Shining The Holy Ark - promotion / changing class

[alf]

After some time of a break, i once again came back into the Shining The Holy Ark universum.
I am now at Enrich Dungeon for the second time (revisited) - it's time to fight Rilix and the two Evil Spirits.
My main character is at 25lvl, the others are about 22lvl, except from Akane - she is at 16lvl.
The problem is that i got kicked in the ass painfully during this boss fight :/
I think i missed something, because today i read on the Internet that it is recommended to promote characters after 20lvl at the church.
My questions are:
1) Are the promotion and class changing the same things ? I see that people use these definitions interchangeably.
2) What exactly gives me a promotion / class change ? When i first saw this function avaible, i thought that it is something like changing a class from, lets say, a knight to a wizard. But now i read that in the Shining series it is more like upgrading a character (shining.wikia.com/wiki/Promotion)
3) Will the promotion / class changing help me fighting Rilix ? I think i miss some spells like: healing the entire party instead of healing only one member, and i cant equip the sacred sword which i've obtained at the South Shrine...

[martiniii]

On a normal run (i.e. with minimal grinding), the fight with Rilix and the two evil spirits is unquestionably the toughest boss fight in the game. As to your questions:

1)Yep, same thing. Up until Shining the Holy Ark, the Shining series always used the term promotion. With that game, it was inexplicably renamed class change, and Egress was inexplicably renamed Return. I don't know if this was something the localization team did or if it's in the original Japanese, but that's why people use the terms interchangeably.

2)Promotion is always to a more powerful class. In Shining Force II, for example, a warrior can be promoted to either a gladiator or a baron, but a gladiator cannot be promoted to a baron or warrior. Or in Guardian War/Powers Kingdom, a samurai can be promoted to either a black swordsman or a samurai lord, but a black swordsman cannot be promoted to a samurai or samurai lord.

3)Beating Rilix with an unpromoted party is an extremely fun and satisfying challenge, but yeah, on a first playthrough you really should have all your characters except Akane promoted by the time you fight her. You aren't going to learn any multi-character healing spells for a while yet, but Melody learns Raise at level 2 promoted, which is very handy. Being able to equip the Sacred Sword is a major advantage, too.

[alf]

Nov 4, 2015 20:54:29 GMT martiniii said:

3)Beating Rilix with an unpromoted party is an extremely fun and satisfying challenge, but yeah, on a first playthrough you really should have all your characters except Akane promoted by the time you fight her. You aren't going to learn any multi-character healing spells for a while yet, but Melody learns Raise at level 2 promoted, which is very handy. Being able to equip the Sacred Sword is a major advantage, too.

A) All characters except Akane because she is only at 16lvl so she cannot be promoted right now ? Or do you mean that not every character should be promoted ?
B) So when i promote a character, it will start from 1lvl right ? What about the stats ? Is this promotion really that super hyper profitable and it costs me nothing ?
C) I dont get what this promotion is for ? If this is that profitable then why the developers of the game are giving me this as an option instead of simply promoting every character after 20lvl automatically ?

[martiniii]

Nov 5, 2015 16:40:17 GMT alf said:

Nov 4, 2015 20:54:29 GMT martiniii said:

3)Beating Rilix with an unpromoted party is an extremely fun and satisfying challenge, but yeah, on a first playthrough you really should have all your characters except Akane promoted by the time you fight her. You aren't going to learn any multi-character healing spells for a while yet, but Melody learns Raise at level 2 promoted, which is very handy. Being able to equip the Sacred Sword is a major advantage, too.

A) All characters except Akane because she is only at 16lvl so she cannot be promoted right now ? Or do you mean that not every character should be promoted ?
B) So when i promote a character, it will start from 1lvl right ? What about the stats ? Is this promotion really that super hyper profitable and it costs me nothing ?
C) I dont get what this promotion is for ? If this is that profitable then why the developers of the game are giving me this as an option instead of simply promoting every character after 20lvl automatically ?

