Shining Soul Walkthrough

This walkthrough will cover all of the bosses in the game as well as how to build/optimize each of the classes that you can play. Shining Soul is a pretty straight forward game in both gameplay and dungeon design; to attack on every class all you do is hold down the A button (or press it) and the dungeons have no puzzles to speak of.

In the early game the only real decision that you need to make is whether or not you want to play a melee class or if you want to be ranged. The best ranged class in my opinion is the Wizard and the best melee one is probably the Dragonute. All classes in this game play the same way, you'll attack with A and do charged up power attacks by holding A.

Basically the combat in this game revolves around charging up your attacks to full charge and unleashing them to deal the most damage. You'll normally want to pick one weapon/spell for your class that you max out as soon as possible. For some classes you'll want to raise a secondary weapon/spell for monsters that are resistant to your primary attack and/or for bosses with unique strategies.

To use my favorite class (Wizard) as an example, I like to max out Blaze first. Blaze is a very powerful attack that works well for 98% of the fights. However, Blaze isn't effective against fire resistant monsters and it's also not the best for some bosses that have quick movement speeds (like the ones that turn into balls and roll around). For this reason I put points into Blast as well, it works well for situations that Blaze doesn't. You only need to raise a secondary weapon to level 2 or 3 at the most. That should be enough to cover the various situations you need it.

After maxing out your primary spell/weapon you'll want to focus on defensive skills next. Each class comes with a couple of defensive skills, you'll normally want to pick the one that works for the majority of attacks and put the most points into that. An alternative to this is you can pick two or three defensive skills and unlock the first few ranks in them to diversify a bit, that works too. Just keep in mind that some of these defensive skills are a lot worse than the others.

Continue to my Shining Soul Classes Guide

Outside of combat I have a few more tips and tricks that I would like to mention. If you've played other ARPG games before many of these tips will already be common sense to you. The first obvious tip is make sure that you loot everything you find and sell it all in town. Especially if you're a melee character you'll have to spend a lot of gold on healing items before each boss fight. At some point though gold because kind of useless since the armor/weapon vendor don't sell anything better than what you can find.

Like I just mentioned, before you fight a boss you'll want to stock up on healing items. Even if you're a Wizard that uses the Heal spell, I'd recommend having some healing items just incase you need a very quick heal. For the last two bosses of this game I often fill every single slot in my inventory with healing items.

My other important tip for you is to clear each floor of all the enemies. Don't take the stairs to the next floor the first time you see them, make sure you've cleared every enemy first. You need all of the EXP that you can get in this game to make some of the future bosses easier.

Aside from earning EXP to make the game easier, your armor and weapons will play a major role in how powerful your character is. In the southern part of town you'll find an NPC that I call the Ore Crafter, he will craft you a powerful item if you bring him 3 ores of the same type. For more information about this NPC you can check out my link below.

Continue to the Ore Crafter Guide for Shining Soul

In addition to the Ore Crafter there are items in this game called Souls which will allow you to summon a powerful attack once the soul is fully charged. Souls can be equipped to your Accessory slot and you can summon one once you've killed 50 - 100 mobs (each Soul is different). I personally wasn't a big fan of these attacks, they are powerful but you have to do a lot of grinding to fully charge it. I'd rather keep a permanent and passive stat boost in my Accessory slot than deal with these. Ultimately, it's your choice though!

Below you will find a list of general advice, tips and strategies that I have for combat in this game.

 

Combat Tips & Strategies

- Run along the wall to stack mobs ontop of each other. You can also do tight circles around the pack of mobs chasing you to group them up into a concentrated blob too. This will make it easier for you to hit all of them with one of your attacks.

- Mobs will sometimes get stuck on walls or corners when you kite them around. If you pay attention to where this happens you can use it to your advantage if you're playing a Wizard or Archer.

- If you are melee, don't always use charged up attacks. Sometimes when I encounter monsters that have high evasion and I miss them a lot, I hit them with normal attacks instead of charging up each attack only to watch it miss.

- Kite the mobs in this game during combat. If you aren't familiar with the term 'kite' it means run around with the mobs following you while occasionally stopping to turn around and hit them. This is the #1 way to be victorious at combat in this game.

- Put all your Gold into the Bank! If you die in this game you'll lose all gold on your character, to avoid losing your money put it into the Bank instead.

That covers all of the tips and tricks for combat that I could come up with. For the most part the combat in this game is extremely simple and straight forward. There's only a single button for attacking and the only variety you get is to switch weapons/spells with the L button. As far as difficult stuff goes, the only hard fights you'll have in this game is against the bosses - which is what we're covering next!

 

Boss Strategies

I'd argue the only really difficult part of this game is the various bosses that you will fight. Before you challenge a boss you should visit town and stock up on healing items just incase you will need them. My strategy for boss fights is to have a mock fight initially then a real fight. So, what I normally do is make a Save State and then challenge the boss - my first attempt with him I mostly only dodge attacks and learn his rotation. As the boss attacks you pay attention to the various attack windows available to you and which ones are risky and which are safe.

