Monday MAME Club [2/13/06] - Rainbow Islands

[Flack]

http://members.cox.net/flack/mameclub1.jpg

RetroYoungen has selected Rainbow Islands (Taito, 1987). Download (http://www.robohara.com/mameclub/rainbow.zip), play, and discuss! (KLOV Info (http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=&game_id=9255))

http://images.webmagic.com/klov.com/screens/R/yRainbow_Islands_-_The_Story_Of_Bubble_Bobble_2.png

Club Rules

01. You do not need to sign up for the club. If you want to participate, simply download the game of the week and post about it!

02. At the end of the week, I will randomly select someone who participated this week to select next week's game.

03. The current MAME Club Pick of the Week can be found Mondays stickied at the top of the main forum, and after that stickied at the top of the Arcade Alley forum.

Previously Picked Games: Blood Bros, Boogie Wings, Bubbles, Donkey Kong 3, Great 1000 Mile Rally, Gunforce 2, Haunted Castle, Liquid Kids, Mad Planets, Ninja Clowns, Rescue, Top Hunter, Yie-Ar Kung-Fu, 19xx: The War Against Destiny, Alligator Hunt, APB - All Points Bulletin, Armed Police Batrider, Ataxx, Battle Bakraid, Battle Bakraid, Battle Circuit, Berzerk, Biomechanical Toy, Blazing Star, Block Out, Bomb Jack, Bronze Adventure, Burgertime, Caliber 50, Chuka Taisen/Cloud Master, City Bomber, Combatribes, Crossbow, D&D: Shadow Over Mystara, Daisu-Kiss, Darius Gaiden, Dr. Micro, Dynasty Wars, Elevator Action, Elevator Action Returns, Escape From The Planet Of The Robot Monsters, ESP Ra.De., G.I. Joe, Go! Go! Mile Smile, Gunbarich, Gyruss, I'm Sorry, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Lady Bug, League Bowling, Mega Twins, Metal Slug 2, Mighty! Pang, Mr. Do!'s Wild Ride, Mysterious Stones, NARC, Pandora's Palace, Pang, Penguin-Kun Wars, Portman, Prehistoric Isle in 1930, Pu-Li-Ru-La, Raiden II, Rainbow Islands, Rampart!, Rastan, Rollergames, Satan's Hollow, Shinobi, Skull & Crossbones, Solomon's Key, Splatterhouse, Strike Force, Super Burgertime, Tempest, The Punisher, The Simpsons, Vs. Excitebike, Vendetta, Waku Waku 7, Withdrew, WWF Superstars.

Now, MAME ON!

** Note -- want to be notified when a new Monday Morning MAME Club pick is posted? Send an e-mail to flack@cox.net asking me to add me to the mailing list, and when a new game is posted I'll e-mail you the URL! You can get removed from the list by e-mailing me and asking to be removed. **

[poloplayr]

I used to LOVE this on my amiga. Never played the arcade version though.

[Ed Oscuro]

Levels based on Arkanoid and even Darius? Sweet! I keep hearing about this game, guess it's time to try it out :)

I do believe Bloodreign's a fan as well, as he is the master of all things that bubble and/or bobble (well, game-wise, anyway).

[Bloodreign]

Yes indeed, I've played this game through quite a bit in different incarnations (romming except for the arcade version now thanks to Taito Legends, still play it on MAME too) there's levels based off of the Fairyland Story (1 world, 4 levels), Bubble Bobble , and as Ed said, Darius and Arkanoid (another favorite o' mine). There's the Extra version too that reverses the levels and is more difficult, but the object is the same, grab 7 diamonds in a world to get the big diamond at the end of the world after beating the world boss. Grabbing the 7 diamonds in order opens a big door in the boss levels, so you can skip the boss fight collect the big diamond (3 mirrors Islands 8-10), and get special items like permanent wings, permanent fast shoes, infinite continues past Island 7, permanent triple rainbows, etc.

Bosses include, a large ship from Darius, Doh for the Arkanoid level, a Big Red Devil from Fairyland Story (appears in that game whenever you take too long to finish a level), at first it seems like a kids game, but then you realize exactly how addictive the game is. The PC Engine Duo version even has a special ending (finding every diamond in order, on all 10 islands) which has a nice J-Pop song complete with lyrics.

[RetroYoungen]

I love this game. After I got seriously addicted to Bubble Bobble I went looking for any other games in the series, and I found Rainbow Islands, downloaded it and just went to town. Glad to see that other people like it too!

[Ze_ro]

I always felt that Rainbow Islands (and Parasol Stars) were weak "sequels" to Bubble Bobble... Luckily we also have Bubble Symphony and Bubble Memories, so I guess I can't really complain.

Anyways, I never really got into this game before. I'll have to give it a few plays tonight and see what the fuss is all about.

--Zero

[Ze_ro]

Oof, Rainbow Islands doesn't work properly on the GP2X version of MAME... lots of weird stuff happens, including no enemies appearing after level 1 (makes the game very boring), the levels ending at seemingly random times, and no sound. Oh well, no portability this week.

There's actually a lot more to this game than I realized. I managed to get all the gems, but I have no idea what it did for me. I find the controls very frustrating... jumping is especially difficult to control as you have almost zero horizontal control, and I never seem to know when rainbows are going to collapse under me (I know you're supposed to hold jump, but it doesn't seem to work all the time)... most of these issues are holdovers from the Bubble Bobble control, which I also found frustrating at times. All this ends up causing me to fall a LOT, wasting tons of time.

Anyways, it's still a much more fun game than I thought it was... although it's still not as good as the original Bubble Bobble.

--Zero

[Cryomancer]

It's interesting and I can see the appeal, but I kinda suck at it and have a bit of trouble with the controls. Probably would enjoy it more with more practice though. Neat little game, this is Bub and Bob after they become human again right? They're kinda chubby, heh. Do they ever attempt to explain how they're dragons again for bust-a-move? Maybe I'm overthinking these bright rainbowy games a little too much. LOL

Good pick

[Ackman]

I don't think it's fair to bitch about the controls ... they are 1987 era... they are very stiff but precise and I sort of like that in a way.

Ah all in all 7+/10....

I like it, but it ain't no bubble bubble.

[Ze_ro]

Plenty of 80's games had great controls... I don't see how age has anything to do with what's going on here.

--Zero

[Flack]

I like it, but it ain't no bubble bubble.
Ackman stole my review! It's a fun game and I'd played it before, but getting the jumping and rainbow riding and all that stuff down seems to be more difficult than it should be. A lot of times I find myself jumping into stuff that I didn't mean to. I like it, but I love Bubble Bobble.

[GetImOliver]

I remember this game being absurdly difficult for an 8 year old. I remember being swallowed up by the water for taking too long almost every time. Luckily for me, it's gotten easier over the years. Yeah, the jump control is floaty and I never really know when I was going to collapse my rainbows, but way fun overall. I never did get the obsession Taito had with weird treasures and daimonds.

Oh, and was there ever a game where you got swallowed by Baron Von Bubba and you had to dodge acid drops in his stomach, or am I just on crack?

[Ze_ro]

Well, the first boss in The New Zealand Story is a big whale that swallows you whole... is that what you're thinking about?

--Zero