I love a good side-scrolling mascot platformer. I also love a well-designed and interesting-to-traverseMetroidvaniafull of secrets and things to discover. Occasionally, these two worlds collide, and we’re given video game gems likeHollow Knight,Ori And The Blind Forest, and the perpetually underratedYoku’s Island Express.
Hoping to uncover another indie Metroidvania darling, Rusty Rabbit was a title that immediately stood out to me. The cool-looking mech-based combat combined with flashy powerups and the hope of fun, destructable maps to explore seemed like a formula with the potential to result in a memorable experience.
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Still, a game published by NetEase, a studio with a spotty track record dotted by some questionable mobile games along with some actual standout console titles, wasn’t a guaranteed slam dunk. Developer Nitroplus was even more of a wild card to the equation, previously focusing on a collection of visual novels that served no indication as to the chops the team had to craft a solid Metroidvania.
With so many questions to be answered, I was stillhoptimisticto jump into this hare-raising adventure to see what the bunny business was all about. After over 20 hours, however,Rusty Rabbit wouldn’t be my pick of the litter.
A Hare Of Narrative Intrigue
On the surface, Rusty Rabbit presents itself as a game that likely isn’t going to have a ton to offer from a story and world-building perspective. Initially presenting narrated text on static backgrounds for its introduction, there doesn’t seem to be much going on in the world of a grumpy, carrot-smoking, walnut whiskey-drinking bunny.
Rusty Stamp is a junk digger, which means he spends his time delving deep into the bowels of Smokestack Mountain on a daily basis in order to scrap and collect as much trash as possible for him to bring back home. Interestingly, however, this junk speaks to Rusty, much like he also speaks to his beloved mech-suit named Junkster that he brings along for each expedition.
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Along the way, our furry hero begins to uncover cryptic notes hidden in mysterious terminals left behind by a now completely vanished human race. Some of these messages seem to have been written by Rusty’s estranged daughter. This, of course, spurs him along to see if he can track down her current whereabouts.
What unfolds here is a story that’s fed to you in recovered messages and short conversations with the town people that takes a prettyunexpected post-apocalyptic, science-fiction, and religion-filled tone,while also featuring a significant amount of rabbit lore that’s always amusing to learn more about.
…this title managed to hit my emotions in a way that I really had not expected at all from my experience in the early hours.
Somehow, these rabbits have developed into hyper-intelligent, deep-thinking beings, so it’s really cool to learn how they’ve come to explain the world around them, their own personal struggles and doubts, and what motivates them to get out of their bunny beds every morning.
By the end of my playthrough, I was pretty shocked thatthis title managed to hit my emotions in a way that I really had not expected at all from my experience in the early hours. There’s a lot of heart here, and it all wraps up in a satisfying manner by the game’s conclusion.
24 Carrot Presentation
When he’s not pillaging Smokestack Mountain, Rusty spends his time in a snowy village that serves as your hub world. Here, you’ll find several bustling businesses to patronize, such as a diner full of Persona-like social link encounters with fellow residents, a bar to pick up new side objectives, a general store to replenish your gear, and a church to learn more about the religious views of its (debatably cult-like) followers.
Everything around townfeels cozy, and all the rabbit buddies you encounter are adorably fuzzy and stylized. Rusty himself has several alternate fur patterns to unlock, along with new paint jobs to spruce up his mech with, too. Despite the gruff demeanor of your own character, the game is filled with plenty of cutesy things to look at, if that’s something you’re into.
Dungeons themselves are mildly generic looking at times, largely in part thanks to the choice to go with a blocky, Steamworld Dig-type design that often limits the paths and routing to tight, 90-degree, harshly angled corridors that disrupt both the flow of movement and the appeal of the game’s art design.
Still, level theming is solid, and each of the15 new biomes you reach is interesting to look at when first discovered. From lava-filled forges, to flora-filled underground forests, to some surprising, narrative-serving stops along the way, seeing what area comes next is always a good time overall.
The soundtrack here is a bit of a standout, ranging from bluesy rock to upbeat, Persona-like bops. I took it upon myself to bump up the music level in my settings to really be able to hear every track throughout—and also to drown outRusty’s incredibly grating, repetitive dialogue quips that will soon drive you mad a few hours into the game.
On the technical side of things, I had a totally smooth experience with zero crashes or noticeable dips in performance. There were a few instances of enemies switching animations abruptly without transitional frames in-between that felt jarring at times, but nothing was ever egregious enough to take specific note of. Overall, Rusty Rabbit should run well on your hardware of choice and seems well-optimized.
Hopping, Skipping, Jumping, Digging
Rusty Rabbit is a side-scrolling Metroidvania mashed up with the dungeon-crawling loot and exploration of Steamworld Dig. Unfortunately,it rarely hits the gameplay highs of either of these categories.
Taking on the typical video game trope of starting you out with all your abilities then immediately stripping them away to be recovered as you progress, the bulk of Rusty Rabbit isn’t super fun to experience in the process. Movement isreallyslow and clunky until you gain your rocket boosters several hours in. Platforming and wall climbing are wonky and unsatisfying before unlocking a jetpack ability in the last quarter of the game.
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Combat is limited to your melee digger arm at first until you subsequently unlock a twin-stick gun, sword, and hammer later on. As you find more blueprints for weapons, new versions of each archetype can be unlocked for extra damage and path-unlocking capabilities.
