Rayman Raving Rabbids - Bottom 12 / Top 12 Minigames
Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 DS - Bottom 12 / Top 12 Minigames
Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 Wii - Bottom 12 / Top 12 Minigames
Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party - Bottom 12 - Top 13 Minigames
Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 DS - Bottom 12 / Top 12 Minigames
Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 Wii - Bottom 12 / Top 12 Minigames
Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party - Bottom 12 - Top 13 Minigames
Oh
noes! The Rabbids have invaded the real world! Sure, that now gives
an explanation on why so much real-life stuff appeared in Rayman's
world all of a sudden in the previous game, but still... The real
world! Humans are in danger! Rayman has to save them! However, they
do say that knowing is half the battle, so Rayman decides that while
he stops the Rabbids from doing too much harm, he can also study them
to understand what they're up to. After all, such idiots can't
possibly keep their plan a secret, right? Never mind the fact that they speak gibberish...
Welcome
to this review of the Nintendo DS port of Rayman Raving Rabbids 2!
Get ready for hijinks, minigames, slapstick, and more! But less of
all that than there is in the Wii games. After all, it's not a
secret, there's less space in DS cartridges and all...
Starting
with the second Raving Rabbids game, there's a theme for each new
installment of the series. RRR2 has the theme of traveling (since the
minigames are based on practices in other countries), TV Party spoofs
TV shows and movies, Rabbids In Time mocks the many eras of
mankind, Alive And Kicking plays with the idea of Rabbids invading the real world for real thanks to the Kinect... RRR2 takes place in major continents or countries of
the world, with lots of jokes making fun of the culture and way of
life in these places.
Yes, I know, it's in French. I couldn't find the English version. |
Now,
in each location, Rayman has to fill 1 or more rolls of pictures.
Guess he didn't have the money for a digital camera. Anyway, he fills
rolls as you beat minigames. One minigame beaten = 15 pictures
maximum (if you fill the minigame bar completely – I'll go back on
this later). Each location has only 6 minigames, for a total of 90
pictures. And yet, for some odd reason, he feels the need to take
twice as many pictures in Europe and Japan, even if it's illogical.
That means you'll have to beat each minigame once more in Story Mode in those two places.
I sincerely question the need for that. It's obviously padding, since
the game would be too short if you had to beat every minigame
only once. I mean, 36 minigames? Gee, that's small! “We need to pad this even further... How about... In the last two locations (Asia and
South American, AKA Latina), Rayman feels the need to fill 3 rolls,
so the player will have to beat the minigames in the last two locations about
three times each! Oh, we're so brilliant!”
I've
seen less padding in Stephen King books.
Some kind of school... |
As
for the minigames themselves, here are a few examples.
-In
the USA, Rabbids ride mechanical bulls.
-In
Oceania, we get a few minigames based around a beach, and then some.
-In
Europe, Rabbids get hot cakes and speak on their cellphones in
theaters.
-In
Japan, Rabbids go to school or slam themselves in windows.
-In
South America (Latina), we pick pictures of Rabbids, and we make them
play archaeologist.
-In
Asia, Rabbids belch, are lobotomized, or take pictures of themselves.
And
now I realize that those examples have little to do with the location
they're put in. Kinda weird, isn't it?
The
first three locations (USA, Oceania, Europe) are available from the
start. Once you fill up a roll of pictures in any continent, you
unlock the next location, in this order: Japan, Asia, South America.
The
minigames are diverse, and their gameplay uses pretty much only the
Nintendo DS's touch screen and microphone. In Story Mode, each
minigame has a bar that fills up as you get points. It goes with an
icon of a Rabbid that gets more and more excited as you reach the end
of the bar. Once the minigame is over, if you've filled the entire
bar, the roll used by Rayman to collect pictures of the Rabbids will
increase by 15, but if you didn't fill the bar entirely, the number
of pictures taken will be smaller. Don't ask why, I have no idea. Oh,
also, if you fill the minigame's score bar entirely, a Rabbid will sing a happy tune
for you. Cute!
