Ubisoft’s hysterical rabbits go back to the roots of the party game

Ubisoft’s hysterical rabbits, or “Rabbids” as they are called, have been with us for so long that it is easy to forget their origins. They were first introduced in the 2006 party game Rayman: Raving Rabbids as comic side characters to platform icon Rayman, before later becoming a brand in their own right.

The Rabbids game inspired by Mario Party: Party of Legends goes back to the roots of the party game. They are danced in sequences of buttons based on timing, shapes drawn precisely on the screen and propelled on floating platforms.

It never quite reaches the height of role model, but it’s perfectly fine entertainment in shorter doses especially as an alternative for PlayStation and Xbox owners who have fewer party game options.

The quality of the mini games is a bit uneven. Some ideas, like variants where you have to press a button when you think a certain amount of time has passed, are successful, while others are more unimaginative and in some cases debatable implemented. For example, some rhythm-based moments don’t feel completely in sync.

I also don’t like the obnoxious kind of joystick twisting and button mashing that the game sometimes gets bogged down in – something that puts unnecessary wear and tear on expensive controllers.

But under the right circumstances, it can be fun to take on your friends in the often chaotic mini-games. Party of Legends won’t keep Nintendo up at night, too much due to the sheer size of the big bunnies, but it’s efficient entertainment on its own merits.