Shining Soul 2

 
 Gameboy Advance are quite well known for its superb RPG Library, but not many notice that this platform also got some great Action RPG. Introducing Shining Soul 2! the second iteration of Sega's Action RPG on GBA loosely based on Shining series. This is one of the few Isometric action RPG game that ever hailed into RPG and when it comes to gameplay, had to be the best one even compared to Square Enix Sword of Mana.

 In Shining Soul 2, you get 8 playable RPG classes to set forth into the usual quest balancing the Light and Darkness of the world ranging from: Warrior, Ranger, Brawler, Dragonewt, Ninja, Priest, Wizard and Dark Wizard. Shining Soul 2 storyline might be utter garbage but it does make up with Gameplay especially when it comes to Character Customization and Crafting. What really stands out from Shining Soul 2 is its Character customizations and Crafting system.

 Each of the 8 Job class comes with several Skill trees that may affect characters playstyle and not all skills are made equal. My main class in this game were Ranger and Dark Wizard, but the most overpowered class in Shining Soul 2 is actually the Priest. Do not fooled with the support class designation, the Priest in this game hits very hard. Having Flail the strongest weapon class in Shining Soul as one of her weapon coupled with low invul Charge attack on top of Self healing capability can easily make a mincemeat on everything, whether enemy Creeps or other players on PVP mode.

As for the crafting system, Shining Soul 2 do incorporate some interesting mechanics that are even relatively uncommon in RPG game. Throughout the game, the player can obtain crafting material items such as Mythril, Orihalcon, Darkmatter, Scale and Bone which can be crafted into powerful equipments. The best endgame equipments in Shining Soul is obtained through crafting including the weapons which the combinations of Mythril/Orihalcon/Dark Matter will bear different sorts of weapon ranging from Soul Weapon from a complete set of Tier 2 Orihalcon or Fire weapons from Mythril/Dark Matter/Mythril combinations. Shining Soul 2 Material tier and crafting possibilities truly added a whole level of depth for this game and give some incentive for players to grind for. 

Games like Sword of Mana have some interesting mechanics such as branching Job classes, but nothing beats Shining Soul 2 when it comes to replay value with its Gameplay that incorporates novel yet deep gameplay mechanics. I still wonder to this day why Sega never continue the series despite the game had some really winning formula. 

The normal campaign can be finished relatively quick but you can expect very enjoyable grind in advanced mode and expect clocking 100+ hours if you aim for 100% completion. Because Shining Soul 2 full completion, you will need to grind for rare drops called monster card collectibles which will serve fill in this game's compendium. Truly, if you look for unlikely experience of anime style Diablo 2 Dungeon Crawling, you might surprisingly find that Shining Soul 2 able to fill in that wish. Just don't expect anything from the storyline though.