The ZX Spectrum has an excellent port of Taito‘s classic arcade game, Rainbow Islands, thanks to the developers at Graftgold. It was first published by Ocean Software in 1990.

The game does have some details missing from the arcade original (like the treasure chests when you “goal in” or beat a boss), but it’s essentially the entire arcade game, but without the simultaneous two-player mode. Which is pretty incredible for the humble Speccy.

Considering the Spectrum‘s limitations, Rainbow Islands is a fantastic port. The rainbows themselves are monochrome, and do create some colour clash when used over certain backgrounds, but the use of colour in general throughout the game is excellent. Graphically, this has to be one of the best Spectrum games ever made. The recognisable Rainbow Islands tune is also very well done and this port could be described as “a masterpiece of jolliness” since it is cute and colourful in the extreme.

Rainbow Islands is a classic late-era Spectrum game that every owner of real hardware should have in their collection, and Rainbow Islands fans should play, for completeness.

More: Rainbow Islands on Wikipedia
More: Rainbow Islands on World of Spectrum