It's been a long time since my last review and I have read these chapters a several times now. Now would be a good time to leave a review.

Firstly the story itself gripping and unpredictable, well not the whole story, but the events and episodes within. The plot doesn't sound farfetched and you have etched out environment and the characters quite clearly for me to see in my mind. So the story so far has been quite enjoyable. What happens next is anyone's guess. I am curious to about the soul that becomes Oddeye.

As for the characters they are crisply written and you have given each of them a unique personality which is quite pleasing. There are few humorous moments and none of them feel flat or forced. So I commend you for that.

As for the prose, grammer and vocabulary they are top notch. You are a better writer than I am. And I have learned a few things from you. So thank you.

Looking forward to the next chapter brother. Hope you update soon.

Till next time then. :)

I've let this chapter stand for far too long without a review. Overall, I like it. In this fic each chapter gets better than the last one.

Of course, it helps that the plot really starts to take off in this chapter. Your description of the evil world is certainly fitting and interesting to look at and the little hints about why the various characters behave as they do in SF2 are well-placed in the hierarchical tensions in this fic.

Evil Spirit is the big reveal of this chapter of course and you seem to have been going in a pretty interesting direction with that. It's hard to tell now exactly what's going on there, but the character is spot on from the game too.

The only strong negative about this chapter is that Evil Spirit seems a little inconsistent in manner. The writing is a little stronger too, though you still sometimes overuse your adverbs.

Well, if it took far too long to arrive, at least this chapter is a considerable improvement over the first two. I like the ironically lighthearted tone you're using for this fic. It's very entertaining and manages to feel not wholly out-of-place with the characters and setting.

The expedition into the heart of Arc Valley is well-written, and the threat in inherent to contacting those pillars makes sense and throws a nice screwdriver into Creed's plan.

Just one error of note: "He'd be expecting something..." Wrong tense there.

I recognized Evil Spirit during your first visual description of him, so good job on making his personality and appearance recognizable. He makes a suitable addition to the cast, and it actually fits pretty well with the canon that he first encounters Creed here. His cohabitation in Creed's mind is decently written, though the description of it is more interesting than its actual manifestation.

The little scene between Zeon, Evil Spirit, and the greater devils is quite engaging, each of them coming off with a distinct personality, and all of them playing off each other in a lively manner. Zeon is given better characterization here, coming off as not nearly so disinterested and slow-witted. However, you've vastly overused the word "bellow".

So, Creed's quest has become more complicated than it seemed at first glance, and with another character in the mix now as well, the next chapter promises to be interesting indeed.

I literally shouted my happiness when I saw this had updated.

I like the addition of the spirit. His snippy comments make me chuckle. Is he, perhaps, the Evil Spirit from Shining Force 2?

My oh my. Why haven't I read this? I am simply amazed. The way you portrayed Lucifer, Darksol and Zeon is too good to be expressed in words.

Geshp is like a typical underling which I like. Volcanon is fiery and magnificent, just like in the game.

If this was in a Shining Force site I would have taken this as a cannon back story. This story is really that good.

A few grammatical mistakes but other than that, this fic is pure gold.

Interesting depiction of the lives of the Greater Devils and the relationship between them all. Not badly written.

Wow, that was a pretty interesting chapter. I can't wait to see if this is how Oddler ends up being born.

I also like how you've added more character depths to the greater devils. It's entertaining to see how Geshp can't get along with any of the other devils.

This was pretty cool. Can't wait to see when Oddler comes in.

Very much enjoying this so far. Your language doesn't get too repetitive and the piece flows nicely. I really enjoy the background it gives to the universe. Some people aren't even aware of the existence of Lucifer in cannon, and it was interesting to make him a foil for Volcanon. The characterizations of the Greater Devils are so good. They're relationships with one another are really intriguing. All in all your piece is very well written, and with a little tightening up has a ton of potential. Definitely keep at it.

