Rabbids Rumble

Genre: Party Game / Turn-Based Monster Collecting RPG

Players: 1-2 Competitive (Local Wireless)

Game Company Bad Behavior Profile Page: UbiSoft

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Review:

Rabbids Rumble, released on Nintendo 3DS in 2012, is a game that takes the sort of Party Game style of game that players expect from this franchise, and marries it to… er… a sort of Turn-Based Monster Collecting RPG, I guess. Yeah, I don’t know who looks at the Rabbids franchise and thinks, “you know what this needs? It needs to play more like Pokemon”, but whoever it is that thinks that, they apparently work for UbiSoft.

The presentation here is okay, but seems to be missing something. Of course, as per usual, you have the screaming rabbit-like Rabbids, rendered in 3D with goofy animations, and usually they’re in various odd scenarios rendered with 3D visuals, but this presentation seems to lack some of the madcap energy this franchise is known for. Perhaps in part, this is due to the framerate issues that seem present throughout the game, slowing things down. Anyway, backing up these visuals is an energetic but forgettable soundtrack.

For the gameplay, you can kinda’ split this into two parts. First, you have the Party Game stuff, which varies in quality here, but a lot of the games here seem pretty stale – you have a Whac-a-Mole game, a Music-Rhythm touchscreen–button tapping game, and gimmicky games using the gyroscopic motion controls and even an AR Card. These games seemed, at best, tolerable, and at worst plain annoying, and the pacing in between it all was slow enough to really make the experience drag.

Then, you have the Rumble Arena. See, in the game’s campaign (and using the AR Mode card), players catch a variety of the Rabbids, and it seems that the main idea is to put them to use in this game mode, which is a 3 v 3 tag-team battle vaguely like a Pokemon battle. It’s certainly an interesting idea and a way to encourage players to try to unlock as many Rabbids as they can. Unfortunately, this mode lacks any of the depth of the Pokemon games, with everything seeming to boil down to “which of my Rabbids’ attacks will do the most damage to this enemy?” and “are they about to attack? Should I use a defensive move?”, paired with “hit the button at the right time”, except the “button” is a touchscreen button instead of a normal one because I don’t know why.

Look, I give Rabbids Rumble credit for trying something different and potentially interesting, but nothing this game does is especially compelling or all that good. The Party Game elements are mediocre and gimmicky, and the Turn-Based Monster Collecting RPG elements are underbaked. The result is a game that does nothing well enough to be worth a recommendation.

tl;dr – Rabbids Rumble is a game that combines the franchise’s usual Party Game elements with a Turn-Based Monster Collecting RPG that has players fighting in 3v3 Pokemon-style battles. Unfortunately, the Party Game stuff is slow-paced, dull, and gimmicky, and the RPG elements are shallow and boring. As a result, there’s nothing here worth bothering with.

Grade: D+

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