Rainbow Islands Review

Costas Stephanides’s Review

It's as good as I remembered, a very good conversion.

We've reviewed quite a lot of remakes here at Mobile Game Faqs. Out of all the home computer remakes Rainbow Islands brings back the most memories. Rainbow Islands was one of those games that took over my whole summer many years ago. I was hooked, I'd be playing the game on my Spectrum with Candy Flip blasting out the radio for hours on end. The time is right for Taito and Kaasa to resurrect this classic game.

As with all great games, the premise is simple - Get to the top of the level and kill a few nasties on the way. You are armed with rainbow powers and you can fire little rainbows. You can use the rainbows to trap creatures, reveal bonuses and you can walk on them to use as steps. There's all sorts of bonus items available and the game seems huge. It's not that huge, but it's just very well designed. It's essentially a vertical scrolling platform game. The clever bit is that if you miss a jump or break a rainbow you will fall quite a way down (without losing a life). This gives you a chance to pick a few items you missed and take out a few more creatures. In a simple way, this has stretched the game. There is a time limit so you cannot waste too much time but you can explore quite a bit.

The game is split up into various islands. Each island has its own theme such as Combat Island with its tanks and helicopters or Monster Island which is very Halloween based. Each island has four levels and you get to fight a mini boss at the end of the fourth level. It is a remake of an old game so expect no save points or continue options. Games were tougher back then, you can gain extra lives but you do lose any power ups when you die.

The graphics on the original were bright, colourful and cutsey but quite pixelated. This is still true for the mobile version. This game is all about colour and it just about pulls it off on the Nokia 6600 but I imagine this game to be awesome on a higher spec 3G handset.

The controls are pretty good although, for those old enough to remember, don't expect the fluidity that could be achieved with the keyboard (Q, A, O, P anyone?). There are more options with the keypad and you can now jump diagonally with 1 and 3. You may find things easier with just a straight jump up and then moving left/right in mid-air. It is a slower way to play but you shouldn't press the wrong button by mistake.

It's a great game that you should always keep you coming back for more. I never managed to complete it when I was little and I'm afraid to say the game has still gotten the better of me. There's at least 4 or 5 islands which amounts to 20 levels and a full hour's play.