BlueStacks Beginner’s Guide to Shining Nikki: A Styling Game
Shining Nikki immerses you in the very grandiose world of Miraland where beauty is highly revered, and the people are defined by their styling ability, also known as Styling Power (SP). However, Miraland is about to face a grave threat that would annihilate it and defile the beauties that characterize the fashionista-ridden land. You take control as a Nikki’s companion who is dedicated to help her in the quest to save Miraland and learn the truths buried underneath it.
There is plenty to learn about in Shining Nikki as it is quite an interestingly peculiar game. Worry not as this beginner’s guide will aid you in familiarizing yourself with Shining Nikki’s mechanics.
Let’s start by talking about Shining Nikki’s journeys. The game offers solo journeys and team journeys where you can experience the game alone or with friends respectively. Every journey in Shining Nikki consumes a certain number of stamina, which is represented by a red heart.
You earn one point of stamina every five minutes. If you cannot wait, you can buy 60 points of stamina in exchange for Pink Gems (the game’s premium currency). Note that you are limited to eight purchases of stamina per day. Additionally, you will also need to pay more gems with each successive purchase.
Starting the Journey – The Main Story
Solo journeys consist of story quests as well as quests that reward you with new clothes and fashion sets for Nikki. But for this guide, we’ll be talking about the main story quests.
This is where you can progress through the fascinating storyline of Shining Nikki. There are two types of story quests: normal stages and challenge stages. Normal stages are the main avenues of plot progression and is also where you can earn new clothes or items for Nikki.
Challenge stages on the other hand are optional quests that can be completed to earn resources required to upgrade Nikki’s base Styling Power.
Styling Battles
The styling battle is the main “combat” system of Shining Nikki. Combat is encapsulated in quotations here as Shining Nikki is unlike most games whose combat systems involve hitting an enemy with a weapon or projectile to deal damage. In Shining Nikki, you deal “damage” to your opponent by merely showing off Nikki’s beauty through multiple poses. Essentially, the most beautiful model wins the battle.
Dressing Up Nikki
Before Nikki enters a styling battle, you must first select the clothes and accessories that she will wear. There are multiple clothing options for you to choose from and they are neatly separated into multiple categories.
From hairstyles, dresses, shoes, makeup, and the like, you have complete liberty as to what Nikki will wear for her battle. However, you must choose the strategically best clothes for her.
Wearing clothes adds points to Nikki’s Styling Power. Styling Power (SP) is the quantitative measurement of Nikki’s beauty and the higher the SP, the higher the chances of winning the styling battle. Nikki’s SP can be seen on the top-left of the screen during the dress-up phase.
The Five Styles and Rarities
Notice that under SP, there is an icon of a certain color. This icon refers to the style of the clothes that Nikki must wear for the battle. There are five styles in the game:
| Style Name | Icon Color |
| Sexy | Purple |
| Cool | Blue |
| Fresh | Green |
| Elegant | Yellow |
| Sweet | Dark Pink |
Aside from the style of the clothing, you must also consider the rarity. Clothes can be one of four rarities: R, SR, SSR, UR. R is the lowest rarity while UR is the highest one. The higher the rarity of the clothes, the higher the Styling Power.
Each of Nikki’s clothes will have points corresponding to each style; however, one style will have the most points out of the five. For example, the Dazzling Punk has 180 Elegant, 151 Fresh, 153 Sweet, 154 Sexy, and 337 Cool. Because the Dazzling Punk has more Cool points, the top is considered as a Cool outfit.
It is details like these that you must consider when picking Nikki’s clothes. If the battle demands that Nikki wears Sweet clothes, then pick the clothes that give have high Sweet points as they will contribute more Styling Power than the clothes of other styles.
Actual Battle
There are two types of styling battles in Shining Nikki: a normal battle and a versus battle.
In the normal styling battle, there are four ratings that Nikki must attain to win: C, B, A, and S. Nikki can win the battle if she earns at least a C rating but otherwise, she will receive an F and lose.
In the versus battle, there are two different bars – one for Nikki and one for her opponent. The goal in versus battle is for Nikki to push the opponent’s bar as far as possible before the battle ends.
Regardless of the type of styling battle, they all use the same mechanic of garnering as many points possible to reach the condition for winning.
During the battle, you gain points for Nikki when you correctly press one of four buttons as Nikki poses in each round. The button that you must press must correspond whatever feature of Nikki is being shown off in her pose. For instance, if Nikki is showing off her hair, then you must press the ‘Hairstyle’ button quickly. You are only given several seconds to press the correct button otherwise; Nikki will not earn points.
Sometimes Nikki will have a “shining moment” and when this happens, you must connect several dots in the correct order. The numerical order is displayed on the dots but you have to be quick in connecting them. Shining moments give Nikki plenty of points.
During anytime in the battle, you can activate the Designer Reflection. You can think of it as Nikki’s ‘ultimate’ ability. Activating the reflection gives a tremendous number of points to Nikki. The number of points depends on the reflection itself. Additionally, reflections also give Nikki bonuses during particular rounds. For example, the Uncrowned King reflection gives a bonus 9% points during hairstyle rounds.
