Had potential, but fails miserably. Seriously.
User Rating: 5.6 | Shining Soul GBA
Shining Soul. Take a look at some of the screenshots. It looks nice, doesn't it? Looks fun? That was my first impression too. But, unlike Diablo or any other game in this genre, it sucks. Obviously, an explanation is needed. First of all, it's a dungeon crawler. That automatically makes the fun-factor iffy. But Dark Cloud 2 did it right, didn't it? .hack did it right didn't it? So, the pure monotony is inexcusable. The game has a decent level-up system, but it takes for-frickin'-ever to level up anywhere past level 4. Then, comes the actual gameplay. Hack n' Slash games done right are usually inexplicably addictive. This game is inexplicably mind-numbingly dull. Like washing the dishes. Or Spanish homework. It takes roughly 34 slashes to kill some of the tougher enemies, literally. This is mostly because of a phenomonal "Miss" addition. How the hell do you miss every single one of a group of 7 enemies directly in front of you? Whatever. It's also incredibly easy to avoid a gameover. Just run away, turn around, slash, repeat. Rather like Diablo, except minus the toughness of the enemies. And you can actually run right through them. The level design is mediocre and so is the music. After all this, you have the option to re-beat the game in "Hard" mode. I believe it was called "Challenge." It's the same deal, except the level design and monster design is even more blandly colored. Excellent. I suppose it's supposed to represent the darkness that's settled over the world. There are also 3 other characters which amount to 3 more equally dull play-throughs. The sequel is far superior, just for future reference.
Only get this game if you've beaten every other GBA game you own, twice.
