Shining Soul

Shining Soul is an action RPG with dungeon-crawler elements, developed for the Game Boy Advance by Nex Entertainment and published in the West by Atlus as part of the broad Shining family of games. The player picks one of several characters of different classes and heads into a network of dungeons full of enemies to face the dark forces threatening the world, while the story here mostly serves as a framework for continually pushing deeper into each level.

The gameplay focuses on real-time combat from an isometric perspective, collecting randomly generated gear, and gradually leveling up the character, which places the game closer to the action hack-and-slash RPG genre than to traditional story-driven Japanese RPGs. The game supported cooperative play for up to four players via link cable, making it one of the few titles of its kind on the GBA to offer a genuinely shared real-time multiplayer experience. The graphics are simple but functional, keeping characters and the environment clearly readable even with many enemies on screen, while the music adds a fitting adventurous atmosphere.

Among players, Shining Soul found its audience mainly thanks to its co-op mode and the simple but addictive loop of collecting better gear, even though the story side remained overshadowed by the game's purely action-driven nature. Today it's seen as an interesting, lesser-known representative of the dungeon-crawler genre on the GBA, valued especially by those looking for a handheld equivalent of Diablo-style games to play with friends. Its low barrier to entry and straightforward progression loop also made it a good choice for less experienced genre players who wanted to share an adventure with friends without needing deep familiarity with the more complex systems of classic JRPGs. Short play sessions make it easy to jump in even for just a little while, which, combined with the simple co-op, made the title a good choice for casual play in a group of friends.

Why play: Thanks to its cooperative multiplayer and simple gear-collecting loop, it's a great choice for short play sessions with friends, even without knowledge of classic JRPG systems.