A Dull Adventure
Rainbow Sea is a new adventure game by Shirokurohitsuji. Players take on the role of a human who awakens on a ship occupied by seven gods. It turns out you’ve been chosen to ascend to godhood. But first you must spend a year on this ship, getting to know the other gods. It’s a solid premise, right? Unfortunately, Rainbow Sea, is more than anything a monotonous adventure.
You have twelve months to explore the ship and get to know the Seven Lucky Gods. Each time you sleep, a month passes, so the game can easily be completed within a few hours. There are six rooms on the ship, not including the deck, one of which is your bedroom. It doesn’t take long to scout the entire ship. Soon you’ll have exhausted your options and be ready to sleep. And when you wake up you just repeat the same actions, traversing the ship and talking to the gods. Tasks include fishing, delivering papers, and helping to cook dinner which would all be a lot more fun if you got to control your character while doing them. Honestly, I found Rainbow Sea to be boring and the severely repetitive gameplay quickly left me itching to set the game aside.
The Road To Godhood
You may be thinking the road to godhood is full of challenging combat and puzzles. But alas, Rainbow Sea is devoid of both. There’s no inventory, no weapons, and no challenge. All you do is wander the ship and chat with the gods. You’ll unlock events as you play that allow having interactions with the different deities on board. However, I wouldn’t call these events challenging or immersive. They basically just involve your character automatically completing a task or answering questions.
You can learn the requirements of each event by watching an ad. Since there are hundreds of events, it will take a while to unlock the conditions for each one. Considering how tiresome the game is, I wouldn’t invest too much time watching these ads.
Since you’re on a time limit, you won’t be able to interact with each god every month. Depending on who you interact with and how you respond to questions you’ll unlock one of 22 different endings. So, if you actually enjoy the game, there’s a lot of replay value. Some of the gods are friendly and approachable while others are cold and aloof.
One of Rainbow Sea’s selling points is that it lets the player lie when answering the gods questions. Lying can obviously change the outcome of the game, though there doesn’t seem to be any repercussions for it. You don’t need any sort of skill to successfully lie which takes some of the fun out of it.
The Verdict
Rainbow Sea is a dull adventure game with little to do. You’ll quickly tire of exploring the cramped ship and chatting with the Seven Lucky Gods. The pixel art is lovely and it’s clear the developers put a lot of work into the title. Unfortunately, Rainbow Sea doesn’t manage to capture your attention, the way an adventure title should.
Is It Hardcore?
No.
Rainbow Sea is a monotonous game that fails to immerse the player.