Shining Soul II

Game Boy Advance

Sega/Atlus - 2004

Shining Force was a game made way back during the Genesis Age. No, not the Book of Genesis age, the System Genesis. Shining Force was one of the first strategy RPGs for a console, and the premier for North America. Now we all know that Shining Force was just a copy of Fire Emblem for the NES, but we will ignore that for now. Shining Force, or Shinning Force as I like to call it, to protect myself from copyright laws, told the story of a boy and his army who saved the world. While basic and quite easy, it set the stage for many a Shining Game. (Really the truth is there was a game, Shining the Darkness, that was made before it, but no one remembers that.) After around 15 Shining Games, Sega decides to continue its license over to the GBA. It makes a game, Shining Soul, that is extremely reminiscent of Diablo. Extremely. Think Diablo with cute characters.

So what does this have to do with Shinning Soul II? Well it is the sequel, duh. Or in this case the first. Because we have chosen to ignore the first Shinning Soul. Due to a simplistic, linear quest, basically no plot, and boring gameplay, not to mention the inability to save during a dungeon, this Shinning Soul I have chosen to ignore completely, hereby erasing from the records. Shinning Soul I now becomes: Shinning Soul: Bad, while Shinning Soul II becomes therefore: Shinning Soul: Ok.

Yes. Ok. Not good as you were thinking. II was not a "Good" game. Just mildly acceptable for someone who needs a videogame.

The basic plot of SS:Ok is as follows. You choose your character, from one of 8. Whether it be Fighter, Dragonite, Mage, Healer (Yeah right), Vampire Mage, Werewolf or Ninja. I know what you are thinking. Ninja all the way. Let me tell you something though. Werewolf is the best character in the game. You can heal wounds over time, which ninja can't and you have a counter that auto-kills enemies. Ninja sucks in this game. (Number 1 reason this game is not "Good," there are better characters than a ninja. That makes NO sense.) So the plot. Your character goes to the king and listens to a 30 minute intro that you can't skip about how darkness is coming. You are sent by the king to different places, you beat the boss, and go back to town, sell your items, buy new ones, and repeat. Thats the plot. At the end you fight some demon, of course, and save the world. Really, for all the dialogue you can't speed thru, this game has less plot, or sensable plot, than the first Zelda game.

Now for the gameplay. The game plays like this: Charge your attack, walk away from enemy, charge your attack. Repeat. Woo Hoo. I love repitition. The only thing that keeps me going is the fact that level gaining is not that hard, and I kept hoping for some interesting levels. There are secret paths and such on each level, but nothing really mind blowing. There are a few secret areas too. They just play like the actual levels.

This game sounds awful, doesn't it? But I continued to play it. It was sorta interesting, good to play while someone played a different game, or you watched the teley. I guess the multi-player aspect (you and 3 friends) is cool, but I will never find anyone else who wants to play this game. So I will never know.

What liked: Cute characters. Not too difficult gameplay.

What disliked: repitition.

What to expect: Repitition.

What not to expect: Shining Force

What's so different from this and other games of it's genre: It is cuter than Diablo. Thats all.

Ratings on:

Control: 5 - It is hard to do diagonal attacks, and you can't run. Severly hinders the game.

Graphics: 7 - Cute, could be better, I've seen better (Mario and Luigi)

Sound: 5 - Turned it off right away. Never thought about it again.

Style: 0 - the first game had some style I guess. Diablo style. This being the first game, but improved, it lost all style points all together.

1st hour: 5 - Blah blah blah, stop talking I want to play.

5th hour: 5 - Ok, playing isn't very fun either.

1st week: 5 - Ok, you can start talking again, I hate playing.

5th week: 5 - I'll stop both. I'll just turn you off.

#1 reason why I hate this game: Shinning Force was good. This is BORING, and the people won't stop talking.

by Hawke