Developed by Ubisoft Chengdu comes its party game title based on the Raving Rabbids series – Rabbids Party of Legends which was released worldwide on 30th June 2022, and here’s our review on the game.

Rabbids Party of Legends was initially first released back in 5th August 2021 as a China exclusive game and got its global release in June of the year following that. The game is available on the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Google Stadia.

Presentation

In terms of the game’s visual presentation, I feel like it fits the overall theme that the Raving Rabbids series have set out to be. It’s got the cartoon-ish and goofy vibes which encapsulates the perfect aesthetic of how a light-hearted party game would be. The game is also set to have a similar theme to the well-known Chinese novel title Journey to the West where you can see some of the rabbids even dressed up as some of the characters from the novel like Monkey King “Sun Wukong” and Tripitaka or better known as “Tang Sanzang”.

Speaking of the characters in Rabbids Party of Legends, there’s a grand total of 45 characters in the character roster, but unfortunately not all characters are unlocked at the start.

There isn’t much to talk about the music for the game as it isn’t that much to write home about, it has a pretty traditional Chinese vibes mixed with some arcade game soundtrack elements to it which fits in the overall theme of the game. While it’s not a bad thing per say, but it’s definitely not much of a banger but they do offer different tracks to each of the mini games which is still pretty cool.

Surprisingly, there are cutscenes and also an actual story plot in the game. And while I like how the cutscenes in the game were made, I didn’t particularly like the story plot and how they presented it. More on the cutscenes in the game, the way it’s made is by animating a children’s picture storybook which is fitting since the game is mostly marketed targeted towards family with children.

In the Rabbids Party of Legends review, the story of the game features the Rabbids into the Journey of the West (JTTW). The rabbids are practically transported into the world of JTTW through their washing machine, Buddha then appears by taking away their washing machine in exchange of finding books that are scattered across the world. The rabbids start off their journey in the beginning of JJTW where Sun Wukong had just came out of the stone and players will progress through the story following the original novel.

I mentioned previously that I didn’t particular enjoy how the story is presented. In the story mode, players have to go through some of the number of stages, and before each of the stages, the game will show you a little box with the story written in the dialogue box, which is then followed up with a mini game that fits into the scenario. While some of the game are fitting, I don’t quite like how the mini games present the story.

Gameplay

Similar to Mario Party, players will get the books from playing and winning through the mini games and in the end, the one with the most amount of books win. Although, there’s only one scoring system, unlike in Mario Party where you can get coins and buy stars with it. So in a way, it’s easier than Mario Party, there’s also no way for someone to steal your score too, so the only way you can lose your books is that you messed up in the Story Mode.

The game also offers multiplayer options where before you enter the game’s main menu, you’re able to choose how many players are there for the game where the minimum is one player and the maximum is at four. You can also change the number of players later on in the setting in game so players can join into your lobby whenever. Although, the game only allows local multiplayer and no sign of online multiplayer option.

There are two different game modes for our review of Rabbids Party of Legends, one being the Story Mode and the other Party Mode. The Story Mode, as the title suggests is where the story of the game takes place which has a set of stages that make up an Act. Among the stages, there are some sub mini games present where players will have to choose between three options.

Those sub mini games can be described like a lottery wheel, where players can swing a hammer to stop the wheel. Once it stops, the player will get what the arrow is currently pointing at. Sometimes the player can get books and sometimes they can lose the books that they have.

While in Party Mode, players can choose between the Quick Play and Customise options. The Quick Play option is pretty much just a timed session where you go in, choose how long you want to play for your session and the game then pick a series of mini games for you to play until the time runs out. And for Customise, you’ll get to pick which mini games that you want to play.

In our review of Rabbids Party of Legends, there are a bunch of mini games in the game but unfortunately just like the characters in the game, you have to grind the game to unlock all of the mini games. While some of the mini games are pretty much just using the same mechanics but have a different style and background, they are still pretty enjoyable to play. The different mini games have you utilising the different functionalities of a Joy-Con, so the game feels very well designed especially for the Nintendo Switch.

However, some of the tutorials at the start of the mini game isn’t as clear as I would like it to be. One of the example being the one mini game where it requires you to dodge the palm and that you can still disrupt your opponents even after dying.

Verdict

Despite the light-heartedeness of the Rabbids Party of Legends, despite some of the mini games being pretty enjoyable, my one main gripe that I have with this game is how the characters and mini games are locked behind a level system. To me, party games are a genre where I would just want to sit down with my mates to play through some of the mini games and mess around with one another, but needing to unlock the characters and mini games through an arduous amount of grinding is a major turn off.

Another one of my gripes is that the game doesn’t offer online multiplayer, only locally which is an extremely weird decision to have, especially with the current situation going on with the world right now. I understand that these games are ten times more fun when you and your mates are in the same room while you shit talk each other but there are just times where you’d rather do it online due to maybe time restrictions where you don’t have to time to drive down to your mate’s house.

Rabbids Party of Legend could have been a sleeper hit in terms of party games, but unfortunately the flaws of the time far outweigh the boons which is legitimately a shame because there are some pretty fun aspects of the game if it weren’t for the fact that a lot of the stuff are progression locked.

For more information on Rabbids Party of Legends, do check out the official website here.