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This game sports one of the best videogame soundtracks I've yet heard. One listen to the day theme might lead you to join me in this conclusion. Unique, jazz fusion-flavored bass and guitar mixed with a bit of light and floaty ukulele, to give a sense of whimsy. Aesthetically, everything is bright and explodes with color. A vivid, tropical palette. Mixed with Skip (one of my favorite developers) quirky humor, we should have a masterpiece on our hands. Unfortunately, something went wrong here for me. Let's talk about what went right, first, however.
Captain Rainbow is up there in the echelon of unapologetically strange, surreal and colorful. Up there along with the games "Nintendo wants you to forget about", it is genuinely one of the most left-field games published by them. Perhaps we can even call it, for lack of a better term, the most "profane", humor-wise, of Nintendo's library.

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The story goes like this. Nick is our hero, who's superhero alter-ego is the eponymous "Captain Rainbow". Captain Rainbow has fallen out of popularity, so Nick goes on a voyage of self-discovery, on a raft, only for a storm to hit him. He washes up on a mysterious island, who meets a woman named Hikari who explains the story of the island. The island is called "Mimin Island", named after the supernatural creatures inhabiting it. Most of the characters living here are retired or forgotten Nintendo characters. Little Mac is here for example, even Crazy Tracey from Link's Awakening. The thing is, each of these characters are heavily caricaturized. Little Mac is now out of shape, and Tracey is now a lascivious woman who wants to seduce every man in the world. Birdo... I can't even describe. Believe me, I completely understand why this game wasn't brought to western audiences. It probably would've changed our perception of Nintendo as family-friendly and innocent.

Every character on this island has a wish. A chosen hero is supposed to be picked by the Mimin for the purpose of granting wishes. Nick eventually discovers he is "the chosen one" who must grant every one of these characters wishes.

---------------------THE GOOD, THE BAD ᵃⁿᵈ ᵗʰᵉ ᵘᵍˡʸ---------------------
It's all building up to be something beautiful. It is something beautiful, aesthetically. Unfortunately, I just couldn't get into the pace of the game. My biggest complaint was that the island felt "empty". By empty, I mean there is a lot of space, but not a lot of meaningful space. They got the aesthetic down perfectly, don't get me wrong, but they missed something here.

To use an example of another Skip game, Chibi Robo (the original one, but Park Patrol and Okaeri! work too). Maybe it was the really emotional storytelling of Chibi-Robo that sold me on it, yet, I also think they did something amazing with the space in that game. There was a very meaningful progression from one area to the next. Going into the foyer, you would come across the Free Rangers, egg soldiers whose purpose was to defend the house from intruders. Then in the basement you would find the forgotten pirate, Plankbeard. I liked this because each character played a role in the space they were assigned. Blackbeard, the forgotten pirate, in the strange and shady basement. Free Rangers, the defenders of the vast foyer, near the entrace of the house. This game kind of misses the mark in connecting characters to their spaces.

Sure, each character has a day-and-night cycle and routine, which was awesome. Yet there wasn't enough fascination here with the characters routines in the first place. Much of the action in the game takes place outside. The lack of large interiors (other than Tracey's house) is really interesting, but it also very much limits the game. Most of the interiors here are cramped and don't have much to do in them. I bring this up, because without purposeful buildings, I didn't feel a sense that there was really anywhere to go, or anything new to see. This not only affects the player, but the characters living in this world. What part of their routine defines them and connects them to the island, as well as the other characters? Sure, each character had a routine that very much connected to their, albeit caricaturized, personality. Lip from "Panel de Pon" features in this game. She has bad allergies, so she wears a mask. Funnily enough, she spends a lot of time around flowers. Point being, this was a really funny example of how someone's personality quirks DID connect with their routine and living space.

Still, however, there wasn't enough beyond this limited palette of silly and caricaturized personality to really interest me in the characters. When you talked to these folks, you would often get very short responses. Also, they, as far as I know, would rarely talk or interact with each other. So even if they had lovable and unique personalities, they were isolated, and thus the space felt very cold and separated. In Chibi-Robo, once again, I felt very much attuned to the space and lives of the characters. It was really "lived-in", and my favorite thing was to see how each characters story related to another person or character. The characters are wandering around the island here, but they don't feel in tune with the space, or each other. They are like molecules bouncing around in wide open spaces, gaseous. Their identity, however charming it is, still feels unformed and separated.

Also, there is one sour minigame: Takamaru's meditation. In this minigame you have to press most of the buttons on the Wii remote and nunchuk simultaneously, without letting go of any of them. If anyone figured out how to do this, let me know. I would've liked for the game to have let you replay these minigames immediately. That's not the case. You have to wait a full day to retry the minigames. It makes it a very time consuming game. Other reviewers (Rombouts) have pointed to this as being part of the charm and style of the game, which makes you take your time and just experience things, giving it a living feel. On paper though, it does produce more of a mind-numbing and frustrating repetition than a laid-back appreciation.

--------------------------------------CONCLUSION--------------------------------------
Overall, my opinions of this game are not negative in any way. Skip very much delivers. However, it wasn't for me. It very much feels like the descendent of "Moon: Remix RPG Adventure" (which is a game I also love). It is a sometimes difficult and oblique adventure game. I had trouble appreciating it gameplay wise (aesthetically it's awesome), due to it's somewhat repetitive gameplay, difficulty attaching myself to the characters, and lack of much meaningful activities during the in-between moments. There is animal-collecting, but I wish there was a little something more.

My overall impressions are positive, so I will come back to this one. It is the sole reason I imported a Japanese Wii, after all.