The Rub Rabbits! carries the same spirit as Feel the Magic, but just isn't as much fun.
The story is very similar to that of Feel the Magic. You play as a male protagonist who catches a glimpse of a beatiful girl. Instantly falling in love you her, you begin to pursue her trying to impress her with crazy stunts to win her affection. But this time around you're in competition with a number of other guys. And if that wasn't enough, a chance encounter with a second female character has her falling for you and eventually trying to "rub" the first girl out of the picture to get you all for herself.
All of the crazy mini-games stem from this bizarre love story. This is one of those games that's very Japanese in style, something like Katamari Damacy or Chibi-Robo. The now standard characters are still presented in that iPod style showing only their silhouettes. Some characters are lucky enough to get some extra detail though. Overall this is a highly stylized game, just like Feel the Magic was. There are a few videos, but just about all of the story is presented with pictures in sort of a manga style. There's hardly any dialog, none of which is spoken, but the pictures do a perfectly fine job of advancing the story.
During gameplay the graphics look very nice. The Rub Rabbits! uses a combination of 2D and 3D effects in the different stages like in Feel the Magic. This time however, it uses a lot more 3D graphics that give it a much better overall look from Feel the Magic. Slathered all over are plenty of bright and vibrant colors that top off the game's fun look and really give it some personality.
Sound quality is fantastic. The quality is superb, but many of the effects sometimes are just plain strange, or very annoying. One example is the odd yelping noise emitted by the game's main character. In some of the mini-game you'll be hearing this much more than you might care to and gets annoying very quickly. Some of the sound is borrowed from the first as well. The game's music is also light-hearted and up-tempo that fits perfectly with the look of the game. Unfortunately the songlist is a little short and you'll hear a lot of the same songs repeating a lot throughout the game.
Most of the content of The Rub Rabbits! comes in the game's Story Mode, which unfortunately is where the game seems to go downhill. It may be nice to look at, but underneath its unique style there just isn't much there. There is a little over 35 different scenes, most of them not lasting very long. Being a sequel you would think there would be some more content to the main story, but in the end is just about as short as the first game. While there can be a decent variety in the games, some of them seem like duplicates from Feel the Magic or are repeated in The Rub Rabbits!. The story sequences are also far too frequent. Feel the Magic would usually send them in a couple at a time. Instead the Rub Rabbits! gives you one game, then more story and really breaks up the action too much.
Some more problems stem from some problems with stylus control. Too often it isn't as precise as it should be. Feel the Magic wasn't perfect, but it also wasn't this bad. Some times it can be difficult to control whats happening in the game the way you want and can really be frustrating. Still, the game can be entertaining at times. One of the most interesting parts is when some games have you hold the DS sideways or upside down, not many games offer that.
The Rub Rabbits! manages to improve upon the content of the game even if the Story Mode falls a little short. Some mini-games are available that allow multiple players on one DS system with “Hullabaloo,” a button pressing game, and “Baby Making Mode” where two players must cooperate to cut a wedding cake and make a baby. There are also six multiplayer games that only requires one game card to play with. A returning mode is “Maniac” which lets to dress up the game’s female lead in different outfits and this time even lets you create your own patterns. These modes are a decent addition to the somewhat lacking content of the game, but in the end don’t add a ton of value to the title.
At the end of the game, The Rub Rabbits! may have you wonding what happened to the magic of Feel the Magic. After finishing the story mode there just isn't much left. Some improvements on the mini-games and just adding some more content could have made the game really shine, but just comes off as a half-hearted attempt to carry on the series.