Rainbow Islands is sometimes described as the spiritual partner to Bubble Bobble, and it’s not hard to see why; they’re both platformers that are easy to learn, but require you to master your character’s main ability in a variety of ways to clear each level. In Rainbow Island, you’re tasked with climbing as high as you can along a series of platforms, but the gaps between them are often too high to jump from one to another so you have to spawn rainbows to make up the difference.

These rainbows are your character’s main method of both defending himself from enemies and getting around the stage, and you’ll have to be fast because you’re racing both the clock and a giant drilling machine chasing you from below; you lose a lot of time if it catches up and hits you. Thus, you need to be both quick and flexible, since while you can collect power-ups to improve your rainbows you also have to learn to use those rainbows in creative ways. Certainly they can be used as makeshift platforms, but they can also be used to attack nearby enemies or as barriers to block incoming attacks. Learning how to do all these things quickly will be necessary to make it to the top of each stage, and it adds reasonable depth to the game.

Being fast and good at various rainbow techniques is fine, but as this is an old-school platformer you won’t be surprised to find various power-ups. Some are simple gems spawned from killing several enemies quickly, and grabbing them will add more time to your clock. Others improve your rainbows, or shoot a field of stars around the area to attack enemies for you, or even freeze them in place while you deal with them. These are all pretty typical, but that’s fine given the kind of game Rainbow Islands is.

Play is divided between four major modes: Story, Challenge, Time Attack, and Xbox Live match. Story is basically what was described above, as you fight through several stages to try to reach the top of a huge tower. You’re on a time-limit, but it’s okay if you fail; you can continue at the start of the stage you’re currently on. Challenge mode is basically an endurance run where you’re tested on how high you can climb before time runs out, while Time Attack measures how quickly you can climb a specific distance. These modes are all well enough, and Story and Challenge modes allow a second player to join in.

Rainbow Islands also supports online versus play, though unfortunately it seems to be a ghost town already. In multiple attempts over the last couple of days, I have found nobody playing online and had to give up on it. This is a shame, since the idea of a ’versus platformer’ sounds interesting.

All told, Rainbow Islands has few genuine flaws but is not a very ambitious title either. It is a bit short, though beyond this it’s a fine example of an old-school arcade platformer and has excellent controls. If you’re in the market for something like that, this may be worth the 800 Points/$10; my only caveat is there are admittedly several better games on XBLA at this price point, but this one isn’t bad.