Shining Soul

"Pressing the A button forever"

I have always enjoyed the Shining Force series on the Genesis. I was surprised to hear about the new Shining Force coming to the GBA and also being a real time RPG. I thought: ''It looks like Secret of Mana! SoM was great! This should be too!'' Well, my expectations have not been up to par...

Gameplay
If you have ever played Secret of Mana, then you understand how this game is. For the uninitiated, it's a like hacking and slashing at enemies without a bar to limit the time you attack. It's pretty fun at first with the attack till you drop or heal system. The main problem is that is all you do. Smash the A button and dodge enemy attacks. The game does has four characters for you to chose from. The characters happen to have the generic character set ups: The average warrior, long range attacker and runner, weak magic user, and strong but slow dude. I didn't see a difference in any of the characters aside from a sprite change and weapon difference. The same goes for the enemies. Palate changed enemies. The bosses are nothing more than dodge and slash. Not very exciting for me. Saving is also annoying. You have to reset the game to save. That just wastes my time when I want to save. One major problem that irked me was the pause. Pausing doesn't pause. Enemies can still attack you. That made a massive question mark float over my head when I figured that out.
3/10

Graphics
Not bad at all. They are on par with Tactics Ogre and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. They are colorful and lively. Nicely animated and not very original. The game has no variety in enemies expect for multiple color switches and mostly the same attack patterns. Nothing very unique or worth noting here. The graphics are pretty good and that's all that can be said about them.
8/10

Music
Not much to be honest. Usual whack and slash sound bites with some unforgettable background music. Nothing to major here, but it might be the fault of the GBA's sound processor more than anything else.
3/10

Story
Something about saving the world from some dragon. I didn't find anything deeper than that. Sorry. It's pretty shallow for an RPG.
2/10

Controls
Simple enough. Move with the D-Pad. Attack and charge up attacks with A. Use item with B. Use L and R to cycle through weapons and items. Start to open menu. Not bad at all. Get used to mashing that A button like heck, you'll need to use it like crazy. All in all, very decent.
8/10

Replay
I've only played through 5 areas. I think there are a couple more but I am too bored to continue. I just can't take an RPG like this for too long. It's so boring. Congratulations on finishing it, if you do. If you must be that bored, e-mail me and tell me ending.
2/10

Buy or Rent
Rent it. If you like it, you should be able to beat in the renting time. It's a relatively mediumish boring game so it shouldn't take too much time. I wouldn't buy it unless you really love Shining Force games or must have a complete GBA library.
Rent

Overall
Wow. This game is under average. It has some fun hacking moments in the beginning but fades quickly. It has a nice foundation of a good game but the programmers and developers must have gotten lazy near the end. Play Secret of Mana for SNES to get the real real time RPG feeling.
4/10

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 03/02/03, Updated 03/02/03