Some biz are finely - tuned sports railcar . Others are total lemon . Rusty Rabbitis neither ; it ’s a mess of scraps .
See , scrap ai n’t good or bad . That ’s what the gruff , yet furry hero of NetEase’s2D platformerbelieves , anyhow . It ’s neutral metal whose value entirely look on how it ’s put together and the skill of the shop mechanic behind the twist . If you wheel it into some hack ’s garage , you could end up behind the wheel of a rust pail . Give it to someone who know what they ’re doing and , well , that ’s a whole other story . Scrap is unfulfilled potential , just hold back for the correct person to assemble it all into something especial .
Rusty Rabbitdoesn’t quite make it out of the junkyard , but all the right-hand piece are there . It has an imaginative world full of debris - love hare , a earnest story about parenting , and a central dangerous undertaking hook that wipe the debris off ofDrill Dozer . It ’s all just let down by a faulty locomotive , as its nitty-gritty movement , crafting hook , and combat are all in need of a air - up from a capable mechanic .
A rabbit’s world
Based on a story conception fromGen Urobuchi , Rusty Rabbitis typeset in a dystopian future in which humanness has long go away from Earth . In their absence , lapin have inherit the world and have evolve to consider they are the satellite ’s dominant mintage . They have interpreted the trash and remnants lead behind by man to bend to that narrative , believe thatPeter Rabbitis , in fact , the give-and-take of God . Religious institutions have arise , archeology has become a cult , and roving gangs of junksters purge the Smokestack Mountain for precious metallic element . It ’s a marvelous elevator pitch that makesRusty Rabbiteasy to fall in dear with on sight , especially once you lay eyes on its hazy , grumpy rabbits .
principal among them is Stamp , a middle - older auto auto-mechanic who wish to be among the dust more than his fellow bunny . The lone wolf finds himself on a quest to find his long - lost daughter , who has apparently left behind a trail of data logs in Smokestack Mountain . It all sound giddy at first , but the story has some unexpected heft to it . For one , it ’s a chronicle of a parent who has sputter to understand his kid ’s world , make a generational air division between them . It ’s legitimately make a motion at times and feels like the production of substantial parents putting their own insecurities into a deceivingly cunning television biz .
It ’s a barbed work of unbelieving irony …
More surprising is howRusty Rabbitdeconstructs religion in the circumstance of its own public where the Bible is quite literally a made up storybook look at too literally . It takes religious institutions to task for using unprovable text to work up a foundation for a new world guild . In one level , I learn that archelogy has been mutated into a religion all its own , where drumbeater attempt to claim biomes as holy sites by point to a piece of trash they ’ve uncovered and see as an object of God . It ’s a pungent work of unbelieving satire that ’s often hilarious .
SometimesRusty Rabbittranscends its haywire elevator pitching , but other time it ’s just flummox experience like a one - note minute . For illustration , the funniest meta - jest in the integral game is that Stamp is voiced by Takaya Kuroda in Japanese and Yong Yea in English , Kazuma Kiryu ’s respective voice actors in theLike a Dragonseries . It ’s inhale stunt casting that instantly communicates exactly the kind of guy wire Stamp is . The sawbuck stops there ( at least in the English dub ) , as Yea extradite every communication channel in an ache slow drawl that gives the risky venture ’s negotiation - hard opening a punishing rate . The residuum of the articulation cast hurt the same problem , dragging out every business read past the tip of funny novelty .
Tonal troubles like that persist throughout the entire biz , as its presentation is all across the instrument panel . It take to be an unexpectedly fledged game wearing a hazy pelt , but it does n’t fully commit to the chip . sure enough , the rabbit knock off some sluttish cuss words here and there , but it still feels like a tyke ’s game with preschool music that fathom like it crawled out of aRugratsepisode . The contrast is n’t stark enough to takeRusty Rabbitinto full - on Adult Swim irreverence , nor is it suitable as a kid ’s game . It ’s stuck in the same awkward teenaged phase angle thatDetective Pikachu Returnsfound itself in a few years ago , struggling to tell a narration for anxious parent or their angsty children .
