Rainbow Islands Revolution's Story Mode brings you back to that chain of islands where Bubby once called home. Years after the events of the last
Rainbow Island adventure, our hero has become a master rainbow magician and he is coming home to find it is once again overrun with monsters. Now you will guide one of four characters through the islands, clearing them out one stage at a time.
As in past games, you have a set amount of time to climb your way through each level. Along your way, enemies fitting the current island's theme will jump on you, fire at you, and otherwise try to impede your progress. Also, like the past games, you will use rainbows to either knock the enemies out, or trap them or block them from reaching you. You create these rainbows by drawing them with your stylus (a la Kirby Canvas Curse). When some enemies encounter these rainbows, they turn around and start walking the other way, while other enemies will just fly or bounce over them.
As you defeat baddies, you can collect various special items, typically fruit, but there are also shoes (which makes your character faster) and potions that help enhance your rainbow's potency. If you collect enough points, your Star meter will fill up. When you tap the meter and draw a five-point start on the screen, all of the enemies that appear on both screens will be killed. Another trick you can perform with the rainbows includes drawing a triangle that sucks all of the enemies on the touch screen into one place, allowing you to swipe through them all at once.
So the big difference between this game and the past Rainbow Island games is how you create a rainbow and what those rainbows can do. Previously, you just created arcs and they pretty much just trapped enemies. The other change is that your character is encased in a bubble. You don't use the D-Pad to move your guy around, but instead you drag him across the level with the stylus (yes, the same stylus you need to use to kill enemies). Switching between the movement and rainbow mechanics got to be quite a headache after a while (but more on that later).
Besides the Story Mode, Revolution also provides Score Mode and Versus Mode. Score Mode is essentially an endurance game to see how many enemies you can destroy and how many points you can gather with one life. Versus Mode lets you and up to three other friends play through specific levels at the same time in order to see who can get to the goal first. An interesting aspect of this game is that even though you don't see the other players on your screen, you do feel their effects. When they kill an enemy, it appears on all of the other players' levels, and if they get a power up (like the shoes), then they speed up and everyone else slows down.
