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0 Time to play another mascot horror game. And this time it is called Rainbow Gate. This game was developed and published by 7EVIL Studio. I have not seen anything on this before so I’ll be going in blind. It is up for wish listing on Steam right now, for anyone who is into mascot horrors.
Horror has such a variety of colours.
Gameplay
We get a letter from a client who informs us that her brother has gone missing. And she believes that the police aren’t looking harder enough, so she pleads for our help. The only information we have to go on is that the brother was last seen near an old toy factory. So we know how this will go. On arrival, the place is not much to look out, but quickly turns to reveal the evil that lurks. As we ended up being knocked out and now have a camcorder strap to our head. We are then tasked with finding several Rainbow Coins before you are allowed to escape.
Thus, the twisted games begin. Most of the game is running from animatronics that are trying to kill you. But some areas are just puzzled based, like the find the killer game. You can find health injectors to heal, and also batteries for the night vision goggles in the game. Both feel useless however, as the goggles dim a little when the battery runs out. But not enough that I could not see. Health regeneration kicks in when you are below 30/40%, so that always offers a free hit before death.
Graphics & Audio
Rainbow Gate, while the textures aren’t the sharpest, it’s suitably grungy, which I enjoy in a horror game. It also did well at building atmosphere, and some of the jump scares did get me but weren’t overdone or predictable either. The voice acting, particularly on some of the enemies, was pretty good too, and got a few chuckles out of me with unexpected swearing from a sickly-sweet sounding character.
The animatronic designs are a bit basic however, just pretty normal anthropomorphic animals with added claws or weapons with the occasional creepy eyes. And the level design is what I like the least. Most areas look like a warehouse or straight torture chambers, a far cry from either ‘toy factory’ or ‘amusement park’ as the setting is supposed to be. Besides strewn body parts here and there, the environments felt very bland and felt more like boring backrooms than anything else, save for a handful of areas.
Longevity
I spent 4 hours with Rainbow Gate, but most of my time was with annoying segments that felt like they are just there to punish the player. Especially when it comes nearer to the end of the game.
Final Thoughts
I’d say the atmosphere for Rainbow Gate is fairly decent, but the animatronics lack the scare factor. IT improves when they emphasize them in darkness, but not really in gameplay, I find. The theme of being in a toy factory is pushed to the side too easily, as the whole building is just concrete everywhere you look. A weird part of this is the mine room segment. I really did not understand why this area was made. And why mines were scattered around. Notes you find, don’t offer that much in the ways of deeper lore. More so, just repeats itself.
Some areas in general become rather tedious thanks to the animatronics camping around near a door you need to leave through. While other challenges like the revolving door section, which has you aiming to get to the centre, becomes infuriating. I dropped the game in the end parts of Rainbow Gate, it just became boring and anger inducing. You are not able to truly hide underneath anything or in a closet. The only way is breaking line of sight. But in the Moon Bear segment, not even that will save you.
I don’t think I had as much with this one as it is more of a saw, game than a casual mascot horror. The story isn’t really there either, beyond the initial letter at the start. So it is getting the Thumb Culture Silver Award.
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.
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