Retronomicon 01.04.12: Rainbow Islands

Posted by Lee Price on 01.04.2012

This week the Retronomicon heads back to the arcade era to take a look at a game that is often overlooked by many thanks to its cutesy nature. Join 411's Lee Price as he gets to grips with Rainbow Islands!

Hello my lovelies and welcome to yet another dose of old school goodness with your resident old geezer of 411, Mr Lee Price. OK so I'm not technically old, or a geezer for that matter, but the sentiment still stands. I hope everybody has managed to have a great festive period, which I hear is what Mrs Santa calls her time of the month in addition to it being the name for the end of Decemberness that we have all recently enjoyed. Here's to entering the new year on a good note and all that. I've been fairly lazy in recent days in all fairness. I have spent far too much time playing Fallout 3 as I endeavor to actually map out the entire Capital Wasteland. It's a task that I had started a year or so ago before my 360 decided that it needed to red ring on me. Now I'm trying again and actually making some decent progress. Other than that my life has been far too many late nights followed by far too many late mornings (or early afternoons). I think that we have all talked enough though because it's about time that we get to the...





Comments

One comment! One measly stinking comment! Anybody would think that you guys had better things to do over the past week or something. Oh well there's no point delaying it so let's get right to what Yes had to say;

Great column. I have fond memories of this game and was thrilled to see it featured here. Hard to pick which I like better between this or Castle of Illusion but I would say this one tends to go under the radar compared to CoI. Awesome awesome game!

It is a difficult choice and for me it depends entirely on my mood. I would place World of Illusion above both games as standard, but the choice between Quackshot and Castle of Illusion is a touch more difficult. If I was pushed I would say Quackshot. At least until I change my mind.

Donald is a very unhappy Duck right now but that's all going to wait because we have some retro gaming to get on with. Strap on those rose tinted specs because this week the Retronomicon takes a look at Rainbow Islands.



Music to Read Your Retro to

Here's a touch of the music from the Amiga version of the game. It's nothing spectacular in all fairness but there you go;



Fun Facts

• Rainbow Islands saw Bub and Bob from Bubble Bobble make their return. However they are now no longer dinosaurs and instead are small boys.


• The UK publication Amiga Power awarded the game their 'Greatest Amiga Game of All Time' award in both 1991 and 1992, creating controversy as a result as gamers pointed to a host of other great titles on the computer. Readers themselves put it at number seven in a later poll.


• Retro Gamer also named the title their 10th best platformer of all time.


• The original arcade game contained a theme that was very similar to the song 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow'. Taito later changed this to ensure that they didn't violate any copyrights.

The Background

As has been mentioned many times in the various editions of this column, the late 1980's was truly the golden age of arcade gaming. Arcades were still the format that developers used when they were really trying to show off and Japanese companies especially had really started to show their mettle in the wake of the American Video Games crash that signaled the downfall of Atari as a top force in the gaming universe.

By 1987 Taito had already established itself as one of the premier players in the arcade scene. Whilst companies like SEGA and Namco were really pushing boundaries with the games they were releasing, Taito had been quietly pumping out quality arcade titles for a number of years, including the brilliant Space Invaders, Qix and the superb puzzler Bubble Bobble.

It is with this later series that the company would achieve the majority of their success after the original age of arcade gaming had come and gone. Bubble Bobble was a charming little platformer in which the player took control of a small dinosaur named Bub or Bob as they endeavored to clear the screen of enemies using bubbles, whilst also navigating their way through various levels. It was a big success for the company and their particular brand of cute really endeavored the title to gamers of all ages.

However when it came to actually making a sequel for themselves, Taito decided that they needed to go a slightly different route. The platforming was kept in place, however Bub and Bob were now small children who could fire rainbows instead of bubbles, entirely changing the mechanics of the game in the process. What gamers we left with was the brilliant Rainbow Islands.



The Game

Rainbow Islands can fool the unwary into thinking that it is simply a quirky game designed to extract a few quarters out of the pockets of small children. However those that actually took a chance on the machine and saw beyond the sugary graphics encountered a game that could be downright fiendish at times, providing more than enough challenge for the average arcade gamer of the era.

The story sees Bub and Bob transported to the Rainbow Islands, which are slowly sinking into the sea. No reason is given for their transformation into humans, with Taito seemingly going for the tried and tested "because we said so" approach. My guess would have been that they wanted the characters to be more readily identifiable with the audience; however that theory goes out of the window when later games involving the pair saw them revert back to their previous dragon forms.

The general gist of the game is that the Rainbow Islands are in trouble thanks to a wide assortment of various mooks and bad guys, with Bub or Bob being tasked with defeating the evildoers and returning the islands to their former glory. Short, simple and perfect for an arcade game.

It is in the gameplay that we see the true genius of Rainbow Islands. On the surface of things the game looks like it should be quite simple. The player takes control of either Bub or Bob as they ascend the level, utilizing the rainbows that they can magically generate to not only destroy their enemies but to also provide temporary platforms up to higher platforms. Sounds simple and, for the first few stages, it is. Things start at a fairly sedate pace, allowing the player to gradually get used to the game's mechanics, however as the game progresses and new islands and levels are reached things start getting much more hectic.

