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Rainbow Islands review

Game: Rainbow Islands
Platform: NES
Genre: Action (Platformer)
Developer: Taito Corporation
AKA: Rainbow Islands: The Story of Bubble Bobble 2 (JP)

Featured reader review by wolfqueen001

March 25, 2008

I played this game for an hour. That’s right. One. Hour. Playing any longer would have led me into the dangerous waters of addiction, a scary place where the sane never reemerge the same again. I only dared allot myself that hour to gather the information needed for this game. Any longer and I would have fallen prey to its malicious cutesiness, its goofy atmosphere, its intrinsic… catchiness.

The game is Rainbow Islands: The Story of Bubble Bobble 2, and it’s guaranteed to keep you glued to your screen for hours.

You’re a rainbow-wielding, dream world conquering sorcerer. Yes, like a perverted recreation of some schoolgirl’s favorite fantasy, you wield mighty rainbows of death which can kill or trap all manner of malicious beasts, turning them into delicious snacks, peculiar knickknacks and other random paraphernalia. Collecting these scores you points, which, when amassed, award you extra lives and power-ups.

Be glad of your peculiar powers over the frilly, girly, and enchanting. Without them, you won’t get far, for just the tiniest poke from a frightening ladybug or meandering turtle will send your hero catapulting off the level, depleting one of three lives. Losing all your lives results in a game over and the presentation of the continue screen. Accepting the continue, however, doesn’t lead you to the level of the world you died in. No, it sends you straight to the first level of that world. But at least you don’t need to start from the complete beginning… where you’d have to climb the same steep ascensions and fight the same guardian bosses you did before dying.

There are seven of these bosses. Seven appears often throughout the game, playing off the seven colors of the rainbow. Seven seconds of invulnerability upon restarting after losing a life. Seven maximum lives. Seven main worlds. Seven bonus levels where you can collect rare treasure like necklaces and mirrors to boost your point total. Seven… seven…. seven…

Oh, right. Bosses.

Bosses are fun. They descend from the highest point of the level, knocking into you or throwing projectiles at you along the way. If you get hit, you must start the fight over with one less life and a fully rejuvenated monster advancing toward you. Certainly not an impossible task by any means, but it’s one that requires a lot of time and patience to achieve.

For those willing to grit their teeth and accept the happy-go-lucky, goofy-gaga, utter weirdness of the game and get down into it shall be rewarded with an experience of great amusement. You’ll enjoy figuring out how to use your rainbows to navigate each ascension, killing monsters along the way. You’ll enjoy a challenging boss battle at the end of each world and feel fulfilled upon defeating it. But more importantly, you’ll fall prey to the evil vice of addiction, ruling your life for days at a time, preferring the game to studying, to working, to family, to friends…

So remember: only an hour. Just one.

Rating: 7/10

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