None of these feel particularly engaging in action aside from the sword, which is surely how you’ll spend most of the game roughing up the generic and often repeating robo-animals you’ll battle the entire time.
Each weapon comes with special abilities that feel the same in practice, and skill tree options that increase its attack or combo duration, though none of these skills are typically game-changers.
Generic combat and enemies could be partially excused in a Metroidvania if exploration is top-notch, but that’s sadly not the case in Rusty Rabbit either.
Yes, recovered weapons and abilities dotechnicallygive you the ability to backtrack and reach new sections of each map, but you’re typically not rewarded with anything too exciting outside a new blueprint piece or a random scrap of a car that Rusty can restore in his garage in his free time.
Unlocking new paths in a Metroidvania that were previously inaccessible to you is a crux of the genre, and it’s just never really satisfying or mandatory here, making the feeling of exciting progression from a new item pretty minimal.
There is one dungeon towards the end that requires your digger arm to be upgraded to a certain point to progress, but it feels more like an arbitrary brick wall toforce you to grind for a couple of hours in the game’s “optional,” boring, random dungeonsyou’ll eventually unlock as well.
I was clearing blocks just because I felt the obligation to.
I liked Steamworld Dig and its sequel a lot and felt a compulsion to clear out each and every block on a map that I could before progressing to a new area. It was a fun, rhythmic process that I was always up to complete with the promise of cool loot or money to spend on new gear.
Here,I was clearing blocks just because I felt the obligation to, with the typical reward being some scrap I wouldn’t likely use for anything, aside from selling off for more healing items over and over.
Too Soft And Cuddly
I think it’s an important thing for certain games to serve as a nice, more accessible entry point to an otherwise notoriously demanding genre. Think of a game like Another Crab’s Treasure, aSoulslikeby definition with plenty of challenges if you want one, but also a muchmore approachable designwith tons of difficulty settings to toggle if you need to ease yourself into the action of the game.
Rusty Rabbit isextremelyeasy. While this could be taken as a positive for someone wanting todip their toes in the Metroidvania waters, the straightforward experience just isn’t backed up with enough other quality genre staples to make the game very interesting, as you one-shot most non-boss enemies throughout.
Nothing here is ever really going to make you stop and think at all.
The entirety of the first 10 hours here is straight up Point A to Point B dungeon clearing. There are detours to take along the way, but you can often take a preliminary look at the map, take an educated guess of where you need to end up to complete it, and head on to the exit.
Gates block your progression periodically and require an ID card to be scavenged to gain access to the next map section. These ID cards arealwayslocated extremely close by, making the search to track them down feel mostly pointless and boring.
The latter half of the title does introduce some more twisting and turning dungeon design along with a few new puzzles, but they’re only as exciting as grade school-level block pushing activities or flipping switches to open and rotate doors.Nothing here is ever really going to make you stop and think at all.
I’m really not exaggerating when I say that there was only one single instance in my entirely too-long 20+ hour playthrough where I died playing this game. The culprit was a pretty painfully designed mini-boss with a moveset that featured a couple of heavy-hitting, yet miserably telegraphed attacks. While I was begging for a challenge by this point in the game, feeling like you’re taking damage from an unlearnable, random attack pattern is only frustrating, not rewarding.
The worst part is that to actually conquer this single tricky opponent,I simply stocked up on healing items and tanked every single hit from the bossas I spammed an attack from my sword over, and over, and over. In the end, it was a total DPS, damage-swapping rock fight where I was able to come out victorious only because I had enough reserve HP to muscle through.
…gets you into a rhythm and gameplay flow state as you put on a podcast and essentially autopilot your way through another map.
Genuinely, I never died one other time in my entire experience. Not from fall damage, environmental hazards, bosses, or dungeons filled with grunt enemies. I’m good at side-scrolling platformers, but I’m not a certified Metroidvania professional. The fact that this game and its boss encounters never once made me struggle and scrap to survive is certainly a questionable choice in game design.
What this all ultimately boils down to is abasic dungeon-crawling Metroidvania that becomes pretty mindless as you work through it. Truth be told, I don’t necessarily hate the idea of a game that gets you into a rhythm and gameplay flow state as you put on a podcast and essentially autopilot your way through another map. It’s nice to unplug and turn your brain off with a game like this from time to time.
Still, Rusty Rabbit really doesn’t bring much to the table outside of this in terms of gameplay and design to deem it much more than an inoffensive, simple, breezy, timewaster-type gaming experience. I’d wager we all get in the mood for titles like this at times, so it’s ultimately up to you if this is the game you want to hop into or not.
Closing Comments
Rusty Rabbit isn’t a bad game at all, but it is extremely simple for the genre it slots into. It fails at having any sort of real challenge, memorable bosses, interesting puzzles, or rewarding routing. The story is surprisingly lore-filled, intriguing, and emotional by the conclusion, and the cast of cute rabbit characters do lend a nice level of charm to the game as you occasionally reach a flow state of map clearing, dungeon-crawling, mindless fun. Still, the game overstays its welcome by the end of its 20+ hour runtime, and there are better options if you’re looking for a more accessible take on the Steamworld Dig-meets-Metroidvania formula. The entry cost is low, however, so it’s not one to completely write-off if you’re looking for a breezy side-scroller to sink some free time into.