The trick lies in the rainbows themselves. They are used for pretty much everything in the game, from attacking enemies through to finding secrets and providing platforms for Bub and Bob to use. However they are also extremely fragile. Using them as a platform will see them disintegrate in short order, as will using them against an enemy. This isn't so much a problem when there isn't much going on, but fill a stage up with enemies and back the player into a corner and things suddenly descend into a frantic mashing of buttons as gamers attempt to navigate the level whilst avoiding or killing enemies, all whilst dealing with their short lived rainbows.



The difficulty is compounded further by the fact that the player is always playing against the clock. The water level on each stage slowly rises right from the off, meaning that the player doesn't have a whole lot of time to consider their next move and forcing some very snappy decisions in the latter stages of the title. It adds a little bit more tension to the game and ensures that the player can never relax for too long, whilst also making for an extremely challenging game in the process.

Boss battles are suitably difficult as well, though you wouldn't be able to tell from the graphics. Specifically the cartoonish version of Count Dracula can be an absolute killer for many players who are unfamiliar with him, however the encounters in general are usually highlights rather than exercises in frustration, doing a great job in capping off the various levels.

Rainbow Islands is also famous for containing more secrets than Wikileaks, as it is packed to the brim with hidden power-ups and levels that can only be found through use of Bub and Bob's rainbows. Players can find a host of different items throughout the levels and only the most dedicated will be able to uncover all of the secrets that are hidden away in the game. It takes a special level of skill as well, as exploring is a little bit counter-productive when the main goal is to make your way through the levels as quickly as you can.

Bub and Bob are helped out by their power-ups however, which is kind of a moot point really I suppose seeing as that is the purpose of power-ups. To counteract the enemies getting faster and more numerous as the game progresses, the player can pick up items that speed their player up in addition to hastening the generation of rainbows and increasing the number that are spawned. These become ever more vital as you progress and losing said power-ups can result in an extremely difficult path through the later levels.

Rainbow Islands difficult gameplay is somewhat dissimilar to the graphics on display. As mentioned the game makes use of a cute set of visuals that not only serve to completely fool the player as to the difficulty of the game, but also allows for the creation of chunky and colorful sprites that ensure that everything in the level is clear and easy to see.

Level design is also extremely tight to complement the clear graphical style and the player never gets the feeling that they are being cheated out of a life when they lose one. Instead the game prompts you to adapt to some fiendish levels and enemy placements, without ever forcing you into unwinnable situations that weren't your own fault to begin with. It's a rare trick for a platformer to be so well put together but Rainbow Islands manages it for the most part, though it's helped in no small part by the rainbow firing abilities of Bub and Bob providing them with a means to escape most situations.

Musically the game is a bit of a mixed bag. The use of a slightly remixed version of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow' would have been inspired had copyright issues not forced a rethink in later versions, with the rest of the music featured being fairly uninspired. It does fit in with the overall tone of the game, however for me it has always just faded into the background. Every time I have ever said this I've been hit with protests from the comments section however.

All in all, Rainbow Islands isn't really the sort of game that screams ‘Instant Classic'. However those who chanced upon the title in their local arcade would have discovered an extremely addictive title that provided a difficulty level that ensured a healthy challenge whilst also providing plenty of value for money. It is a true classic, even if it flies under most people's radars.



The Aftermath

Rainbow Islands is generally one of those games that doesn't really register when people discuss the best platformers of the arcade era, however it received massive critical acclaim when it was first released. This was mirrored by the reception from fans, as practically everybody who gave the game a chance came to enjoy it.

Like most popular arcade games of the era, the title also managed to find its way onto just about every console and home computer going. Whilst a couple of versions didn't quite live up to the originals standards, the general quality of conversions was actually quite high, leading to fans in the British computer scene taking the game to heart thanks to the quality conversions on the Atari ST, Amiga and Spectrum.

The game has since managed to find its way onto a host of other consoles in the years that have followed. Versions on the Genesis were followed up by various compilations seeing the title find its way onto the Saturn, Xbox and PS2. Most recently there has been a re-release of the original title on the XBLA, with swanky new graphics to pull in those who missed the game the first time around.

Conversion Corner

Coming out in the era that it did led to Rainbow Islands having a whole heap of different conversions across the UK home computer market and a bunch of different consoles as well. Best amongst them are the versions on the Amiga, as perhaps indicated by the rave reviews from Amiga Power that were previously mentioned, and the PC Engine.

The PC Engine (TurboGrafx-16) version was perhaps the nearest to capturing the full arcade experience as it had been intended. It is also the only home conversion that featured the three secret islands that were present in the arcade version, so if there is a version of the game that you are going to hunt down, this one should be it.

However if you want something similar to the arcade version then you should avoid the Master System conversion. While I would normally make excuses about the power of the system, superior conversions were available on the Spectrum and other comparatively weaker consoles. However the Master System version, whilst looking pretty decent, just didn't match up. Boss battles are made extremely simple and once the game was in motion and getting busy there would be a whole lot of screen flicker. Not something you really want on the later levels.

Having said that, it's not a bad game in its own right. Just different. If you can get past the flicker and the weird vertical scrolling effect then you actually have a halfway decent game. I does have different level arrangements and a bunch of new enemies.

Of course you could also go for the 2.5D version that was released on the XBLA if none of the original conversions is available.

The Guy Who Can do it Better than You

It may be the Atari ST port but it's pretty damned impressive;



Enjoy and see you next week.