A)Yeah, just because she can't be promoted at level 16. You can get her up to level 20 before Rilix, but that would take considerable grinding and isn't necessary.
B)It's hard for me to remember what happens to the stats upon promotion in each Shining series game, since it varies from game to game... but I'm pretty sure that in Shining the Holy Ark, the characters' stats are completely unchanged when they are promoted. The advantages are that you can learn many spells which cannot be learned pre-promotion, and it takes fewer experience points to get from level 1 promoted to level 10 promoted than it does to get from level 20 unpromoted to level 29 unpromoted.
C)Same reason why they have inns instead of just automatically restoring HP and MP whenever you enter a town. Some things are much more satisfying and immersive if you do them yourself.

[alf]

martiniii you seem to be an expert with that Shining series on the whole sega consoles family so i feel comfortable to ask you so more questions. And these are...:
1) I promoted my characters, and then i tried to fight Rilix again (being on 2lvl promoted with every character) but once again i failed to win this battle Rilix + 2 Evil Spiririts - they do Spark lvl2 and Freeze lvl3 in a row and my entire party is almost dead after that... Could you give me a hint ? Should i raise a lvl a little more ? If so, where should i grind ? Maybe South Shrine or West Shrine ? Or maybe there is a way to go through this battle without grinding too much but i need to know some crafty strategy...?
2) Could you tell me: are there any other games in the Shining series worth playing as much as Shining The Holy Ark or even better than this game ?

[martiniii]

1)Yep, she is tough. There are different views on the best way to take Rilix down... My favored strategy is having Rodi cast Sleep level 2 on the Evil Spirits. This nearly always results in one of them falling asleep, after which you concentrate all your attacks on the one that isn't asleep. This prevents you from having to withstand attacks from all three enemies in one turn, which is key to victory.

Also, if Melody's turn doesn't come before the enemies, it's a good idea to have Rodi use a healing item on any seriously injured character, since he's so fast that his turn always comes first. Perhaps most important, the Support spell is very, very useful - I've never heard of anyone not recommending it for this battle. Support level 2 might seem the obvious choice since it affects your entire party, but while level 1 only targets one character, the boost it provides to that character is much stronger. Depending on your situation, you may want to cast Support level 1 on your most vulnerable characters instead of level 2. Also, a little secret: Support spells stack. So you can cast Support level 2 twice for double the boost, or use level 2 at the start of the battle and then level 1 on the characters that need it most. I once had a level 18 unpromoted Basso taking 1 point of damage per hit from Rilix herself, using just two castings of Support (one of level 1, one of level 2). I still remember how that made my jaw drop.

2)I love most of 'em... though I guess with so many of the recent installments being Japan-only releases which are inaccessible to westerners (either due to the language barrier or being on Japan-only hardware), "most" might not be accurate anymore. Shining the Holy Ark is kind of a unique one. The only other first person dungeon crawler in the Shining series is Shining in the Darkness, and that one has a very different feel to it. Though Shining the Holy Ark does have a number of nods to in the Darkness, the coolest of which is that the music for the Tower of Illusion (you haven't gotten there yet) is actually a cover version of the main dungeon theme from Shining in the Darkness. The "Shining Force" games are pretty much all top notch Tactical RPGs, if you're into that particular subgenre.

[alf]

Thanks for the advice. I will try to grind a little to raise my lvl to 3 or 4 and then i will try to fight Rilix again using your hints.

I have an additional question: do you know how to solve a mystery of a child in Enrich Town ? He tells me that his dad went to the mansion (i believe he means Aborigine Mansion) and that he will give me some unique item if i find his dad. The thing is that i am already after Aborigine Mansion quest and i didn't find anyone except Basso... I can't find information about that mystery on the Internet.

[martiniii]

Yeah, you can't find Julian's dad. His father's demise is a subplot which is used for the backstory of Shining Force III. So don't worry, you haven't missed anything.

[bultje112]

Nov 7, 2015 9:29:57 GMT alf said:

Thanks for the advice. I will try to grind a little to raise my lvl to 3 or 4 and then i will try to fight Rilix again using your hints.

I have an additional question: do you know how to solve a mystery of a child in Enrich Town ? He tells me that his dad went to the mansion (i believe he means Aborigine Mansion) and that he will give me some unique item if i find his dad. The thing is that i am already after Aborigine Mansion quest and i didn't find anyone except Basso... I can't find information about that mystery on the Internet.

this is basically the major start of a plot covering 3(!) shining force (3) games.