Color Guardians is an interestingly simplistic game. It basically has two main characters, Rod and Lia, run through a bevy of levels hoping to change back their lands from dark to colorful. The gamer controls each character and helps their plight by pushing a color-assigned button at the right time when the correct color calls for it. For example, the gamer must run Rod through a level and when they happen upon colorful orbs (yellow, red, blue or rainbow) the right button representing a specific color must be pushed at the right time to correspond with the character touching the orb. If you see a blue orb, you must change Rod to the blue color by pressing X, then press X when he hits that orb. You score a point for every perfectly pushed button at the right time and Rod continues to progress because of this.
Outside of button-mashing at the right time, Rod and Lia must contend with traps and three different linear paths that they can switch back and forth on while running. The real challenge of the game is avoiding pushing the wrong color, gaining as many color orbs as possible and doing it while in full sprint. To make this even more of a challenge, the game puts in things like colorful bouncing mushrooms that launch the characters in the air to gain access to more orbs or help to them avoid falling into a spiky traps or enemies. There are also backward arrows that push Rod/Lia back and ‘cliff’ paths where the duo can accidentally fall down and perish.
Ultimately, as I’ve stated multiple times, the game really tries to keep the gameplay simple. It doesn’t over complicate its purpose and drives the player to do better, even though at times it can feel like a chore. For example, I have yet to achieve a perfect score in a level. You have to obtain every orb to get a perfect score — no exceptions. That one goal can be frustrating at times, though replaying levels is a possibility. Now, to help alleviate the frustration that might come out of having to do a level over and over again, the game does come with reasonable checkpoints that are usually divided into thirds. This means that you can almost guarantee a checkpoint every third of the way through a level. It helps, folks. Believe me, it helps.
The drive of this game is the ability to multi-task and juggle the different paths as you move faster and faster forward with each level. There isn’t anything of real substance beyond that point for the game. That certainly doesn’t mean that the game is bad by any stretch of the imagination, but that is the gimmick and challenge of Color Guardians. Hit the orbs while wearing the right corresponding colors, and do it quickly. Will that keep your attention long enough to go through over 50+ levels of gameplay? It all depends on what type of gamer you are and what you expect from Color Guardians. For me, I find the gameplay engaging and amusing, but it’s not something I would play for an entire day over other games at the same price point ($15).
On the flip side to that coin, I think that in short spurts this game can be fun. I have five kids and this game kept my fourth child engaged for about an hour. He’ll probably come back to it, like he does with Scribblenauts and Castle Crashers — playing it in small bits and pieces, rather than hours upon hours. That’s the same feeling I got from Color Guardians. In between my long sessions of Destiny or Battlefield, this can be a relaxation game that doesn’t ask much from my noggin’, other than it’s full attention. I can accept that type of game as a reviewer, as that’s what it was made to be — something in very short spurts.
The simplicity of this game makes it fun and engaging. It’s not the best game in the world for $15, but it’s certainly worth a nod and a go.
On the presentation side of things, it certainly doesn’t scream PlayStation 4. This is something that could have looked the same on the PlayStation 3. It’s colorful, it looks happy and welcoming for a younger gamer, and the level design is okay at best. This is probably what a nice, third-party high-end Nintendo Wii U game would look like. The textures are huge, full of life and color, but mainly cartoon-like. Color Guardians doesn’t scream current generation like a lot of games in the last year. The level designs, while full of color, really don’t do much in terms of using the power of the PlayStation 4. There are particle effects here and there, but again there isn’t much ‘current generation’ visuals that help to drive the game in either characters nor level design. Again, simplicity seems to be the theme here, so all this makes sense within the scheme of the game. Given the style of the visuals, Fair Play Labs might have detailed it up a bit like, sprucing it up in the same vein as Ubisoft did with Rayman Legends. That game, which was last generation born, looked colorful, happy and current generation. Color Guardians could have done the same, as the tools were there for it to happen. As it stands, it looks fine, but nothing outstanding.
The music is nice, though. Cheerful and encouraging, which bodes well for gameplay like this.
At the end of the day, Color Guardians is a simple game with a straightforward purpose. I think that it will certainly challenge gamers with fast gameplay and demand multi-tasking sharpness from its players. That charm alone should warrant a go with Color Guardians. Of course, and this is just my opinion, the charm of the game would be better suited if the price tag was around $9.99.
Anyway, to the summary!
