Shining Soul

"In keeping with the series, another Shining is blatantly mediocre AGAIN."

HISTORY
Back in 1991 the Shining series began with a Genesis game called Shining in the Darkness. It was followed by Shining Force, a strategy-like RPG with turn-based battles, and was followed by sequels for both the Genesis & the Saturn. Unfortunately the series, though supported by a fanbase, was never a runaway hit or anything spectacular, and sadly Shining Soul for the GBA keeps with that formula as being perfectly mediocre.

VISUALS 7/10
I really wanted to like this game & tried very hard, because it's so graphically pleasing. It is pretty too look at, the colors are vibrant and the atmospheres are lush & detailed. The characters you have to choose from are cool, and there are tons of items to collect. Bosses are large & imposing, and well designed, even if the enemies somewhat lack originality amongst each other. Unfortunately just looking pretty and collecting things does not a great game make, and it's in the other departments where Shining Soul is lacking.

CHARACTERS 6/10
You can choose to be one of four character types: a warrior, an archer, a wizard, or a dragonute (dragon-human hybrid). Each of these character classes allows for a different game experience, but they're all functionally identical; you aim yourself at enemies and mash the attack button. From time to time you may change your weapon or magic, or you can set heal-type items as the right shoulder-button to quickly heal in the heat of battle. Unless you're not surrounded by hoardes of enemies, don't open up your menu screen as you'll continue to be attacked while you shuffle through your inventory looking for items. Archers and wizards have a greater range of attack and are a bit weaker, while warriors and dragonutes are strong melee classes that fight in the face of the enemies. As you gain levels you're able to allocate points to your main stats, like strength and dexterity, as well as distribute skill points. Skill points allow you to raise weapon and magic proficiency levels and to raise the levels of other abilities that are class-specific, such as defense for the warrior, critical hits for the archer, etc. The system is nothing new.

STORYLINE 5/10
In the land of Rune, the Dark Dragon has gathered up an army of Darkness. His motive? The typical destruction of the world (yawn). You are the hero of the Shining Fleet, preparing to make the final move on the 5 generals trapped in the Runefaust region. The odd thing is, there doesn't seem to be any Shining Fleet at all, other than you, and your lonesome badass self has to take on the job entirely alone. You start off in Prontis, your home village, and when you leave you go to a larger map and can choose the dungeon, cave, forest, cavern, etc. to go to from there. Utterly average scenario, you've heard it a thousand times...and unless this is the first RPG you've ever played, you will in all likelihood be unimpressed.

GAMEPLAY 5/10
Here's the sad part. The gameplay is a woefully tedious hack-n-slash dungeon-crawling that never seems to advance in difficulty or present much of a challenge. You walk into a room and enemies materialize out of thin air and quickly swarm around you so you can barely tell which way you're facing. Not to fear, though, just pound away on the attack button & whittle them down. If you need to take a few steps back to come back at them, they are too slow to keep up with you (and you're pretty slow to begin with) so you can easily reposition yourself. The stupid thing is, you will quickly discover you can hide behind objects (for example, behind prison bars) and pound away on the dumb slobs even though THEY can't reach YOU. On the other hand you may stand there directly in line with a monster missing him over and over even though he's hitting you every time. Once you've inanely cleared the level of all monsters a little bell rings letting you know the exit has opened & you may move on...to more of the same. At LEAST once you've destroyed the enemies, they're gone forever & don't regenerate just because you reenter an area.

If you run low on resources, you will need to warp out of the dungeon so make sure you have at least one of the items to get you out of there everytime you leave Prontis. When you do (or if you die) you will be warped back to town where you may recharge, rest, buy and sell things and then use the portal to go right back to where you left off in the level, unless you save and turn the game off. Then the portal back to the dungeon is gone & you've got to start (just) that level over from the beginning. Or if it is a boss battle and you die, you can warp back but they start over when you return. You may also save within the dungeon with the same level restart as if you saved & turned off in town. There are worse games on the GBA that don't allow you game suspension saving but this one is mildly annoying since, if you need to turn the game off at certain times, you will lose some progress.

Linking up is neat but since the difficulty isn't any harder than when you're by yourself, and the game is so quick & easy to finish alone, it's very nearly pointless to play with others since the help is unneeded. Non-playing characters barely speak to you during the game and hints are not even mildly interesting or terribly helpful, either.

MUSIC/SOUND 4/10
The music is unmemorable, repetitive themes that loop endlessly, and the sound effects are nearly null. Except for some small grunts no one seems to make much noise at all, not even bosses. You will not turn the game off humming the songs, I can tell you that much. It makes the game feel very ''flat'' and aurally 2-dimensional. None of your friends back in Prontis make so much as a peep, nor do the enemies.

SUMMARY 5/10
Looking good does not save this game from its bland, blatantly repetitive gameplay. It's not that the game should be avoided, but be prepared for pure button-mashing action when you go to play it. Personally I couldn't take much more than an hour of it at a time. It's not a long game at all, either; you can easily pound through it in 15-20 hours not leaving much unexplored, and you may come away feeling entirely unchallenged. It's got some redeeming values like the fun of equipping stuff you find or pay to have made, but you're limited to how much you can carry and finding a zillion items for character classes that don't apply to yours are frustrating as hell. Seasoned RPG'ers, stay away from this one. Shining fans are gonna go for it just because it's part of the series but be prepared to be disappointed (again?). Maybe for newbies to the genre they might have a little fun or have their confidence boosted.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 10/22/03