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Feel the Magic: XY/XX was a fun collection of mini-games all tied together with a bizarre love story. It was short-lived, but as a DS launch title it managed to showcase the unusual game mechanics possible on Nintendo’s new handheld. So, Rub Rabbits is essentially more of the same, but does it offer anything new to the mix to lift the sequel above the throwaway fun of the original?
The game begins with you minding your own business, when you spot a beautiful woman pass you by going the opposite direction on an escalator. You know immediately that she is the one for you and will do anything to win her affection. Your infatuation with the woman is shared by many other men, each hell-bent on proving their manliness in a series of challenges. However, an encounter with another woman leaves her infatuated with you and sets up the game’s love triangle. While you’re attempting to win over the woman of your dreams, the bunny boiler chasing after you will do all she can to make sure that never happens.
For all the game’s efforts to interest me with an engaging and unusual story, I actually found that the comic book style segments which deliver the story between each mini-game got on my nerves somewhat. There’s nothing wrong with the stylistic approach taken to tell the story, but I just wasn’t interested in what was being told. I would rather have simply gone from mini-game to mini-game, but maybe I’m just more impatient than the average gamer. That said, the story segments do look pretty and at least the game tries to be more than a simple mini-game compilation. It’s just a shame the story wasn’t more appealing.
The biggest problem with Rub Rabbits lies in its sub par collection of mini-games. There are more than 35 games to play through, with all the DS’s control mechanics being used at some point. Most of the games are exceedingly simple to complete, but every now and then you get handed a game which tries its damnedest to force you to stop playing. Even with the random emergence of increased difficulty, most gamers should be able to polish off the story mode in an afternoon, but there are extra modes that give the game a little more life, but not much.
During the story mode you earn hearts (you can also go back and play games again to earn more hearts) which are used to unlock items and new outfits/styles for the Manic Dress-up mode. In Manic Dress-up you get to dress your girl how you want using the selection of clothes you have unlocked. However, the purpose for this mode seems rather pointless given that the girl appears in her default attire through the story screens and other sequences.
A Time Attack mode gives you access to the games which are set to a time limit, and Hullabaloo is a party game in which two players must use the DS at the same time to hold down the buttons indicated. It’s kind of like a game of Twister but on a DS, each time passing the DS around to another person. It’s clearly a mode made for the party environment, but I actually had some fun trying to play on my own, often ending up in a contorted mess on the floor and not a friend in sight. A fun, but short-lived, wireless multiplayer mode is also included, in which there is a choice of six games to play, with up to four players taking part via a single copy of the game. You also get a baby making mode in which two people answer some simple questions and then must work together to cut a cake. The babies you create can be shared with other Rub Rabbits owners.
Graphically Rub Rabbits is very simple with a blend of florescent colours and black cut-out characters forming the basis of what you see. It clearly isn’t pushing the DS, but it has a very likable style that is best shown in the cutscenes, but is also carried into the 3D graphics of the mini-games, albeit with a rougher, less polished feel. Unfortunately, the game audio isn’t able to match the quality of the graphics, offering up very repetitive music and lacklustre sound effects.
It’s not that Rub Rabbits is a bad game, but there simply isn’t anything that makes it a good game. The collection of mini-games range from simple to outright annoying, with very few actually offering up enough fun to warrant any repeated play. You can’t argue that it’s a nice looking game, styled in a way that fits the bizarre love story perfectly, but that alone isn’t enough. If you enjoyed the original then you’ll enjoy Rub Rabbits; just don’t expect anything radically different.
