Rainbow Moon

It all becomes weirdly addictive. [Sept 2012, p.109]

A Japanese rpg from Germany. Even with a couple of flaws, this game is a real treat. It's charming and the battles are challenging.

There is fun to be had, as I have said, and if you have an itch for nostalgia that needs scratching, love role playing games and have a ton of time to play this summer, then Rainbow Moon is definitely worth the fifteen dollar admission price.

It's a huge game, in other words, and it's tough enough to ensure that you'll move through it fairly carefully. Throw in a scrappy kind of handicraft charm, ignore a selection of little annoyances, and Rainbow Moon becomes a bit of a blast.

Yes, Rainbow Moon is a flawed SRPG, but I know that a number a serious genre fans will absolutely fall in love.

You can block routes off with loot, and most battles descend into simply turtling into a corner, playing the boring, easy route. A shame, as it's otherwise solid. [Issue#221, p.81]

There's a lot to experience for a $15 downloadable game, as long as you enjoy the battle system.

If you are a fan of the classic experience grinding and snail's pacing design principles of yesterday, Rainbow Moon has a lot to offer.

Rainbow Moon has simple gameplay, and a charming and colorful look. Both the look and soundtrack is very retro, and seems to be a tribute to old classics. Is you're a fan of strategic RPGs, you'll find a lot to love here. I, on the other hand, found it more of a chore.

If the game had an engaging story and actually felt more like a "game" than a procedural chore, I would have been committed to finishing it properly. Instead Rainbow Moon offers you the gameplay you love, with none of the charm or interest.

Rainbow Moon is not a bad game, but it's not a particularly good one either. It has a few nice tweaks to circumvent some of the frustrations of JRPG's and tactics games, but it adds some new frustrations of its own.

The game is filled with problems that bring down the overall experience and enjoyment. I'm sure some gamers will enjoy the grind and character building, but with so many other great Strategy RPGs (especially on the PSN), I do wonder why gamers would want to take part in something with a story that is close to non-existent, has no character personality, and features pacing that starts ridiculously slow.

It's this grind, more than anything else, which drags down Rainbow Moon, dividing your time almost equally between genuinely enjoyable dungeon-crawling and frustrating, level-building slog. It's a real shame, as the game has great ideas and a lot of retro charm to it, but it's hard to justify investing so much time into it when you're not really enjoying yourself.

The pieces are in place for a fine adventure, but Rainbow Moon's shallow mechanics have limited appeal.

Despite its fantastic, straightforward combat, Rainbow Moon is a game that buckles under the weight of its bloated runtime.

There is no story. There is no characterisation; just bland characters and blander NPCs with stupid names like "Ed Orable" who speech-bubble the same banal crap over and over again. What this game ultimately boils down to is playing a ton of repetitive and often laborious turn based battles in a bid to do nothing much at all. It's an RPG without the "RP," and the "G" that's left doesn't really have much to say for itself. [September 2012, p73]

The game starts out at a tortoise's pace and never gains any speed. It's a 20-hour game that's stretched out twice as long as it should be.

Despite its flaws Rainbow Moon is a decent option for fans of the SRPG genre at a very approachable initial price.

Rainbow Moon isn't terrible, just terribly dull. It's functional and fun to look at, but the lack of story, character arcs, and creative mechanics makes it a chore to play.