The Rainbow Cloud is the seventh and last course of Pokémon Snap, a secret course that floats above the island. It is an immense rainbow-colored cloud from which you can see all the stars and constellations. It is home to only one Pokémon, the rarest on the island: Mew. The whole course is therefore one long encounter with it. It is not the easiest in the game: Mew is protected by a bubble, and the first job is to break it.
How to reach the Rainbow Cloud
The course opens once you have photographed the six Pokémon Signs and handed the shots in to Professor Oak. He then notices the link between them: each sign draws the shape of a constellation visible in the island’s sky. He concludes that someone, a celestial being, left these shapes as a message, and he sends you to look for the island’s rarest Pokémon above the clouds. If one of the six shots is missing (Kingler Rock, Pinsir Shadow, Koffing Smoke, the Cubone Tree, the Mewtwo Constellation or Dugtrio Mountain), the course stays closed.
Mew’s bubble
Mew is enclosed in a bubble that distorts any photo: a shot taken through it gives only a huge flash of light. To get a real image, you must break this protection by throwing Pester Balls or Fluffruit at it. The scene unfolds in three stages, which English-speaking players and guides call parts.
Part one: the outer shield
Mew mocks you by swaying back and forth right in front of the ZERO-ONE, its feet wiggling. It is an easy target. Throw a Pester Ball or a Fluffruit at it: it moves away, its crackling bubble visibly damaged. Repeat three times to make the outer layer disappear.
Part two: the inner shield
Mew keeps taunting you, more defensively this time. It moves into another bubble, a moving one this time: you only see it for a few seconds before it disappears behind you. It sometimes dodges by teleporting, even when your projectile looks well aimed. Three more hits are needed for this bubble to dissipate in turn. In all, six item hits are therefore needed before you reach a bare Mew, as the speedrunners confirm.
Part three: the photo moment
Mew arrives from behind, running after its bubble. This is the only stage where it is unprotected. Throw an item at it: it spins around and then looks up, which briefly gives the perfect pose before it teleports away, leaving a few sparks behind. If the hit lands, the scene replays, which gives you more chances to take photos. If you miss Mew, it takes back its bubble, but a single hit is then enough to break it.
Nailing the photo
Mew is such a rare Pokémon that any shot of it is a special pose with a considerable bonus. A large enough shot can be worth 10,000 points, according to Bulbapedia. To get it, keep these principles in mind:
- Don’t waste your film on the bubble. Take your photos only when Mew is unprotected, in the last part. Shots taken through the bubble are unusable.
- Hit Mew as soon as it appears behind you. The hit makes it spin and then look up, the pose you are after. It disappears very quickly.
- Use the Dash Engine. If the hit didn’t land, the Dash Engine (R button) lets you catch up with Mew to get a big shot.
- Take several photos. Each hit that lands gives you a new opportunity; several tries let you pick the best one.
After the photo
Once the photo of Mew has been shown to Oak, the game is nearly over: the professor congratulates you on your work, and the credits roll after the save. Oak also tells you that the Pokémon Academy has just announced the record for the highest photography score, and he sets up a Challenge mode for each course: there you must beat the displayed score by taking shots of the best possible quality. The Rainbow Cloud has its Challenge too.
A curiosity: the Rainbow Cloud is the only course in the game where you cannot make a Magikarp jump out of the water.
Continuing the guide
To go further after Mew, see the page After Mew: Challenge and 100% and the list of legendaries and rarities.
