Soon Shine is a new action puzzler built around racking up high scores.  It was made by the indie team at Dahku Creations.  Soon Shine has several improvements over their Wii U debut Chubbins, making for a better and more satisfying eShop game.

Quick tapping is the order of the day in Soon Shine.  You control an icon with the appearance of the sun or moon depending on the side displayed.  Energy sucking critters that look like flying tadpoles will continually swarm towards you and must be fended off with the stylus.  Certain ones can only be squished when moving on the sun side and vice versa.  A quick stylus swipe will turn you around.  The gameplay is accessible and fun!  It’s spread across three modes (Standard, Purist, and Timed) and offers more depth than you might think.

Dahku’s earlier effort, Chubbins, was very difficult.  Soon Shine on the other hand is quite easy.  While neither setup is superior, Soon Shine succeeds where Chubbins failed by offering more balance and choices.  If you want a simple, casual experience, you can just concentrate on tapping, focusing on speed.  You can also spend earned tokens on assistance like energy restoration or invincibility to make it an easier, more relaxed affair.  Should you desire more of a challenge, zero in on building up multipliers through tapping like colors in rapid succession.  You can also increase the target’s size when frozen, which makes them more aggressive but also leads to increased points.  I appreciate the gameplay flexibility presented to the player and while Soon Shine is still on the gentler side, you can tailor the experience as desired.  With the three modes and various optional powerups, the game’s what you’d like it to be.

Soon Shine can get repetitive.  The timed 3 minute mode is ideal not just for when you want to play for short spells only, but also to help repetition not set in too much.  While it isn’t the sort of game I’ll play at great lengths, it’s proved easy to return to often for brief periods.  Replay value’s enhanced through unlockable backgrounds and music tracks – it’ll be a while before earning enough tokens to access them all.

Visually Soon Shine displays vibrant colors.  The slow scrolling, animated backgrounds are detailed and pleasant to look at without distracting.  Being able to rapidly switch from day and night offers some diversity.  The audio has some rather shrill sounding squashing effects, but these can thankfully be muted so as to appreciate the nice tunes.  Touchscreen control with the stylus is pretty good.  Occasionally the game doesn’t seem to respond (mainly when swiping), but not enough to really detract.  The setup is accessible for the whole family.

For an indie team with fond memories of NES era, I’d encourage Dahku to reflect this further via local leaderboards.  How much I want to compete and compare scores with my wife – why can’t we enter our initials?  This was a staple of retro gaming, and far too often overlooked.  Its inclusion would benefit the game greatly.

Overall I’m pleased with Dahku’s sophomore Wii U title.  Soon Shine demonstrates strides with the company, and is an indie effort worth supporting.  It won’t break your wallet either – it’s priced low at just $1.99!  Why not check it out?

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