Make friends, help critters through their struggles and insecurities, and ultimately restore the colour stolen by the mean old leviathan to the lands of Rainbow Billy and the Curse of the Leviathan. Developed by Manavoid Entertainment and published by Skybound Games, this wholesome puzzle-platformer is launching on PC, Playstation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch on October 5th.

When I first started playing and was running around the very first area I was thinking to myself, what have I gotten myself into? Why am I, an almost 30-year-old dude, playing this hello kitty-esque game? Where are the explosions and guns and cars and stuff? Not soon after the introduction and with the awakening of the Leviathan, this once happy colourful land became void of all color. That mean old bastard the Leviathan got woken from his slumber early after Billy and the townsfolk put on a colourful fireworks display.

Now, one would think that the Leviathan could have just called noise patrol or even gone out to ask them to keep the noise down a bit, but alas, he crawls out from his little hovel and sucks the world dry of colour. A bit drastic don’t ya think? Not only is the colour gone, but everyone’s happy and friendly emotions have been drowned out by the insecurities and monochromatic world surrounding them. It’s all up to Billy now, and he’ll have to travel the world, help with the insecurities and issues the critters are facing, and befriend the critters to restore order to the world.

Wholesome is an understatement when it comes to the story in Rainbow Billy. There are no battles. No fighting. Just a dude called Billy talking to some struggling critters and showing them a different perspective to their thoughts and insecurities.

This is where the encounters come into play. Each critter is seemingly hostile towards you at the start, and while in the encounter you must pick from dialogue to start to change the struggling critters’ view and slowly return their color. Each befriended critter has a selection of moves that have different types, which you can unlock by increasing their friendship level on your boat, and each hostile critter has a bunch of unknown types which you must match up to restore their colour.

Each successful dialogue choice will reveal a type to match. To use the moves from your befriended critters, there is a QuickTime event/minigame to complete. On top of that, each befriended critter has a special bonus when played. Some will increase Billy’s morale by a certain amount, others will reveal what type of token is needed to match. As you venture through the areas and befriend more and more critters, you will come across secret areas, challenges, fishing spots, and dark thoughts, all of which you can convert into all sorts of goodies on your ship.

The 2.5D (not quite 3D, but not 2D) layout of the game didn’t feel as smooth as I would have liked, and I think that’s mainly due to the 2D characters traversing a 3D world. The camera angles felt off and some jumps that looked like they definitely would land didn’t. That aside, the variety of colours and level designs, along with the design of the puzzles and challenges, had me gripped and 4 hours into my playthrough, I had just befriended the first boss! The concept of returning colour to a monochromatic world caught me off guard, but this original concept was a breath of fresh air.

Backed by an extremely playful soundtrack that shadows the areas you are in, I have to say the audio in the game kept me immersed and playing for longer than I should have! Not only were there cut little dreamy songs, but when in danger, out came the synthy boss encounter music. None of the backing tracks looped every minute or so, and they all fit in the areas that they are played in.

Rainbow Billy and the Curse of the Leviathan hits all the right notes in a family-friendly hit. Exploring ideas of self-exploration and improvement, helping people through struggles like insecurities and mental health, is more than just a game. Perfect for kids to learn and explore different approaches to every challenge, and a perfect game for all ages that takes a step away from the normal.

Written by: Bigfoot