It’s quite hard to review games which have little to no story or plot to them, but in the end, it mostly revolves around how the game plays and how you feel about the experience. Runbow fits into this mold perfectly. The game which takes the standard side-scrolling experience and turns it on its head with a unique gameplay mechanic won’t take on games like Gears of War in the narrative department, but it does offer some interesting concepts that may impress some of the most hardened of gamers.
Runbow is a color-based sidescroller in its core concept. However, the game takes this and mixes it with time-based gameplay that requires you to finish a specific map in a specified time. To make it even more interesting, the game throws another curveball into the mix. Much like ReCore with its color-based combat, Runbow floods the screen with four different colors that change every few seconds. Each platform is a specific color and when the screen floods with that specific color, the platform matching it disappears for a few seconds until the next color floods the screen. This offers not only a unique mechanic but adds an extra layer of complexity to a rather bland experience.
Runbow also features several modes, including the standard runner mode which sees you fight against the clock trying to finish ten or more maps in the shortest amount of time; it features challenge modes which see you having to finish specific challenges in the shortest amount of time; and it features an online mode which unfortunately was empty during my playthroughs. The game offers several achievements on Steam which add some extra incentive to take on smaller challenges in the game.
Runbow comes with several unlockables, like new characters and abilities. You start off with Redbow in both male and female options, and as you go along you unlock new characters to play as. From what I’ve experienced they are all mostly the same with minor differences, which makes the entire premise kind of pointless. Sure, having a police outfit to play in might seem interesting at first; but if it does not offer something truly different, what difference does it make?
Runbow does suffer from a rather clunky control scheme from the get go and I would urge players to map the buttons to a more comfortable and easy to master scheme, since the game requires you to focus your hands on a very small part of the keyboard, making the game exceptionally hard to get a grip on. Graphicswise the game is crisp, clean and gamers won’t have any difficulty discerning the platform colors.
Summary
Runbow can be quite annoying to first-time players who might pick this up and try it out. But once you map the controls to a more natural gaming experience, it gets easier. However, the game does not offer enough to warrant multiple playthroughs. It has too few puzzles, and some platforms are unnecessary in their complexity, especially with the initial control scheme that I can see people giving up before they can experience what the game offers.
The game, much like many others, is a great party-play experience, and I can see it having a decent future on the Xbox One, but on PC where 40% of games on the platform released in the last year, it might have a slight problem getting some attention. Games like #IDARB saw some great success on Xbox One, and it wouldn’t be a stretch seeing this game becoming a great multiplayer experience on a console, other than the Wii U it originally debuted on.
Dreyer was a regular ICXM contributor between 2016–2017, publishing 139 articles across opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news. Their work focused on hands-on reviews, platform commentary, and breaking-news reporting during the Xbox One X launch year and Microsoft’s wider Play Anywhere / UWP gaming initiative. They post on X as @dreyer_smit.