Rainbow Billy: The Curse of the Leviathan Review (Switch eShop)

We’ve seen some twee stuff here on the Nintendo Life zeppelin, but Rainbow Billy: The Curse of the Leviathan may be the twee-most created by human hands. It’s such a ruddy twee that it might as well have been scrambled by the Teletubbies, all crammed around Po’s little belly computer trying to mark line after line from Python, ultimately resulting in his painful beating to death.

But all that is irrelevant. The thing is, Rainbow Billy is so twee that he does Walter the Softy to go “Ugh, this is a bit cheesy isn’t it?” So it must be a lot of fun to counteract the sugary sweetness, lest the teeth deign to rot. Fortunately, it is quite fun, although there are some caveats.

Essentially, the gameplay is not entirely different than Paper Mario or the recent (excellent) suitor, Bug Fables; With lively and brightly colored 3D environments and well drawn thick line 2D assets, it is also very familiar but in an attractive way. The use of color is great overall, and it’s always clearly coded where you can and can’t walk, which is less limiting than you might think, as even the earliest area of ​​the game has you clambering all over the rooftops. And the aforementioned color, you see, comes into play outside of the simple aesthetic.

See, a bloody great dragon has stolen the world’s color, depriving it of joy and, erm, pigmentation. Oh no! So, obviously, OBVIOUSLY, Rainbow Billy sets out on the open sea via her (deep sigh) Friend-Ship, in search of the stolen tincture through the trio of disciplines we would usefully call exploration, platforming, and “combat.”

The sharpest of you will have noticed that we put the fight in scary quotes, which is accurate because there is no real boxing here. Billy must instead befriend his opponents by talking to them, listening, and understanding their problems. Yes, it’s all a bit Get along gangIt is not like this? This is the tweeness we were talking about. But this is not just some kind of sub-Undertale, there is a strategy involved. To “understand” the enemies, you must use your friends already recruited to acquire tokens of different colors and shapes and wear down the opponent’s resistance to your FRIENDSHIP WITHOUT LIMITS.

It’s kind of creepy when you think about it, so try not to. These morale battles are fun, and later in the game, when you have more friends than MySpace Tom, it becomes somewhat strategic as the various colors and shapes required become a little less accessible. You will also have to play different button combination minigames. to the aforementioned Paper Mario series, but the presentation of these is a bit lackluster compared to almost everything else.

Moving around the world is a real pleasure, with secrets and cubicles full of hidden coins all over the place, and a great variety in the game world as you sail from island to island making new friends, solving problems and generally having a great time. little. great time of it. There are little environmental puzzles to solve, lots of people to talk to, and a good place to fish for an extra activity (although the fishing minigame, as it is, feels like an old flash game).

This inherent kindness comes at a cost. While the game generally runs at 60 frames per second, we did see it go ridiculously low at times, mostly during boat ride sequences. Fortunately, a squeeze skill wasn’t needed at these points, but it’s still disappointing to see the game resonate like this. It also opens with a staggeringly long loading screen. In fact, it is so long that we timed it and it reached a one minute and forty five seconds, which is quite expected. We’re not sure why either, as while the game certainly looks good and feels expansive, it doesn’t feel expansive on nearly two minutes of loading.

conclusion

Rainbow Billy is so much better than the sum of its parts, and it’s just some pretty serious glitches that keep us from giving it a higher score. We know that we have insisted a little, but really is Exceptionally maudlin most of the time, leading to a certain disconnect in which the subject can be quite thoughtful and mature, but the dialogue used to describe it is relentlessly cheesy. It’s definitely an odd game, but the surprisingly complicated “combat” and snappy pace of exploration make it a tentative recommendation if you can tolerate the tone. We’d say it’s specifically geared toward kids, but the level of difficulty can be quite high, which confuses the matter a bit. Still, lovely visuals, well-designed locations, fun battles; the ingredients of a good game are all present and correct here.