Rainbow Islands
System: NES
Release Date: June 1991
Developer: Taito
Publisher: Taito
Genre: Action
You’re no longer a dinosaur, but you’re happy to be back in the Rainbow Islands! This is subtitled the story of Bubble Bobble 2 outside of America and is a continuation of the original. You’ve been transformed back into humans and are back home. As Bubby, you’ve been endowed with the power to shoot rainbows from your hands. An evil monster named Krabo cast a spell on your fellow islanders and you need to use your rainbow magic to break it. So explore seven islands and collect a big diamond in each one. Can you save your friends before the islands sink into the ocean?
If you’ve played Bubble Bobble, which you definitely should, the premise of this sequel isn’t much different. Instead of spitting bubbles, however, you shoot rainbows. These rainbows can be walked on like bridges to get to higher elevations, which is how you reach the goal of each round. The rainbows are also weapons. If you hit the enemy with them, they will die and turn into an item for points or powerup purposes. When you jump on a rainbow, it falls to the ground. Holding the jump button allows you to hop on rainbows without letting them fall, like how you used to jump on bubbles without popping them. Crushing enemies with the rainbows turns them into colored gems.
These colored gems are a secondary goal of each island level. You need to collect seven different colors to spell out the word RAINBOW. The colors are static depending on what vertical slice of the screen they land on. This is super useful to learn and makes your life a lot easier when trying to collect the last letter. You’ll know you have them all when the word Nice! appears on screen. Of course, sometimes they become powerups when you don’t want them to, but I also love powerups. Red sneakers increase your speed. Yellow potions increase the speed of your rainbows, while red potions double them. Yellow Stars shoot projectiles in 180 degrees, while Red Stars shoot them in all 360 degrees.
Each world has a theme to it and the enemies follow into that theme. There are even static traps like these wall sconces that shoot fire at you. You can’t take too long, or the island will begin to sink into the ocean, killing you if you fall into the water. Reaching the goal gives you a moment to grab some treasure for more points. There are four rounds in each world, with a giant boss at the end of the fourth round. Later worlds require you to have collected the crystal ball to see them. I had to kill some invisible bosses as I didn’t find the crystal ball until right before the final boss. At the end of each world, you can choose to open a treasure chest or talk to a character and I always chose to talk, which makes me wonder what was in the chests…
Graphics: 2.5
The graphics are a bit dated, but there are plenty of colors on screen at once, which is nice.
Sound: 1.5
Music is hit or miss and the sounds sure got on my nerves before all was said and done.
Gameplay: 3.0
I think this is just as solid a time as Bubble Bobble, though it loses the ability for two player.
Difficulty: 2.5
There are some BS levels, for sure, but lives are pretty easy to come by if you keep racking up the score.
Fun Factor: 3.0
I rushed through the last couple worlds, but I would definitely play through this one again in my spare time.
Overall Rating: 2.5
Rainbow Islands earns a B-. I recommend you give this one a try for sure. It’s a solid title.