On the whole this is a pretty solid update with some very intriuging content, albeit a couple of slighlty more serious flaws.

I have to echo Martin's sentiment on the info-dump, it's just a little painful to read. Information like that is important and necessary to reveal to the reader, but it should never be necessary to do it all at once. It should be revealed in the scope of the scene. Although there's some decent synopsis material in your first section, most of the information on the Greater Devil's comes out as Creed deals with most of them. I would go back and rework that until you just have the essentials left: a minor synopsis of Zeon's state in Arc Valley.

I really enjoy most of the rest of the chapter for a couple of reasons. One, you're the first author to seriously tackle Creed as a character and that alone makes this worth reading. On the whole, I think you have his personality faithfully depicted, but he's just a little too crass, I think. Creed is forceful certainly, and determined, but from SF2 he always struck me as being elegant. He may be a bastard at points, but he's a gentleman bastard if you see what I mean.

I'm mildly uncomfortable with the squabbling of the devils, but not for the same reasons that Martin outlined. I think that it's very possible to write convincing forces of near omnipotence in very human terms. My main reservation isn't that they all hate each other, or rather that Geshp is jealous, Zalbard hates Geshp, Cameela's hotheaded enough to hate everyone and Creed's impatient, it's how they show their hatred. Geshp is particularly a problem in this way. He's enjoyable, but runs the risk of turning slap stick very quickly. And while I'm at it, I have to say that Zeon's detachment is a bit odd, but it's also an interesting read on what effect Arc Valley has on him.

On that note, the two things I loved most about this chapter was the setting which you render very interestingly, and Creed's magical speculations. All of the serious writers here have delved a little bit into the nature of magic, you, me and Martin amongst others, but this is some of the more extended stuff, and that alone merits a read from my perspective.

On the whole I was satisfied with the characters as well. As I said above, although Geshp bears watching for problems in the future, you've got a fair amount of his personality well transcribed. The only problem you risk running into is allow his pettiness to supercede his cleverness which is not borne out by the game. Cameela's a little lacking in depth, certainly, but the superficial aspects of her personality are there. And personally, I suspect that Creed is unwilling to give her credit for her tactical imaginativeness because most of her cleverness is not academically based, and therefore below his notice. Heh. Zalbard's note for note perfect. He's not ineffective, but he is the same man who, lest we forget, told Bowie of the dissension amongst the Devil Army commanders at a moment when he had no reason to do so, and every reason to pretend that he could get reinforcements easily.

You have a number of typos and some very awkward word choice in a few places, but all in all I found this a satisfying chapter.

Interesting story idea. For a while I've been planning a fic that would involve a post-Final Conflict Oddeye in a major role, so maybe I can nick an idea or two from this. That said, the content of these two chapters isn't terribly good, though I sense progression towards better stuff.

I don't know if you were ever sucked into the Dragonlance books, but I think chapter 1 has one of the same problems as Dragons of Summer Flame: By depicting gods in the same manner as mere mortals, and on top of that having them bicker like elementary school children, it dissolved all sense of the existence of something bigger than mankind, of the story being set in a world of the same magnitude and significance as ours. Recounting legendary events is always a tricky business, because unless delivered in a manner and style utterly distinct from normal prose, the events seem to lose their stature. Assuming that you tried to avoid that pitfall, I don't think you succeeded. I don't think this chapter should have been included, especially given that none of the added information seems to have any relevance to the rest of the story, not even chapter 2.

Also, a few points are iffy as far as consistency with the official version; for instance, the Storytellers say that the Jewel of Light wasn't created until after Zeon's powers were sealed away.

The opening section of chapter 2 is a still bigger problem, though. An undisguised infodump like this isn't something I'd expect from a writer with half your experience. And it's all characterization, which doesn't need to be told to the reader at all, since any relevant characterization just comes in as part of the story.

