Still Alive: A Gamer's Commentary: Game Review: Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit

Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit is a quaint sidescrolling platformer developed by Arkedo Game Studio and published by SEGA in September of 2012.

Premise:

Join Ash, The Prince of Hell in a wacky platforming adventure. Help him re-acquire the nude photos which were taken of him to prevent more people from seeing them.

Mow down enemies with your sawblade-tire and destroy them with a myriad of weapons in the most humiliating ways possible!

Collect money to buy outfits and buy upgrades for your character and weapons.

Visuals:

Example of Visuals

Visuals in this game are generally quite appealing. Characters are colorful, full of life and pop nicely from the backgrounds, though sprites tend to be a slight bit blurry and fuzzy.

Backgrounds are usually somewhat bland and barren, although there are some sections which have something of note.

It should also be noted that the death animations for enemies are hilarious. I quite often found myself chuckling at these absurd kill animations. They certainly add a unique yet bizarre kind of flair to this game.

Sound:

The music in this game is incredibly fitting. Music is constantly changing to suit the mood of the area you are currently in. Not necessarily the best soundtrack ever, but it certainly gets the job done with style.

Menus/Interface:

A good menu system which is laid out well. Clear and understandable from the start.

The in-game interface gives you all the information you need in a nicely laid out HUD. The radar is a very useful addition, and the map that you access from the pause menu is very nicely laid out and clear to read. I think a mini-map should have been added to the radar system to make it a little more useful, but it is still very informative and I appreciate its utility.

I also like how during boss battles, there will be an indicator showing you where the boss is.

Controls:

This game has some control issues. In most cases it is fine and does what its supposed to do, but in certain situations, the controls are far too loose or illogical for the demanding platforming sequences. You will find yourself sliding down the numerous inclines for no reason, although your character should be able to easily stand still on these surfaces.

Why can't my character initiate their second jump a certain amount of time after my first jump? If I wait a little too long to double jump, I will just fall to my death. I don't really find that this adds any depth to gameplay, and its just a way of making the game artificially difficult.

Also, wall jumping provides a lot of frustration in the on-foot platforming sequences. I often would jump off walls I didn't want to and plummet to my death.

Switching between weapons was also quite awkward, and didn't work all that well.

Gameplay:

The pacing in this game was off-putting at times. Sometimes I was having an incredibly good time and laughing at the overall bizarre nature of the game, and others I was getting incredibly frustrated with one of the platforming sections, or one of the poorly thought out puzzles.

The cutscenes played before fighting certain enemies often destroys the flow of gameplay. Having a cutscene before a fight is all well and good, but if you die during said fight, you are forced to see the cutscene again with no option to skip. Why in the world do I need to see the same thing more than a couple times over at most? If I die, I want to get back into combat as quickly as possible, not watch some cutscene a million times over. This destroys the flow of gameplay and can get very frustrating quickly if you are fighting a difficult enemy, or if you just have low health at a checkpoint and keep dying.

One of the many hilarious death cutscenes

This being said, the mini-games and cutscenes that play after defeating certain enemies are some of the most endearing parts of this game. They give you a feeling of satisfaction as you watch your foes being destroyed in the most humiliating ways possible, including death by T-rex, death by shark, and many many more!

Also weapons are crazy fun to use. A shotgun which can just blow everything away, a revolver which provides accurate and deadly strikes, and a cluster rocket launcher are some of the more notable ones. Upgrades can make your weapons incredibly powerful. Its a lot of fun to just spam any of the rocket launchers in the game and blow anything and everything up.

Level Design:

Checkpoints are placed in erratic locations. Sometimes you will run into 3 in quick succession, other times you will be begging the game to send you a checkpoint so you can continue from there after a difficult platforming section.

Also, the game sends mixed messages about certain important objects in the game. At one point there were these pyramid things which shot fireballs that kill you. Of course I thought I had to avoid them, because they were an environmental hazard. Little did I know, but I actually had to use them to solve a puzzle. The only way I figured this out was because I accidentally ran into it one and it started moving. There were multiple instances like this.

Summary:

Overall it actually is an enjoyable experience despite all the negative things I have to say about it, but game design is very erratic and inconsistent. Sometimes you will be having crazy amounts of fun, and others you will want to rip your hair out in frustration.