Rainbows, Toilets and Unicorns Review

The summer doesn’t feel that long ago, but it did feel like a long one with lockdown and all that. However, imagine the ice cream van pulling up outside your house. Obviously it’s a hot day so you get your wallet and bolt out the door and socially distance yourself towards the van. You order an ice cream, vendors choice, they give you a rainbow coloured gem of an ice cream cone. You eat it and your taste buds enjoy it immensely. Unfortunately, your stomach doesn’t agree and you run to the nearest toilet and out comes………. a giant rainbow. Welcome to Rainbows, Toilets and Unicorns.

Rainbows, Toilets and Unicorns starts off in a weirdly wonderful way and manages to carry that feeling on throughout. Rainbows, Toilets and Unicorns is your classic vertical bullet hell shooter and a very good one at that. Your character starts off at the bottom of the screen, you can move them up, down, left and right shooting out projectiles. Enemies fall from above, when they are hit purples gems appear, collect these to fill your Sparklebarf bar, yes, it seems that rainbows come out of your bum and projectiles out of your mouth. There 5 stages containing 5 levels, each stage has 3 bosses. As your Sparklebarf bar levels up you increase the amount of projectiles coming out of your mouth, so on screen things can get hellishly busy very quickly with the amount of enemies and projectiles flying all over the place.

The action in Rainbows, Toilets and Unicorns takes place in the centre of the screen, there’s a picture of your character on the left on your statistics on the left. The action screen is just big enough to contain everything that is going on. In Rainbows, Toilets and Unicorns there are 3 kinds of power-ups, one is the shield that can take one hit, the magnet which sucks gems towards  you and the ammo which just upgrades your ammo for a short period. Rainbows, Toilets and Unicorns is not an easy game, with all the your projectiles doing the damage you may forget that this is a one hit and you restart game which is as challenging as it is frustrating but in a good way. There will be multiple times you will reach the last boss and get close to beating them only for you to panic and get hit by them, so if you see a shield pick it up!

The stages, enemies and bosses are all themed on modern things such as certain politicians, influencers and so on, it is quite hilarious when you see it on screen in Rainbows, Toilets and Unicorns. Navigating around the screen and shooting is difficult, but you’ll get better at it, there is a short turn around in the levels should you die so if you are particularly good or lucky you can get through a stage in less than 10 minutes. Unfortunately for Rainbows, Toilets and Unicorns, once it is beaten there is no real reason to go back, there’s no high scoreboard or local/online multiplayer which is a shame.

Graphically Rainbows, Toilets and Unicorns is bright, bold and beautiful. Rainbows, Toilets and Unicorns is a very colourful game, but your character is a bit on the long side. He’s thin, but quite long, so when moving around frantically you’ll find yourself flying into enemies, which is particularly annoying if you haven’t got a shield. A minor issue is your super weapon, the tank which fills up is located in the bottom left of the central screen, your character partially gets lost behind it which can make things difficult if you are trying to dodge bullets, it would make more sense to have this located either left or right. Musically Rainbows, Toilets and Unicorns is again on point, very energetic and loud whilst all the sound effects are really good and brash. It’s just a shame that Rainbows, Toilets and Unicorns is quite a short game if you are good at this genre.

Rainbows, Toilets and Unicorns is a short but excellent bullet hell game. The bold and brash colours intertwined with the pop culture references make Rainbows, Toilets and Unicorns come across really clever. The experience is intense and frantic, but when you get through a stage it definitely feels like it was worth the pain. If you are looking for a short but fantastical experience that offers a big challenge then you should eat the nearest rainbow ice cream covered cone and play Rainbows, Toilets and Unicorns.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Playstation 4 code was provided to Bonus Stage for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to press@4gn.co.uk.