Color Guardians is a game that has its own unique charm and Fair Play Labs have done a nice job releasing the colourful title to brighten up your PS4 and PC. However, the game doesn’t really offer much for an adult audience and is certainly aimed at the younger generation. The game is pretty simple to get to grips with, but it’s not an easy game. The endless runner has a non-existent story, which is a good thing as all you are essentially doing is playing with 3 primary colours, switching between each as you try to bring colour back to their world by collecting the colour orbs. The colour has been stolen by a dark-boss who appears at the end of every map. The boss battles do not offer much challenge or variation in gameplay and are very disappointing to say the least.
As I mentioned briefly above, the objective is to have the Color Guardians collect orbs. If you have ever played Temple Run, this is very similar, apart from it being a side-scroller. Collect all the orbs in each level and you will earn the maximum 3 star reward. This is very challenging however, but does offer replay value for completionist. The majority of the levels have 3 tracks, which you will have to move across to collect orbs or dodge obstacles. Other levels mix it up with having jump pads or sections where you will have to hit a button to go back and reach missed areas.
Each Guardian you unlock has the ability to switch between red, blue, or yellow by pressing the corresponding button. As you can imagine, to collect blue orbs, you have to use the Blue Guardian and so forth. Even though this may sound simple, the game isn’t and is honestly a very frustrating game to play if you are aiming to achieve the best results. I got more frustrated at Colour Guardians than actually enjoying it. I am unsure how a younger audience will be able to navigate through certain levels because some of them are very hard and checkpoints are too far-between.
The game’s world map contains seven different stages, with 11 levels in each. As you progress further, additional challenges are introduced to keep things interesting. This is quite a nice feature and offers more for the completionist. One function that I wish they included is the ability to Jump. There is no jump button, but like I also mentioned briefly above, there are jump pads. These jump pads also require a certain colour to be used.
There is not much more to say about Colour Guardians other than it does have a fair amount of technical issues, especially with the frame-rate. The frame-rate tends to drop quite often when there are a lot of orbs/enemies on screen. The design is one of its best features and has a lot of nice worlds to look at. The game is very simple and has the right target audience. However, I did not enjoy this title as much as I was hoping.
The colours are great and I like the simplicity early on, but as you progress it gets frustratingly hard and due to checkpoints being so spread out you will be replaying the same level over and over, having to learn the pattern of each level. It is very tedious and too repetitive for my liking. If you like endless runners, you may like this. Considering there isn’t really anything like this on the PS4 at the moment it may be worth giving it a go, but maybe at a sale price. Completionist’s who enjoy a challenge will like this and the younger audience it is aimed at may enjoy it a lot more than I did, but it’s not easy. Do not run head on into this game, consider the purchase with caution.