probably the most popular emulator is MEKA, which you can download at Zophar's Domain, or find out about other emulators available.

Only Sword of Hajya is available in English, the other ROMs being Japanese only. Sword of Hajya is also available in Japanese as Shining Force Gaiden II. Translation 'patches' are available for the Final Conflict ROM, but are incomplete, since the dialogue text of the game is stored in a strangley compressed manner, which is extremely difficult - nay, impossible - to edit. So, though the names of characters, items and spells may be translated through the use of such a patch, the story itself is still in Japanese. You'll have to refer to the scripts here at SFC if you want to understand them.

Even if you do find them, the only Saturn emulators that actually play any games are still very much under development. They run very slowly (not even half the original speed), even on a top-spec PC, and most graphical and sound features are not working yet. The hardware of the Saturn is, apparently, very difficult to emulate. Not only that, but they won't run ISOs, they have to run from a CD. So you'll need to burn any ISOs you pick up and play them that way. The two most advanced Saturn emulators are Satourne and SSF - you can find out more about them through Zophar's Domain.

Saturn emulators require a Saturn BIOS ROM file, which is usually distributed seperately. You'll need to search the web for the relevant BIOS file, usually details of this will be in the readme file that comes with your emulator.

At the moment, you're probably best trying to pick up the genuine games while they're still available. For more info on the SSF Saturn Emulator, click here. If you have to resort to playing a pirate/burned ISO game on your Saturn, the swap trick can be used, or a mod chip can be bought from www.madeiragames.com (UK), www.lik-sang.com (HK) or www.playthegames.com (USA) and installed in your Saturn quite simply.

And no, there is no way to play the Japanese Scenarios of Shining Force III in English through an emulator, nor are there any plans for a 'patch', due to the complexity of the dialogue code in the Shining games. You'll have to refer to the scripts here at SFC if you want to understand them.

Update: 06-Aug-03
Sega Japan recently launched an online (in Japan only) Saturn Emulation/game rental system. The emulator used was a modified version of the fanmade GiriGiri emulator, and after Sega modified it, another fan hacked it to work with ISOs and CD based games. Being an illegally hacked & modified version of a piece of copyrighted software, the hacked Saturn Emulator (GiriGiriGav) is also illegal, and as such I will provide no further information on it, or it's whereabouts!

