Rainbow Islands (ARC, 1987)
Graphics-7.5 Sound-6 Control-6.5 Challenge-8
Level Design-6.5 Frustration-8.5 Fun-7 Originality-7
Overall Score-6.5
+ innovative main mechanic (make platforms out of rainbows which also hurt enemies, stomp rainbows to make them fall on enemies and to make the enemy drops better), some good bosses, difficulty options (easy/normal/hard/hardest), some decent enemy AI, alternate endings (get all diamonds on every island, need to get them in the correct order for the best ending and the bonus island), smart bombs (stars), neat references to other Taito games, combos can give you interesting power ups (like star fall, star jump (trigger a smart bomb every time you jump), wings (flight; a bit clunky), food rain (points)), upgradeable movement and rainbow speed, two kinds of ‘shield’ power ups which make either a fairy or two balls spin around the avatar and take out enemies (hard to get (?)), decent art direction,
+/- Fairly frequent checkpoints (can be hard to recover after death since you become slower and the rainbows both smaller and slower), jump controls are similar to bubble bobble (triangle shaped, kind of slow, slow falling speed) – not that suitable for vertical platforming where you can easily fall down, need a guide to see how to obtain certain things via combos?, can only have three rainbows on screen at once (the first one disappears as the third one spawns), time limit (pretty short; water starts rising and can rise faster than usual if it’s on screen and you’re jumping - can lead to quick death), it's possible to jump onto rainbows without crushing them if you hold the jump button (triggers an extra jump when landing and you keep jumping again until you let go and then it gets crushed; not that useful later on where there are more enemies and they can shoot you, it also doesn't work if you try to jump onto a rainbow by jumping through it from underneath), one hit kills
- Some hit detection problems with the rainbows (sometimes a rainbow gets crushed for no apparent reason, sometimes you’ll walk further on the current rainbow instead of moving on to the next one when trying to climb upwards, though it rarely happens you can even get stuck between rainbows and a platform and have to jump to free yourself), can’t jump normally onto rainbows without crushing them (slows the pace down a bit; it could’ve worked more like in Yoshi’s Island meaning you jumped and pressed down to stomp them or something), stiff movement on rainbows (just tapping the d-pad forward makes your avatar move to the half the rainbow’s length), dying enemies often fall off screen (and since the loot disappears after just a few seconds it can be hard to get that much needed power up or diamond), repetitive, difficulty spike at level 19 (breakout themed island), you need to collect 7 diamonds per island to actually beat the full game and the game doesn't tell you this until you've beaten all the normal islands (and when you do the game tells you to collect them in the correct order - major bummer!), some trial & error (boss patterns, diamond collecting), the slow falling speed leads to lots of cheap deaths, tedious parts where you can easily fall very far down a level and have to retrace your steps, final two islands are crowded with annoying enemies, can't jump down through platforms which can be jumped up through
Level Design-6.5 Frustration-8.5 Fun-7 Originality-7
Overall Score-6.5
+ innovative main mechanic (make platforms out of rainbows which also hurt enemies, stomp rainbows to make them fall on enemies and to make the enemy drops better), some good bosses, difficulty options (easy/normal/hard/hardest), some decent enemy AI, alternate endings (get all diamonds on every island, need to get them in the correct order for the best ending and the bonus island), smart bombs (stars), neat references to other Taito games, combos can give you interesting power ups (like star fall, star jump (trigger a smart bomb every time you jump), wings (flight; a bit clunky), food rain (points)), upgradeable movement and rainbow speed, two kinds of ‘shield’ power ups which make either a fairy or two balls spin around the avatar and take out enemies (hard to get (?)), decent art direction,
+/- Fairly frequent checkpoints (can be hard to recover after death since you become slower and the rainbows both smaller and slower), jump controls are similar to bubble bobble (triangle shaped, kind of slow, slow falling speed) – not that suitable for vertical platforming where you can easily fall down, need a guide to see how to obtain certain things via combos?, can only have three rainbows on screen at once (the first one disappears as the third one spawns), time limit (pretty short; water starts rising and can rise faster than usual if it’s on screen and you’re jumping - can lead to quick death), it's possible to jump onto rainbows without crushing them if you hold the jump button (triggers an extra jump when landing and you keep jumping again until you let go and then it gets crushed; not that useful later on where there are more enemies and they can shoot you, it also doesn't work if you try to jump onto a rainbow by jumping through it from underneath), one hit kills
- Some hit detection problems with the rainbows (sometimes a rainbow gets crushed for no apparent reason, sometimes you’ll walk further on the current rainbow instead of moving on to the next one when trying to climb upwards, though it rarely happens you can even get stuck between rainbows and a platform and have to jump to free yourself), can’t jump normally onto rainbows without crushing them (slows the pace down a bit; it could’ve worked more like in Yoshi’s Island meaning you jumped and pressed down to stomp them or something), stiff movement on rainbows (just tapping the d-pad forward makes your avatar move to the half the rainbow’s length), dying enemies often fall off screen (and since the loot disappears after just a few seconds it can be hard to get that much needed power up or diamond), repetitive, difficulty spike at level 19 (breakout themed island), you need to collect 7 diamonds per island to actually beat the full game and the game doesn't tell you this until you've beaten all the normal islands (and when you do the game tells you to collect them in the correct order - major bummer!), some trial & error (boss patterns, diamond collecting), the slow falling speed leads to lots of cheap deaths, tedious parts where you can easily fall very far down a level and have to retrace your steps, final two islands are crowded with annoying enemies, can't jump down through platforms which can be jumped up through
