Rainbow Skies, the long-awaited spiritual successor to Rainbow Moon, is finally here! After almost six years in development, how did it turn out? Find out in our Rainbow Skies review on PS4 and Vita!

 

From the makers of Rainbow Moon comes Rainbow Skies, a new fantasy role-playing game. Immerse yourself in a colorful and vibrant world, filled to the brim with friends and foes, murky dungeons, turn-based battles, towns, shops, and everything else your role-playing heart desires.

Tamable monsters, upgradable characters, and a variety of weapons, equipment, and skills offer you a wide range of customization and character development possibilities. Tons of side quests, towns, and other exciting content will keep you hooked for countless hours.

Story:

It’s a big day for Damion: Today is his final examination as a monster tamer, an important profession in his hometown, which is constantly threatened by monster attacks. However, after a terrible hangover, Damion completely messes things up and not only fails the examination but also destroys the entire monster compound.

When he tries to cover up his mishap with his examiner Layne, things turn from bad to worse and through a number of unforeseen circumstances, they find themselves between the fronts of two rival superpowers…

Rainbow Skies Trailer (PS4 / PS3 / PS Vita)

This is a double review for the PS4 and Vita versions of Rainbow Skies. The game was played by Tracey on PS4 and the_nmac on Vita. This review presents what they both had to say.

Rainbow Skies is a spiritual sequel to Rainbow Moon, which was released on the PS3 a years ago – which is a very fun and addictive game to be honest. I’m happy to report that Rainbow Skies is just as fun and addictive, and it’s a huge adventure you can dive into for many, many hours. For this review, I’ve so far clocked in around 35 hours, completed roughly 40 side-quests, and the overall game is only around 20% completed… only 20% completed!

You play as Damion who has his final exam to qualify as a monster tamer, which is an important profession as his homeworld is constantly under attack by monsters. Damion, unfortunately, had a long night of partying and suffers from a really bad hangover on his final exam day. Things get worse for him as he fails his exam, but also managed to somehow destroy the monster enclosure. It doesn’t end there since, after some other events, Damion and his tutor Layne end up in an entirely different world, bound together. Will they ever manage to make it back home?

Rainbow Skies offers a lot of stuff to do. There is monster taming in which you can collect eggs from the enemies you defeat and take them to a monster tamer and hatch them for a fee. The higher the level you want them to be, the higher the overall cost. You can then add a monster to your main active party and five on reserve, which so far has been fun if a little bit limited since monsters in reserve do not get any experience points as you play, which forces you to cycle through them to have several monsters at a proper level that can be useful for your efforts.

 

And then, there’s the crafting system which considerably changes how you approach the game. You can now upgrade your weapons and they gain EXP and level up as you use them. Leveled up weapons have increased stats and open up additional crafting slots so you can make your weapons even stronger! You can also use crystals to create “+” versions, and there are eight colored crystals to be found all around the game world to spice things up, and you can even buy them in the materials store or earn them in quests.

The better the crystals, the more expensive they become, but to have powerful weapons to deal with powerful enemies such as bosses and side-quests is definitely worth the price. It’s a great system that allows you to keep your party in tip-top shape at all times as long as you put in the time and effort.

Another major feature is magic schools. They are similar to, say, the jobs system in the Final Fantasy series. For example, if you want to learn from the healing magic school, then all the spells you will get will obviously be related to healing, from removing negative status effects to reviving your party members. Each character can learn a few magic schools, and some are available here and now, while others must be unlocked at a Monster Tamer’s battle arena. There are tons of magic books you can buy, earn from completed quests or found inside of treasure chests. There is a ton of spells to learn throughout the whole magic school system, so you’ll surely find something to boost your party’s skillset.

The graphics are just as beautiful as in Rainbow Moon, and there are no microtransactions this time around which is great. You will have to unlock everything naturally without boosts, and the game offers a deep and comprehensive reward/trophy system, which is really great since you can track your trophy progression through the Awards system, which you will easily find under the Book tab. There are 42 trophies which you can track without the need of ever going into your trophies menu, and once you have completed an award, a notification will pop up.

I’ve been primarily playing Rainbow Skies on my Vita, however, I have cross-saved and played on my PS4 as well to see how the process worked and how smooth it was. Really good overall. The game has a cross-save slot which you use and whether playing PS4, PS4 or PS Vita you can access and continue playing. This isn’t used enough anymore by games.

The battle system is upgraded from the first game… It’s still a strategy RPG and when you head into a battle after seeing a monster on the overworld map, you head to an isometric map and the action begins. You get so many moves to move around the grid and then choose what attack you want to use. If it’s a standard attack you just press direction towards an enemy. If not you can jump into the menu and find the item or magic spell you would like to use. Spells will affect certain blocks in front of you so you want to make sure you get as many enemies in them as possible to maximize damage. You only get three party members, but the screen can be filled with many enemies, so you want to be careful. It’s turn based so you have time to think about your moves. One of the other things I like from the battle system is that at the top of the screen it shows you whos turn is next for friend and foes, letting you maximize damage against enemies that are going to attack you soon.

As you increase your stats with skill stones you will able to increase the number of turns you have, this will be a great help when fighting against tougher enemies and bosses. The game has no difficulty settings, but you can increase battle ranks if you want to, and the higher the rank, the more difficult the battles are, but you can also bring down the battle rank if you’re having a lot of trouble. There are benefits for playing at a higher battle rank, since yu can get more Rainbow Coins, better item drops, and there is also a trophy for unlocking battle rank 9.

The game is a visual upgrade over Rainbow Moon. The biggest difference is in the scope of the cutscenes. This time the game takes a much more cinematic approach to the storytelling, helping to immerse you in the story. The game still has the original isometric look that the original title had, which might not be everyone’s cup of tea. The visuals have definitely improved, but you can tell the game was originally developed during the time of the PlayStation 3. So, in short, it looks better, but don’t expect God of War from this one since it’s not a fair comparison.

it doesn’t have that same look that other games this gen have had… although this game started development before the PS4 was a thing. It’s an interesting conundrum because I can see the upgrade in visuals, yet it still doesn’t quite give me the feel of other things released recently, even with similar art styles.

The game has 43 trophies, including a coveted Platinum. For an RPG, it’s not actually a hard trophy list to complete, but it is going to be a very time-consuming list. A few are awarded for story progression, for hitting certain milestones, for reaching level 70 with the three main characters so on, and there’s a funny one that is awarded for obtaining 25 trophies in Rainbow Skies, which I think might be the first time I have seen a trophy for unlocking trophies in the game. If you’ve played another game that does this, please be sure to let us know in the comments below!

FINAL THOUGHTS

Rainbow Skies is a solid RPG that we’ve been waiting a long time to play. It started its development during the PlayStation 3 era, and it shows since there are some things here that will remind you of its predecessor, but they don’t get in the way of you enjoying this great release. The fact that you get triple cross-buy from it on PS3, PS Vita and PS4 is great since it means millions of PlayStation fans now have a chance to enjoy a huge RPG that we highly recommend you try out. Kudos to Sidequest Studios and eastasiasoft for giving us a great game for the PlayStation family that will be a welcomed addition to all of our collections.

Disclaimer
This Rainbow Skies review is based on a PS4 and Vita copy provided by eastasiasoft.