The Arcade Rabbit review - "A decidedly weird roguelike brawler"

The Arcade Rabbit is a very strange game indeed.

It seems to be aiming for a combination of Binding of Issac's roguelike structure and cute-means-macabre tone, with the action of a side-scrolling brawler.

But it misses the target in a number of small but significant ways, resulting in a weirdly disjointed and unsatisfying experience.

Thumper

You play the part of an arcade-playing rabbit who gets sucked into one of its beloved gaming machines.

I think that's what happens at the outset, anyway. Like everything else in the game, it's all a bit random and poorly explained.

Whatever the case, The Arcade Rabbit sets you off on a course of random dungeon trawling and button-mashing action.

Your bunny doles out damage like a classic beat-'em-up star, picking up swords and other weapons and doling out damage with every button press. There are also projectile attacks and shield moves and loads more stat-based variables, depending upon which of the many items you pick up.

Paws for thought

Ah yes, the items. There are so many collectibles, weapons, special move cards and stat-boosting power-ups scattered throughout The Arcade Rabbit, it swiftly loses any sense of consistency or meaningful progression.

The dungeons themselves are weird affairs. They subscribe to the Binding of Isaac approach of basic, randomised and interconnected single-screen arenas, filled with various critters and hazards - plus the odd boss character.

It also shares that game's fascination with bombs and poo, but that's by the by.

There's a bizarre cartoon-Egyptian theme to these environments, and the kind of spookily tense soundtrack that seems to belong to a much more serious or cerebral game. Like I said, it's all rather odd.

Bunny boiler

What's particularly strange is that there are a lot of promising bits to The Arcade Rabbit. While the world design is jarringly inconsistent the graphics are nice and chunky, with expressive characters and decent animation.

The action, too, is solidly executed, even if it is inherently reliant on a constant churn of abilities and special weapons above technique.

Applying rogue-lite rules to the classic brawler is also something that we haven't seen too much of before, and could stand to see more of. We can imagine it working pretty well under the right circumstances.

But such a game would need a lot more of a fine focus and a less scattershot approach than The Arcade Rabbit can muster.