Once you feel ready to take on the boss "for realsies" I will load my Save State and then challenge him again. If you are struggling with a boss in this game and you can't beat him then my best advice is to repeat a dungeon or two for some extra EXP and then challenge the boss again. Level ups will get you more health and damage which will help a lot.

This section will have strategies on how to defeat all of the bosses you find in this game.

 

(Beast Mountain) - Beast King Boss Strategy

This boss is easy and it does a good job setting the stage of what to expect for all of the future bosses. In order to win this fight you will have to pay attention to the bosses attacks and learn what they are - then you'll attack him during the small windows that you get inbetween his attacks.

His first attack is to shoot shockwaves out from his body which will hit anyone that's too close. After a few shockwaves he will turn into a ball and roll across the map in the same exact pattern every time. Once you deal enough damage to the boss he will start using a third attack too which is white heat seeking missiles that are pretty easy to dodge.

Since this game has both melee and ranged characters there are some windows to attack that you may get that other characters won't. For example, the first attack that the Beast King does where he shoots shockwaves out from his body is something ranged characters don't have to worry too much about, they can attack through it.

I like to remember the pattern of where this boss rolls and attack him once or twice as he rolls around (he's vulnerable when he stops for a brief 1-2sec). Other than that it's best to attack him after he finishes his initial shockwave attack before he starts rolling or after he stops rolling before he starts doing another attack. The best time to attack is when he starts the heat seeking missile attack, there will be a brief window after each volley that you can land a few hits.

 

(Labyrinth of Death) - Colossus

For this fight you'll be fighting a giant robot with floaty hands. This boss fight has two different phases, during both of these phases you will be fighting on this same small platform so get used to it. Much like the first boss this boss comes with 3 different attacks. The most annoying of these is the eye laser attack, one of the eyes on this giant boss fire a beam at random. You can't tell which eye will fire next which is the annoying part of this attack.

His second attack involves his hands, he'll sweep the bottom half of the platform and then the top half. This attack is pretty easy to avoid since it is very predictable, it'll always sweep one side and then the next - back and forth. For the first phase of this fight these are the only two sets of attacks you have to worry about.

Tip: During the first phase if you stand in the western corner of the platform you can avoid all attacks without moving. This doesn't help you very much though considering you can't attack anything from this corner.

Once you deal enough damage to the boss the first phase will end and the boss's eye will fall out. For the second phase the eye will roll around the platform and you'll have to keep attacking it until it's eliminated. This phase is a lot more annoying than the first if you're melee since the ball doesn't stop moving for very long to let you attack. Wizards and Archers will have a much easier time.

 

 

 

(Egual Dungeon) - Bulzone

Bulzone's first notable attack is to teleport to the north or south of the room and unleash fireballs in every direction. During this attack there is nothing you can do aside from avoid the fire. His next attack is the most devastating of them all, Bulzone will teleport to the east or west side of the arena and charge up/unleash a giant green laser. You have about two seconds as he charges this attack to prepare for it.

You'll want to avoid the green laser attack at all costs because it will knock off half of your health if you get hit by it. This attack also gives you the largest window of attack to harm Bulzone, he's vulnerable for the entire charging up process. Bulzone's final attack is where he will shoot out white balls that will seek out your character (pictured above). You dealt with this same sort of attack during the fight with Beast King so you should have no problem with it now.

So, to recap for Bulzone - you'll want to avoid his AoE fireball attack and his white heat seeking missile attack. During the laser beam attack you'll want to hit him with some attacks since this is the best window of opportunity you get. That's really all there is to this boss fight!

Tip: If you're lazy like me you can take the "white heat seeking missile attack" to the face and keep damaging the boss through it. It doesn't hit for very much and it gives you a large window of opportunity to attack him.

 

(Otherwordly Forest) - Mishaela

Mishaela is one of the most difficult bosses in the game and you'll see why once you challenge her. For this fight she only uses two attacks, ice and thunder. It's very difficult to dodge the thunder based attacks since you can't see them coming; the only way to avoid thunder is make sure you're not in her line of sight when she uses it.

The difficult part of this fight is you'll be fighting 5 different Mishaela enemies all at once. At the start of the fight she will split herself into 5 and you'll have to deal with 5 different spell caster enemies blasting you with ice and thunder. From what I have seen it doesn't really matter which Mishaela enemy you damage, the damage you do on any of her clones counts toward the bosses total health. Her clones will vanish after 200 or so damage too and they'll respawn in the middle.

My advice for this fight is to keep luring one or two of her clones away into a corner of the map so you can fight them alone instead of dealing with all 5 at once. Like I said before, the ice spells are easy for you to dodge but the thunder ones are extremely hard. When you're hit by one of these attacks you'll lose all charges for your weapon too which makes things much more annoying. I recommend you don't use any charged attacks for this fight for that reason.

If you're having trouble with this fight my advice would be to level up a tad bit more since that will make it easier. Also try putting a few skill points into magic resistance (if you have it) since that will reduce how much damage she does.