Rabbids love to dress up! |
Also,
every time you fill completely the minigame's score bar (and thus, beat a minigame), you gain a
piece of clothing or an accessory for your personal Rabbid.... Wait.
Rayman has a personal Rabbid? ...Oh no, wait, I think I get it. You
customize the Rabbid you use in the minigames by dressing him up!
I'll go back on this a little later. But then, doesn't that mean that
Rayman's always spying on the same Rabbid? And thus, that he doesn't
do his spying job right??
Over
the course of the story, Rayman realizes that the Rabbids are too
stupid to understand how the human world works. In fact, they mimic
what they see... but since their understanding of human behavior is limited, when they try to copy it with whatever they think they understood, itturns out ridiculous, inappropriate and/or hilarious. Confident in his
discoveries, Rayman tries to explain this to the inhabitants of
Earth, so that the Rabbids will stop being a threat. Heck, if Rabbids
Invasion is any indication, the humans have just accepted the
presence of these weird bunnies around them and, for the most part,
have stopped giving a damn. (Well, there are two scientists who experiment on the Rabbids, but the results aren't too good.)
So,
once you've played a minigame in Story Mode, you can move on to Score
Mode. In that mode, forget the score bar. However, the game will
still calculate your score. There are three high scores on the top
screen; beat the third one and you get a Bronze trophy. Beat the
second one and you get a Silver trophy. Beat the first one and you
get a Gold trophy. In Score Mode, in order to get a new item for your
Rabbid, you need to beat the highest score. For the most part, the
minigames remain unchanged. The big difference is that they don't
stop unless you lose or run out of time. Or if it's a minigame with a
set length, like the musical one in each location.
Or stripes. That works too. |
So,
now, you may have completed a few minigames, maybe you've earned a
few Gold trophies. How about we dress our Rabbid up? In Bunny mode,
there are four options: A brush, a T-shirt, a house and a mallet.
First off, the Brush lets you paint over your Rabbid. Make him all
black, all blue, painted like a Na'vi, give him a creepy scar or
birthmarks or whatever. The only thing that kinda sucks is that you
can only decorate the Rabbid's front. And yet, when you use the paint
bucket to color him in a single color, his back becomes that color as
well. Then, there's the house. There, you can paint an
environment for your Rabbid, or select among 5 unlockable
environments that you can then paint at your leisure.
After
which it's the T-Shirt section. In there, you have a large selection
of hats and clothes to put on your Rabbid, and items that he can
hold. You can earn 63 different pieces like this during the game.
Most items come in groups; one hat, one costume and one item usually form a
full attire. As an example, by playing the minigames in the USA
section, you unlock a wig full of curlers, a pink nightgown with a
piece of cucumber, and a rolling pin, which gives you the full
“stereotypical crazy wife” attire. You can dress the Rabbid like
a footballer, a clown, a Japanese schoolgirl... Or you can dress it
up with random pieces, which will give the impression that the Rabbid
should be in an asylum.
Why... so... silly? |
Last
but not least is the Mallet section. In there, you can use 4 items
with your Rabbid. The first is a pair of boxing gloves. Oh, and he
stays in place while you punch him good with the stylus. The
second is a microphone. Speak in the Nintendo DS's microphone and
he'll repeat what you say. Not in Rabbid voice, oddly enough. The third is a hand... to relentlessly
tickle the Rabbid. And the fourth and final thingamajig is a drum set that brings you to another screen, on which you can tap buttons to make the Rabbid play drums. You can
unlock more of those buttons over time.
One of the few minigames you can play in Multiplayer when the others don't have the cartridge. A bad oneé |
So,
that's done... Now, the Multi Mode, where you can play with friends!
Or... can you? Well, you could play with friends... if they have
other copies of Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 DS. In such a case, you would
have access to all the minigames. However, if your friends don't have
this game, it's still possible to play with up to 4 players... but
only 3 minigames are available. 3 out of 36! Three minigames a big
party doesn't make! Plus, of the three minigames, one of them is
among my Bottom 12 minigames of RRR2DS. Lucky me. No doubt there
would be a lot more minigames if you teamed up with someone else who
has the game, but once again, I must ask the question: What are the
odds of that happening? And you know what's even sadder? A lot of
minigames should have been easy to adapt so that you can play with
other people who don't have the cartridge. Heck, if Mario Party DS
could do it with almost the entirety of itself, why couldn't RRR2DS? To
force other people to buy the game? Urgh.