The rest of chapter 2 is a noticeable improvement, though I find the characterizations to be more than a bit off. In particular, Zeon is oddly disinterested, and you seem to have swapped Cameela and Zalbard's intellect levels. The latter I particularly dislike, as it follows the stereotypes of "pretty women are dumb" & "men with robes and facial hair are smart."

Despite all that, the direction of the story keeps me interested. There's no hint of you following any standard route with Oddeye's origin, and fitting it in with Zeon's bid for freedom is a good source of tension. Naturally you'll need something more once Oddeye himself enters the picture if this fic is to reach full throttle, but for the time being it works to keep the reader's interest.

And there are some entertaining points even within the present content. You have a well-realized vision of Arc Valley, and while I could quibble for quite a while on how literally you've interpreted the phrase "a place where evil power gathers", the key thing is that you have a consistent and often interesting picture of what the place is like. The lackadaisical attitude of the inhabitants is a realistic touch that I enjoy.

On a minor note, there is one puzzling bit of dialogue: "My king, with all due respect, you cannot remain like this forever." Why "with all due respect"?

Also, there a lot of typos: "...lifted it head to the sky.", "...who’d already turned back the face them.", "...the chasm were Zeon lay.", "...came from the Zeon’s prison," "...it was this that Zeon relied on to make decisions.", "...for any human to bare.", "...he challenged and order," "...meant very little where there," "...his theories would effect him.", "...before it left it’s body...", "It’s origin was...", "...managed to allude Creed...", "...he place it back...", “Don’t get to carried away,” "Once your remove them," "...powers of it’s own," "...certain purposes during to war...", "So maybe would could sort of…", "...we can use it’s powers...", "...to harness it’s powers," As ImonZ already noted, you seem to have a habit of sticking an apostrophe into "its".

So overall, not pleased with these chapters, but find the overall idea interesting enough to keep reading.

Wonderful characterization, dialogue and setting. We don't have much info on how Zeon's prison was like, but you use those details effectively to creat a believeable setting.

The characters feels very lively and clear.

Just don't mix present-time with past-time and don't confuse "it's" with "its".

I'll look forward to see how this will play out.

Well, to review your new debut!

Mike, what can I say? I'm in awe of your move here in depicting Lucifer as we had always envisioned. For that alone, you get major kudos. My only question regarding that; what do you mean with black and red? Wasn't he purple and green?

Anyway, on a more serious note, I don't think anyone has previously attempted to tackle the creation of the Jewels or the war of the Devil Lords, so I have to give you credit for taking on a piece of Shining lore that nobody else has done. I think I vaguely remember an older fanfic that did a little of the same thing, but it was completely nonsensical with an impossible timeline and time travel and whatnot, so this is vastly better.

Character wise? Zeon's definitely note for note perfect. The only problem is that he seems to only bellow at Geshp. It's okay at first, but as you keep repeating it, it almost becomes funny. Geshp is alright too. Of all the characters though, Darksol by far has the most flavor. Lucifer reads as expected, but that's only because I'm familiar with the theory you're operating under (by which I mean, he'll read fine to other people, but they won't get the history involved, so there won't seem to be much of his character for them to chew over). Volcanon is pretty much canon as well. Same hot temper and all.

Obviously this little bit is more plot driven than character driven, but seeing that all fans of SF2 know this basic story, there's not much to comment on either other than the fact that it's realistically depicted. This is obviously just an entrypoint for what will later be a more creative endeavor.

The only real negatives to this piece are a few grammatical errors, typos, and spelling mistakes. Nothing too serious for someone who can basically write well, but a problem nonetheless. There's also one spot of very awkward phrasing that I thought I'd highlight, because that was my only real 'lolwut' moment.

“So it is..." Zeon saying this to Geshp in response to the white flags is almost a non-sequitor. I can tell what the intent of the statement is, but it doesn't really follow from what Geshp said. It would be more natural to say, "So they have," or "So it would seem," or something like that.

Otherwise, no complaints. This is a good start to getting back into getting back into getting back into fanfiction.