 

(Glaybull Temple) - Iom

The fight against Iom can be tough depending on what class you're playing. One nice thing about this boss fight is that Iom doesn't move from his position the entire time. This makes dealing damage to the boss much easier! The biggest downside of this fight is that you'll have to deal with Iom and two worms the entire time.

Each of the worms have fast movement speed and will freeze your character when they hit you. To make matters even worse, when you defeat the worms they will respawn in about 10 seconds... and there is no way to keep the worms permanently defeated.

Iom himself has 3 attacks that you will have to deal with. The first and easiest to dodge is the purple rings that he shoots down the center of the platform. His next attack is white ghost things that he will shoot in multiple directions, these move a little faster than the purple rings but deal just as minimal damage.

For his last attack he'll shoot out shockwaves which will force melee players out of melee range. All in all his attacks are pretty easy to avoid, the biggest threat for this fight is the two worms that you have to contend with at the same time as the boss.

Our strategy for this fight is pretty straight forward, you'll need to eliminate the two worms and then attack the boss until they respawn. That's really all there is to it, you could try fighting the boss with the two worms up but it won't work well at all. When you stop to attack the boss the worms will attack you and interrupt you/freeze you. That's why I recommend you take out the worms first and then attack the boss.

Tip: If you have enough healing items and your character is tanky enough you can use my favorite strategy... Defeat the worms and then tank all of the bosses hits as you spam normal attacks onto him. Every four or five hits you'll need to use a healing item (depending on your VIT) but you'll defeat the boss much faster.

 

(Deol Waterway) - Zeon

In my opinion this is one of the hardest (definitely the most annoying) bosses in the game. This boss is basically whack a mole but instead of the mole being harmless it will attack you. Zeon can pop out of any hole on the map at random, during the fight he will go through two phases...

During phase 1 he pops out from any hole at random and unleashes one of three attacks, we'll talk about them next. For phase 2 Zeon will swim around the entire boss area, during this phase he doesn't attack you at all. If you're playing a ranged class you can attack Zeon during phase 2 as he swims around. Melee should rest up and prepare for the next phase.

Zeon's first attack is a melee strike, nothing special about it. His second attack is to use small poison clouds which will come out in multiple directions and damage/poison you if you get hit. The third attack is a lot like #2 but instead of multiple poison clouds he shoots out one big one which flies in a straight line. This one you'll want to dodge since it does a lot more damage.

This boss moves extremely quick so the difficulty of the fight comes from hitting him before he has a chance to go back down. Since he moves so quickly he can end up surprising you with an attack from a direction you weren't expecting. For me, this was the most difficult boss in the game.

Each time I did this boss what I ended up doing was paying attention to four areas around my character and trying to hit the boss when he appeared. I didn't bother too much with trying to avoid his attacks since you barely have enough time to react and in that short span you need to inflict damage to him.

 

 

(Dark Tower) - Darksol

For being the penultimate boss, this guy is actually pretty easy. The fight with Darksol is very straight forward, he has four swords that float around him and each represents a different type of magic that he can cast. During this battle he will float around and land occasionally, each time he lands he'll cast one spell that corresponds to the color of the sword in front of him.

Purple: Ice magic

Red: Fire magic

Yellow: Lightning magic

Green: Healing magic

You can't hit this boss when he is floating around so you'll have to wait until he lands and then attack. The two most annoying spells he casts (in my opinion) at the Lightning and Healing magic. Lightning you can't dodge unless you position yourself behind the boss when he lands. Healing isn't a big deal, but it kinda annoys me that I can't see how much the boss heals for with each cast - the numbers are invisible to us... This means we have no clue how much damage we need to do to out pace the healing (annoying).

All in all this fight is a piece of cake, just keep hitting the boss when he lands to win.

 

 

(Dark Castle) - Dark Dragon

The final boss fight of the game is against Dark Dragon. In order to beat this boss you need to destroy each of his 3 heads a total of three times. You can tell by the color of the eyes what type of elemental magic the head uses (and what type it's vulnerable to). Blue eyes = Ice Magic, Red eyes = Fire Magic and Yellow eyes = Lightning Magic.

In addition to shooting magical spells at you each head has a lunge attack which will deal damage to you if you get too close. This attack is only an issue when it's time for you to attack, getting close to all 3 heads is risky (especially with a charged attack). Once you destroy one head it will stay dead for about 10 seconds before respawning.

When a head respawns it will have the same health as the previous life (about 300-500 HP I believe).... After defeating a head three times it will still respawn but with under 100HP, allowing you to one shot it to get rid of it again. So for example, when using my Wizard I was able to eliminate the Ice Head and Thunder Head 3 times first since I use Blaze (Fire Magic). The red head was the hardest for me since it took less damage from my attacks. Each time the Ice/Thunder Head respawned I one shot them to get them out of my way and focused entirely on the Fire Head.

My advice if you're struggling against this boss is to run the final dungeon one or two times to get some extra EXP. This will get you a few level ups and make the fight easier.