My wife and I were shopping at Toys R Us last night and ran across Soul Bubbles for DS. The release date is not until June 30, yet there it was on the shelf. It seems that, for some odd reason, the game is a Toys R Us exclusive.



I was glad to once again get a game before the release date, but find it sad that this game is being restricted to one retailer. It seriously hurts the game's chances of selling as many copies as it should.

Impression
The art style is beautiful. The backgrounds are soft and soothing; the characters are cute and very nicely animated. The bubble physics are very entertaining. The background music is very soft and features lots of ambient sounds.

The gameplay is very much like LostWinds. The player doesn't actually control the main character. The Soul Herder teleports wherever you touch the screen. The main action in the game is drawing lines in the direction the Soul Herder needs to blow the bubble in order to navigate the bubbles through a maze-like level. Along the way, the Soul Herder will obtain masks that allow him to manipulate the bubble. The tiger mask is given to the player during the tutorial; this mask allows the Soul Herder to cut the bubble into smaller bubbles, recombine the smaller bubbles into a large bubble, cut vines that stick to the bubble and attack stronger enemies.

Soul Bubbles is a very relaxing and charming game. There are no beefed-up characters that can crush the player using only their testosterone output. It's a purely fun game that relies more on puzzle solving and maze navigation than combat. It's a great change of pace.