Soon Shine Review (Wii U eShop)

I DECIDE WHEN YOU SLEEP!

GAMEPLAY:
In Soon Shine, there are little spirits that will try to steal your energy, where you need to destroy them using the sun or the moon’s energy (where you will need to swap). The game is fully played with the Gamepad, where tapping the screen will allow you to squash the spirits and swiping the moon/sun is done when dragging the stylus from left to the right.

To keep the explanation easy, there are two distinct types of spirits:

• Moving Spirits: They come in three different colors, where the spirits with the darker shade move with the sun and the brighter ones move with the moon. Furthermore, they can only be squashed when the spirit is in motion. If the spirit keeps still (or it’s tapped in the wrong phase) they will grow, allowing them to be faster and stronger.
• Ticker Spirits:  These come in just black and white and they are able to move anytime regardless if you’re using the moon or the sun. The black spirits can be only squashed in the day phase, and the white ones in the night phase.

The best way to obtain high scores is by doing combos which are possible by squashing spirits of the same color (regardless of the shade). The maximum is when you reach a combo of 8, where the spirits will be given the maximum score:

• Combo x1: 100 Points
• Combo x2: 200 Points
• Combo x3: 400 Points
• Combo x4: 800 Points
• Combo x5: 1600 Points
• Combo x6: 3200 Points
• Combo x7: 6400 Points
• Combo x8: 12800 Points
• Combo x9: 12800 Points

Reaching a combo of 8 is extremely hard however,  there is another big reward: the bonus bubbles. Every time you’ve reached the maximum combo, once the combo breaks, one bubble will appear. You will need to tap them in order to pop the bubble and then earn extra tokens (where its value is random)

If they reach you, they will start draining your energy, so be very careful. Also with the time, the quantity of spirits will increase, making the game (and the chances to do combos) a lot more difficult. Once you’ve finished the level (when you lose or the time finished) you will get tokens based on the score you’ve obtained, including the points from the bonus bubbles.

Soon Shine features three different modes, where each of them has its own highscore:

• Standard Mode: There is no limits.
• Purist Mode: No items allowed.
• Time Mode: This mode has a time limit of three minutes.

There is also the Token Shop and just as its name suggests, it’s where you’re able to unlock and buy items with the tokens you’ve won. They can carry a maximum of five items at a time, where you can use anytime when pausing the game:

• Stellar Solstice: Will recover your lost energy.
• Magnetosphere: It will create an invincible banner for a short time.
• Nova Flare: It will destroy all the spirits visible on screen.
• Temporal Eclipse: It will stop the time for 12 seconds.
• Black Hole: This will set back the spirits to their original size.

GRAPHICS AND SOUND:
I must say there’s substantial progress since Chubbins, in both graphics and audio aspects.The game looks nice, the backgrounds are well made and the music available in the game is really good.

On the other hand, I should add that you will be able to use just one background and one sound when you start the game, the other three must be unlocked and truthfully, it will take quite a lot of time to do so.

PRESENTATION:
The presentation is excellent and entails the presentation of a complete manual, different options, unlockables, an easy interface and the different modes. In summary, for a budget game, the presentation is greatly prepared.

CONCLUSION:
The conclusion is that this is a relaxing game that is perfect to be played in short bursts. It offers simple yet re-playable game-play mechanics. If you enjoy playing games that start at easy and keeps getting more challenging, you can easily try this game without problems.