Surface-level platforming
That dissymmetry pass toRusty Rabbit‘s gameplay loops , which seem similarly diffident of themselves . It ’s a slap-up premiss in hypothesis . Rusty Rabbitis a 2D action - platformer that plays a bit likeDrill Dozer . Rusty hop into his trustworthy mech and hops into biome filled with dirt blocks and crates he can dig through to feel stray flake , which he can then take back to his home in town to craft new artillery and mech upgrades . It ’s a sound idea that call for the satisfying lure ofMr . DrillerorSteamworld Digand spreads it into a more traditional platformer , with level filled with secret to unearth .
That sturdy estimation never quite happen the right construction to support it . It hasMetroidvania DNAwith trace of gear gate secrets , but the whole thing plays out in fairly additive manner that does n’t allow for too much flexibleness to nose around . It ’s also tries to drop a stat - focused RPG on top of that , where Stamp horizontal surface up by drill through blocks and enemies and uses the salvage he ’s found to make raw , stat - heavy weapons like ax and hammer . I found that I barely needed to engage with that craft scheme outside of general weapon rise , economize me the hassle of hunting around for extra parts . It want you to do that , though , as there ’s a form of procedurally generate donjon to explore back home that ’s intend to give players a shoes to grind for scads of bolts and screws . That ’s whereRusty Rabbitfeels most in its element as a roguelike filled with risk - taking exploration , but none of those piece here click together neatly .
The human activity of moving just feels off , which is the last thing you want from a platformer .
What ’s worse is thatRusty Rabbitstruggles as a straight platformer due to frustrating movement . Stamp ’s bot is steady , ineffectual to maneuver much once I ’m in the air . He cling onto nearby walls when he gets close to them , but that magnetic force is over tune . When I ’m trying to platform around biome , I often find myself get the lip of an border and getting awkwardly stupefy there for a moment before sliding down as I extend out of stamina . If you do n’t land perfectly insipid on a platform , good luck attempt to wall jump your way to safety . Falling too far stuns Stamp for a while , kneecapping his power to maneuver cursorily . A missed jump usually results in a in force 20 second of waiting for the status to authorise until musician unlock some skill nodes that can reduce the timer . The routine of locomote just feels off , which is the last affair you want from a platformer .
Those mobility issues injure its already sparse armed combat , too . legal tender can drill , shoot , or slash his way through rusting beasts in one - clitoris combat , but enemies have wanton come to boxes that often lead weapons passing right through them . When I endeavor to slash an opposition while grounded , Rusty inches onwards ever so slightly each sentence , finally pushing me into my foe and damage the mech . Stopping my approach combo to back up a bit , or just jumping my foe to dodge , mean fumble with clumsy movement that I do n’t have much control over . In generic boss competitiveness against giant simple machine ( like tractors that have been misidentify for giraffe ) , I just bruise up eating some damage during my attack combo and lead myself off with healing items rather than slowly resetting my position and dragging the fight out any longer than I had to .
I ’d be a little more soft if there were some cagy platforming estimate here that made good use of the pith boring claw , butRusty Rabbitrarely breaks below the surface . Most biomes just have me drilling my way through paths to find a keycard , unlocking a gate , doing that again a few times , crusade a boss , and moving on . It half - heartedly introduces some spacial logical thinking puzzles , like heavy block that pass once I stab out the space under them , but it does n’t commute up its geographic expedition much until its final storey .
All of that left me frustrated early on on , feeling like I ’d gotten behind the bike of a burnished car with a sputtering railway locomotive , but I maintain digging . And the more I dug , the more I found flake in the passel that felt salvageable . I get more endue in the world as I went and felt up a genuine connection to Rusty as shed more of his obstinate tendencies and accepted how out of touch modality he was with his kid . He learns that cars are n’t the only thing that need tune up up . We ’re all piles of flake capable of becoming something more so long as we take the guardianship and effort to fix ourselves up . I desire that developer Nitro Plus can take that advice to heart and apply it to stiffen the shtup here , whether that ’s in some post - launch tinkering or a sequel reconstruct from the priming coat up . gem only becomes trash once you adjudicate to hurl it out .
Rusty Rabbitwas tested onNintendo Switch OLED .