Emulation (last updated September 07, 2002) Sections: I. Emulator recommendations II. Using specific emulator features III. Specific game questions IV. About Saturn emulation V. Where can I find... VI. Miscellaneous I. Emulator recommendations A. Genesis / Sega CD / 32x 1. Gens ( http://gens.consolemul.com ) 2. Kega ( http://www.eidolons-inn.de/kega ) a. Will also run SMS / GG games b. But, from what I hear, NOT the Shining GG games 3. AGES ( http://www.emuitalia.com/ages ) a. Will also run SMS / GG games 4. Xega ( http://xega.emucamp.com ) 5. Genecyst and Kgen are not recommended a. They are both DOS, and DOS emulators have sound trouble on XP b. They are both discontinued; there will be no improvement c. They are outdated - overall, there are better emulators availible d. HOWEVER, if your computer is very slow (133 MHz), and DOS is an option, you may want to consider one of them B. Sega Master System / Game Gear 1. FreezeSMS ( http://www.freezesoftware.com/ ) 2. Dega ( http://www.finalburn.com/dega ) 3. Past-O-Rama ( http://www.system16.com/pastorama ) 4. Meka ( http://www.smspower.org/meka) C. Other systems 1. NES - NNNesterJ ( http://www.emulation9.com/r1 ) 2. SNES - Snes9x or ZSNES ( Http://www.snes9x.com and http://www.zsnes.com ) 3. PSX - ePSXe ( http://www.epsxe.com ) II. Using specific emulator features A. Savestates 1. Rename them so that the states and the ROM have the same name. a. Rom: "Shining in the Darkness.zip" State: "Shining in the Darkness.gs*" b. If state name and ROM name do not match, the state will not load c. Savestates and save games are two different things B. Screenshots 1. The screenshot button varies from emulator to emulator a. Look in the emulator's readme, search for 'shot' or 'capture' b. In some emulators, the feature is not present III. Specific game questions A. Shining Force CD 1. 'Backup RAM cart not initialized' (applies to any Sega CD game) a. Instead of pressing start at the start-up screen, press A b. Go to Options (or Memory, depending on BIOS) c. Format RAM d. This is a first-run, one time only thing 2. Freezing at specific points (applies to any Sega CD game) a. Enable perfect synchro 1. In Gens, it's found in the CPU menu 2. In Kega, it's found in the Options menu 3. In Xega, it's found in Sega CD>Sync Options menu 4. AGES has no perfect synchro, but it doesn't freeze 3. No audio, or desynched audio (applies to any Sega CD game) a. You're playing from an .iso, without .mp3s 1. This can cause trouble; some games freeze without their audio tracks 2. No .mp3s means no music; there's no way around that b. You're playing from an .iso, and your .mp3s are misnamed 1. The naming convention for ISO/MP3 sets MUST be used a. track.iso, track02.mp3, track03.mp3... b. NOT track01.iso, or track.iso and track01.mp3; THAT WILL NOT WORK 2. You shouldn't just rename any old .mp3 for this (audio length is important) c. You're using an original (or properly copied) CD 1. Make sure sound is enabled (especially CDDA) 2. Make sure your speakers are plugged in :þ B. Virtua Racing (Genesis) is not properly emulated by anyone C. Shining Force III 1. See About Saturn emulation 2. SSF crashes when a character casts a spell IV. About Saturn emulation A. Emulators 1. SSF 2. Satourne 3. The GiriGiri Project B. The Saturn is incredibly complex, so it's emulation is slow 1. Expect 5 FPS on a PIII 650 MHz, tops 2. It will probably never run full speed on anything less than 1 GHz C. Interest 1. The Saturn was far less successful than the PSX, so... 2. ...Fewer people have access to Saturn hardware and games V. Where can I find... A. An emulator for... 1. Zophar's Doman ( http://www.zophar.net ) 2. NGEmu ( http://www.ngemu.com ) 3. The Vintage Gaming Network ( http://www.vg-network.com ) 4. Emu Help ( http://www.emuhelp.com ) 5. Individual emulator homepages B. ROMs for... 1. Forget it. **Don't ask for ROMs here**. 2. IIRC, you can get a full set of Intellivision ROMs at The Vintage Gaming Network. The company that produced them has made them public domain, or whatever the correct term would be; e.g. they're perfectly legal to download. 3. Public domain (PD) ROMs can be found at ( http://www.pdroms.com ) VI. Miscellaneous A. I can't download anything! 1. You're chosing "open" or "run from current location" or something like that. Chose "save" or "save as" instead. B. I'm getting an error when I try to load a ROM! 1. Check the file filter when loading the ROM. Some emulators have to be told what kind of ROM they're loading. 2. The emulator does not have zip support. Unzip the ROM. a. Unzip? What's that mean? 1. ROMs are distributed in compressed archives, to reduce file size. The most common kind of archive is .zip. Go to http://www.winzip.com or http://www.powerarchiver.com C. How do I use Gen-Edit? 1. Forget it, unless you don't mind dealing with DOS prompts a. Okay, fine. Throw Gen-Edit into C drive. Double click Command.com. At the prompt, type "gen-edit.exe". I'm not going to hold your hand and walk you through, so if you don't like going through that, you can see why I said "forget it" 2. The version in "regenedt.zip" is easier to use, but it's still DOS. 3. Use SFedit instead ( http://geocities.com/n_404/sfedit.html ) It does everything you probably want to use Gen-Edit for, and SFedit runs in Windows. And is generally much easier to use. D. What's the difference between a ROM and an ISO? 1. A ROM is an image of a cartridge-based game 2. An ISO is an image of a CD (*any* CD, not just games) a. Want a better description? Maybe later, when I get around to updating this thing again.