Niji

This is going to be one of the tougher reviews of mine to write because, quite frankly, I don’t know what to make of Niji.  It plays like an old-school arcade title where the only challenge is to survive as long as you can and rack up a high score.  You play as Niji (Japanese for “rainbow” but as a name it only works in feminine form, a “hmmm” moment for me), a fish (a rainbow fish if you catch my drift) out to rescue his girlfriend (wink wink) from some evil storm spirit thingy.

Story is entirely inconsequential to the gameplay.  You have to move vertically up an endless column jumping from waterfall to waterfall, occasionally avoiding thunder clouds that get in the way.  While in the water you have to tap the A button to swim.  You only have a limited amount of stamina and if you swim to fast, you tire out and fall off the screen, costing you a life.  You can regain stamina by doing a flip mid-jump by pressing the B button, which also earns you combo points.

There’s a lot of problematic things in Niji.  Tapping A to swim is tiring.  The flip mechanics don’t always seem to work.  Sometimes when you build up a rainbow burst (done by passing enough clouds) it drops you off in a place with no waterfalls, costing you a life.  Sometimes there’s so many storm clouds on screen that there seems to be no way at all to survive unless you’re on a rainbow burst.  In short, there’s a lot to not like about Niji.

And, quite frankly, I didn’t like Niji.  Whatever they were pitching here didn’t work with me.  It’s quirky enough that I’m sure it could find an audience much like Techno Kitten Adventure did and has beautiful graphics that look like they were lifted out a mini-game from Okami.  But the gameplay is where it counts and in that regard Niji can hop into a deep fryer and turn itself into fish sticks.

Niji was developed by Binary Madness

80 Microsoft Points waved the rainbow flag in the making of this review.