Rainbow Billy: The Curse of the Leviathan

released on May 05, 2021

Save whimsical creatures with the power of kindness in order to recolor a black-and-white world in Rainbow Billy: The Curse of the Leviathan, a wholesome 2.5D Adventure-RPG!


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A very odd game. Clearly designed with good intentions and aimed at children, it's disparate elements do not make a game I can see many young players enjoying.

The game is split roughly equally between adventuring (puzzling and platforming) and simple turn based combat, a la recent Paper Mario. Whilst the exploring is serviceable, the combat is dull, slow and overloaded with drull text.

Each combat encounter has paragraphs and paragraphs of dialogue, that is all incredibly similar and labours the point to an excessive degree. I highly doubt a child will read through more than the first of these text dumps (there are 100s of encounters throughout the roughly 15h playtime). A game intended for a specific audience that does not feel designed for that demographic.

Rainbow Billy loves the power of friendship! It is an incredibly saccharine indie turn-based adventure, wallowing in its colourful vibrancy with its cutesy eyes staring into your soul. Perhaps TOO sweet for its own good. While it is charming, the monotony of "friendship yayyyy let's be friends!" can drive you i n s a n e.

The turn-based system is fairly interesting, with befriended creatures having up to three symbols that you then must strategically use to re-colour other creatures who have lost their colour. It's a fresh coat of paint that dries all too quickly when the exact same minigames (which are used to execute the attacks) are repeated over...and over...and over again.

Still, Rainbow Billy doesn't outstay his welcome. It's a short cute 'Paper Mario'-esque adventure with plenty of collectibles, exploration and friendly combat. Just a little rough around the edges with its pop-ins, bugs and clunky platforming.

The Xbox game pass has opened a strange world of c-tier indie games which are trying to evoke some cherished cult classic with some ironic internet humor or some really overblown teen angst drama. I both love and hate this new chapter of my video gaming life but rainbow billy is trying some really nice things. It’s mostly harmless with some moments that felt smart and others that were so tedious I was confused why they’d made their small teams life harder for something so needless. Ultimately I fell into a nice and comfortable gameplay rhythm but found that although there is the illusion of deep social mechanics you can storm through the game treating every character exactly the same (one fun exception being an enemy who is upset if you do to well in a fight)

This review contains spoilers

A sido un juego increible me a encantado todo lo recomiendo que lo jueguen lo e completado al 111% y sacado todos los logros me a dado mucha nostalgia la mecanicas y el estilo es como la saga paper mario con toques de combate a pokemon espero que conozcan mas el juego y lo juegue mas gente lo e disfrutado y sera parte de mis juegos favoritos :) ;)

A colorful game about ships… friendships.

I hate when narratives come down to the power of friendship being what saves the day. It usually makes me groan, but Rainbow Billy does it in a charming way. Throughout the journey here, Billy runs into various creatures each with insecurities and works to befriend them. Each enemy gathered allows them to be used in a large deck of all the creatures found so far. This sounds sappy, but actually it’s well done. The art style as well is gorgeous and shines, plus the way the color of the world is made to be part of the story is a nice touch.

The combat in Rainbow Billy is a bit simple. Every attack has a mini game to execute like the Mario RPGs. None of them are that hard. There’s no direct combat, but more a focus on pattern matching and strategy of using the right characters at the right time. It’s also a bit of a silly game, but the writing kept it light hearted for the most part. Finally the UI could use a little work, and a way to delete saves would be appreciated or even better multiple profiles so you can start over.

PIck this up if you like unique games. The odd combat really works, and the designs here are fun, but this is unlike anything else. The game is a little cutesy and might be too sweet for some people since it’s mostly about really silly problems but I kind of like that.

Also… honestly I shouldn’t have to say this, but if you’re the type of person who isn’t adult enough to deal with a game called Rainbow Billy, and what type of story that might bring, well this game isn’t for you, and honestly, this channel isn’t for you. Sorry, my videos are for adults, perhaps you stumbled on it incorrectly.

To be clear, that doesn’t mean you can’t hate this game, but there are some people leaving negative reviews on this game for the wrong reasons, and it’s ok if this game wasn’t for you, but what I’ve personally seen is too far.

I covered this game as part of the Game Pass for December 2022, if you enjoyed this review or want to know what I think of other games on Game Pass, check out the full review on or subscribe to my Youtube channel: https://youtu.be/zMUphOC2gMI