Even as a huge Rabbids fan, I have to say that Rabbids Go Home never made me have as much fun as I had expected it to.
- Great character customization mode
- Contains some very good jokes
- The Rabbids
- Controls that work great
- Good music choice
The Bad:
- Repetitive!
- Some bad attempts at humour
- Checkpoint locations can be very frustrating if you strive for perfection
- Annoying loading sequence that plays all the time
- No possibility to skip cutscenes
- Annoying humans!
- Moments with no music at all
- Could have used more music tracks
As a Rabbids fan, I was ecstatic when they advertised this game, so when it came out I instantly went and picked it up. However, as I played the game until the very end, I always felt like there was something missing, as I never seemed to have a whole lot of fun when I played.
What first irked me to no end was that loading sequence, when the Rabbids rush through the sewers to reach their next location (while doing as much noise as possible). You have to watch it when you start the game, whenever you finish a level, and whenever you want to go and customize your Rabbid. This sequence is not very appealing and mostly gave me a headache every time I went to play. I would have preferred if they just used their rare "white Rabbids silhouettes running on a black background" loading screen, because it's nice-looking and far from as annoying as that other sequence. Also, you'll get cutscenes introducing the levels, and some during levels. What is annoying is that there is no way to skip them; seeing the Rabbids go crazy with a fire extinguisher was only funny the first time I saw it; showing it over and over is not going to make me laugh again.
The game gets repetitive very quickly. Mostly, once you complete the first "world" and move on, you'll notice that the next levels are almost exactly the same. For example, you'll travel through airports and hospitals several times. As you progress you'll get more and more fights against humans in different extermination apparel, which quickly become more of an annoyance than actual fun.
Rabbids Go Home is relatively easy, even until the end. However, if you plan on collecting all items, that's when it gets frustrating. When you collect items, the only way you're sure to keep them is to entrust them to the tuba playing Rabbids scattered around the levels. In early levels (a.k.a. the easiest ones), you'll meet them at almost every corner. But as you progress, they'll become more rare, and especially in the levels where you're most likely to fall to your doom (and while hitting something makes you lose one life point, falling is an instant death). There are entire levels where they're nowhere to be found! And if you die, you'll lose all the items you've collected so far. What makes it worse is that you will not restart from the last tuba playing Rabbid; no, you'll restart from a location that feels completely random, with no possibility to backtrack to recollect what your fall cost you, so if you strive for perfection, you'll have to play the whole level all over again. The only levels that saves your items even when you die are the ones where you ride a truck tire, which I also found to be the most fast-paced and fun (but sadly, they're also the rarest ones).
I also preferred the humour found in the previous iterations. Sure, there are funny things here, like screaming at a window cleaner to make him fall to his doom, some comments heard through the intercoms, or the Chuck Norris picture found in the "High Stakes Steak" level, but most of the time, the jokes will make you crack a tiny smile at most. Stripping the humans of their clothes with the "BWAA" attack is funny in the beginning, but quickly gets old and boring. The humans also have annoying voices, and there appears to be only like five of them who got cloned multiple times, as they all say the same unfunny lines over and over again. The cutscenes are funny in the beginning, but since all levels end up feeling the same as another one, watching them will only become a chore (since you cannot skip them even if you want to). What you hear in the intercoms throughout the levels is sometimes hilarious (like that guy who gets accused of being irradiated for saying he saw rabbits in the reactor), but when you hear the same sentence for the tenth time, it kind of loses its humour.
And a lot of things happening in this game seem random, and not in a funny way, either. For example, why are there fake Santas everywhere? And why do they give you hamburgers? And why do sunglasses stands give you pizza?
The music choice is good. In the human-life environment, you'll hear some classics like "By The Rivers of Babylon" and "Oye Como Va", which I think are excellent picks. However, there are not many tracks in this game so you always hear the same ones, therefore you'll come to wonder why every single elevator in the game plays the song "By The Rivers of Babylon". Also, there are moments where there is absolutely no music at all, which just gives a weird feeling when the rest of the game is so loud and lively.
I've also encountered weird bugs that I think shouldn't be there. There's a particular speaker in the city that will never fall onto the ground once I hit it with a well-thrown Rabbid; it will only fall once I pass under it. There are items that once got thrown in the air and remained there for about a minute, until they finally fell so I could pick them up. I've seen water jug get stuck in wall, and finally, my game once crashed for absolutely no reason. Fortunately, these are very uncommon and should not affect your gameplay.
The controls work great and are easy to master. You'll never have to stop for a moment and try to remember what you must do in order launch a Rabbid out of your Wiimote, or activate your "BWAA" attack; everything feels intuitive.
What I think is the best aspect of the game is the customizing mode. The Rabbid gets sucked into your Wiimote so you can paint him, deform his head, and give him accessories. You can also have fun by shaking the Wiimote to make him suffer, or push buttons so he'll go over and "reply" to the sound you just produced (one push will get you one short Rabbid noise, and more than four in a row will get you a series of gibberish). The possibilities to personalize your Rabbid are almost endless, and you'll have fun showing your creations to your friends.
All in all, I did enjoy the game, and am probably going to keep playing just to see what you unlock once you reach the elusive 31 thousand something feet (if it actually unlocks something), but that's about it. The game gets repetitive way too soon, and that's its biggest flaw. I also think the humour is too rare (or gets old) for a franchise that is mostly based on hilarity. Even my undying love for those destructive creatures did not make me adore this game. I can't pinpoint what it is exactly, but there was just something missing in this game, and as a result, Rabbids Go Home never made me have as much fun as I had expected.