Final
part, the options. You can increase or decrease the volume of the
sounds or music, you can increase the power of the microphone, you
can also select a language for the game (between English, Espanol,
and Français), and finally you can tap the trash can to erase your
save file.
I
guess it's time for me to finish this review.
Rabbids are still guh-roo-vee! |
First
off, I have to say that the music in this game is pretty good (I like
5 out of the 6 songs in the music minigames). As for the graphics,
it's kind of silly to say, but I think the Rabbids here are very
cute. They yell a lot, sure, but many minigames manage to show off
their cuteness, in a way or another. The happy customer Rabbids from
the minigames “MC Bunnies” and “Drive-Thru”; the four Rabbids
in “Simon”; the two from “Bunny Fighters”; the archaeologist
Rabbid in “Cleanup”, or the one who's having a picture taken of
himself in “Look At Me”. Even the four ones who are on the stage
in the “Rabbid Bands” music minigames. And the one in Bunny Mode,
too! Heck, they are cute even if the quality of the CGI has
decreased! Although that's kinda normal, considering DS cartridges
have less space than home console disks. Oh well. I like the way this
game looks anyway.
On
to the gameplay: 36 minigames is not a lot, but at least you have to
beat them in Story Mode and then in Score Mode. In Score Mode, it can
be difficult to beat the highest score, but in most cases it's not
too extreme. Let's say it's never gonna be as extreme as in RRR1 on
the Wii. With a bit of practice, all the scores can be beaten (though a few of those are a lot more difficult because of glitches; I'll go back on that in my Bottom 12 list). Also,
most minigames are simple, which makes them enjoyable by almost
anyone. My only points of criticism is that many minigames are placed
in certain locations (due to the game's theme being “Rabbids around
the world”), even though they don't really correspond to that place's customs. Maybe those minigames were put
there just to fill a blank space. Oh well. The whole “Rabbids
around the world” idea was done much better in the Wii version of
RRR2, which we'll see next Friday. Also, I'll talk about the minigames in more depth this Monday
with my “Top 12/Bottom 12” minigames of RRR2DS, as usual we got
some disgusting minigames, others that have annoying mechanics, and
then some that are just uncreative or boring. Is it the majority? No,
for when I made my list, I noticed the list of minigames I liked was
longer than the list of minigames I disliked. That's usually a good
sign, isn't it? Also, I really like the Bunny mode in this, not only
because most items are funny, but also because you can paint the
Rabbid's body, give him a background, or play with him thanks to
gadgets.
Another
point of criticism I have for this game is the Story Mode. I can
understand if it's a bit different from the Wii version's, but here,
we don't even have actual cutscenes. 2D pictures with text to be
read. What's more, the cutscene you see when you fill a roll of
pictures in Story Mode is the same for the first 5 locations you
complete. No, seriously, there's no difference whatsoever. The only
different cutscenes are the intro, and the ending in which Rayman
reveals the results of his research to the population of Earth.
That's it. This reeks of laziness, but then again, I don't think
RRR2DS was made with a plot in mind; I guess they just adapted the one
from the Wii version like they could... Without Rayman participating
in the minigames this time around, probably once again because of
space restraints. Also of notice is that the minigames don't have
intros, like it was the case in RRR1Wii. You just jump into the
minigame, without having a laugh first. Oh well.
Outside
of that, this game is a lot of fun. I enjoy it. My point still stands that it's a poorer Rabbids game due to containing barely 36 minigames and having a lackluster multiplayer option, so even if I do like it, in the end it doesn't hold a candle to the next Rabbids games for the Wii that I'll review soon. Finally, while
there are many minigames I like, there's a few I dislike... And
that's perfectly normal. So, tune in Monday, as I'll be listing my 12 least favorite, and then
my 12 favorite minigames in Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 DS!
GAME
RANKING: RRR2DS > RRR1WII
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