Raving Rabbids Month: An Introduction

Hello everyone! I felt like I would be better off using all the space I could in the next reviews, so I'm doing this introduction to Raving Rabbids Month in a separate post. It's not gonna be long.

They're loud, they're stupid, they're thousands, and they're ready to run amok!
Many, many thanks to ComicFury artist LeRenardRoux for this picture!
Go check out her webcomics!

Intro

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's creator Michel Ancel stayed rather quiet about the creation of the Raving Rabbids. Not much happened to Rayman for a while. Then, all of a sudden, we get this odd trailer: Mr. Ancel discussing his ideas in his office, until he gets attacked by the bunnies. Then we get another trailer where an impressive army of scary-looking Raving Rabbids come out of the ground in Rayman's video game world, with creepy expressions, distorted bodies and terrifying machinery. We then see Rayman dressing up as an elderly lady, a stereotypical goth, a stereotypical disco fan, and then we see him using plenty of weapons to hurt the Rabbids... The trailer made it look like this was going to be an open-roaming Rayman Adventure where he would just go around and bash Rabbids as he liked. That sounded amazing.

The rumors say that Ancel had to scrap the original villains of what was then known as Rayman 4, and found himself having to doodle a little something that would serve as the new villain(s). So he drew a cute, if disproportionate, little bunny. The Rabbids were literally created in a rush. And they were presented this way, too: Not only were they suddenly the new villains, but they had practically no backstory (only implications that they're aliens, and that's it; even the major Rabbids have no backstories), which means they were just sneaking their way into the franchise, like it or not. The invasion was a plot point, but it was also extremely meta in the way it was presented to the gamers.

Then we found out that the new Rayman installment was actually going to be a collection of minigames, Okay, it makes a bit of sense with the previews, but many gamers still found themselves a bit angry that they didn't get their action-packed, bunny-bashing adventure. Oh well. We still got some very funny games. And as we all know, Rayman eventually split up with the Rabbids, and thus both franchises lived on as their own thing. A compromise that made a lot of people happy. By the way, if we ever get that action-packed, bunny-bashing game, it will be incredible.

But let's not be too negative. There are plenty of things to discuss about the Raving Rabbids, not just their backstory and legacy. This month, I will be taking a look at four Raving Rabbids games:

-Rayman Raving Rabbids, for the Wii;

-Rayman Raving Rabbids 2, for the Nintendo DS;

-Rayman Raving Rabbids 2, for the Wii;

-Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party, for the Wii.

I will write 1 post for each review, in which I cover the plot, the type of minigames, the multiplayer options, the bonuses, etc. Of course, in each regular review I will not have enough space to properly discuss the minigames themselves, since there is so much to cover. That's why I will use a second part to each review, in which I will list my 12 favorite and 12 least favorite minigames in that Raving Rabbids game. This is going to give me a chance to take a look at the Rabbids' main draw.

This is gonna be a LOT of work.

But it's gonna be awesome.

Join me in February. If you're a fan of the Raving Rabbids, you'll like it. If you've heard of them but you aren't a big fan, maybe I'll give you reasons to become a fan. If you hate the Rabbids, well... maybe my lists of least favorites minigames will give you more reasons to. Or maybe you'll learn to appreciate them, who knows?

Either way, don't miss any of it. This is going to be great!

Oh, by the way, if you want to hear my cheap imitation of Rabbid speech, here's a video. I basically repeat everything I said in this post, except in Rabbid speech (and subtitles), and God is it one of the stupidest things I've ever done for this site. Oh well, have fun watching it.