"The Codemasters' Revulsion strikes again!"

Codemasters and Dreams are at it again! If joining together to revive Taito's arcade classic Bubble Bobble for the DS and adding "Revolution" to the title wasn't enough nostalgia, they have given the same treatment to that game's successor, Rainbow Islands. If you have read my review of Bubble Bobble Revolution, you will know to be a terrible, terrible transformation that insults both fans and newcomers alike. Though the "revolution" this time shows a hint of inspiration and acknowledgement of the original property, the self-destructive controls and ho-hum presentation destroy any fun that could have been had from yet another uninspired revival.

Rainbow Islands Revolution puts players in the shoes of the protagonists of Bubble Bobble, who have now they regained their humanity and go by the names of Bubby and Bobby, respectively. The boys (or are they just really short, cute men?) have become rainbow magicians, which grants them the ability to harness the fighting powers of the rainbow. Traversing multiple screens of tall, vertically scrolling levels, players must help the boys rescue their friends and get rich! This might not seem like much of a back story now, but back in the day we were just wowed to see our heroes as humans!

Where Bubble Bobble has bubbles for weapons, Rainbow Islands has rainbows. In the original game players would shoot out the rainbows with a button press, but this has been replaced with touch screen controls; you now draw your rainbow on the screen and it appears in game, followed by a star that sweeps the rainbow and attacks enemies. Sounds simple and effective enough, right? Not content with keeping the game playable though, the developers decided to ruin those controls by also placing the control of your character with the touch screen. This means that the game decides when you are trying to move your character and when you are trying to draw a rainbow, leading to players taking unnecessary damage or even dying while fighting with the controls. By simply mapping movement to the D-Pad the game would leap up in playability, but this one fatal move creates a vortex of suck that quickly steals away all the possible fun.

If you find the gameplay bearable, despite the controls, what you will find is well over fifty levels of the same design with different backgrounds and platform themes. Bubble Bobble lives and dies with brilliant level design and it appears that Rainbow Islands does as well. There is never any real challenge from navigating around floating platforms and attacking enemies; that was saved for the challenge of controlling the game. Again, this revolution is closer to the original Rainbow Islands than the revulsion that happened with Bubble Bobble, but it's still too far off to even be considered mediocre.

The presentation was handled a bit better than with Bubble Bobble, as Rainbow Islands looks like it could be on the Game Boy Advance instead of the Game Boy Color. Still, this is a DS game and the lackluster character, object and level designs feel if they were pulled from a disc full of generic clip art for video games, while the music is unrelentingly happy and just might cause an ear infection if listened to for extended periods of time. All and all, this game has all the personality of a package of generic, oddly chalky M&Ms, each of which are adorned with poor attempts at cartoon copyright infringement.

For some odd reason, the inclusion of the original Rainbow Islands was left somewhere on the cutting board. Just as it did for Bubble Bobble Revolution, it would have given this title some sort of lasting appeal, as well as making the overall package more attractive. Instead, all we are left with is a ton of secret levels, characters, items and more that very few will ever unlock. Multiplayer might as well not exist, as making it necessary that each player has a copy of the game feels more like an excuse to sell extra copies rather than because the multiplayer is fun or taxing on the system.

What started out as an interesting and potentially awesome project, reviving two of Taito's classic arcade games, has turned into a gigantic disaster for gamers and hopefully one for the publishers if we're to avoid this becoming a trend. Rainbow Islands Revolution and Bubble Bobble Revolution insult long-time fans with their careless handling of beloved memories, while tainting the franchises to any newcomers who stumbled across them. Please Codemasters, please Rising Star, please Dreams - stop trotting out these plastic clamshells of shame.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 03/06/07