Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit Review, 7.7 out of 10 based on 3 ratings

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Metroid? Other than epic alien boss fights and a kick-ass heroine, it can be argued that one of the more distinguishing features of any Metroid game is the long, maze-like world that you must navigate in order to make progress. This style of open-world exploring on a 2D plane has been dubbed “Metroidvania,” a word that is a combination of the aforementioned Metroid and Castlevania, specifically Symphony of the Night.

Chances are that everyone reading this knew that already. So why bring it up? Well, the game in question today is a textbook example of the Metroidvania style, although it also leverages several other gaming hallmarks in a superficial attempt to stand out from the crowd. Although it helps that it has a very catchy, if long, title: Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit.

Hell Yeah! has you play as Prince Ash, the skeletal bunny who controls the planes of hell with an iron paw, at least until a peeping paparazzi snapped a picture of the not-so-innocent prince naked in a bathtub, playing with a rubber duck. Now with the picture circulated amongst 100 monstrous denizens in hell, the prince decides to find out who the culprit is the only way he knows how: wantonly murdering his way through the 100 peepers until he finds the one responsible.

The concept of Hell Yeah! is downright sophomoric, as is most of the execution thereafter. Most of the game is derived from the sort of crude, dark humor you would see in big titles like Borderlands 2, but the gags are more annoying than endearing this time around. Hell Yeah! has a nasty habit of shoving jokes in your face, and rarely, if ever, get anything but a chuckle out of you in return. The worst offenders are the repeat jokes; the kind that come around three times or more during the game. Suffice to say, it’s not funny in the least, especially after the first time.

Gotta earn some cash while sawing through the hellish jungles of… well, hell.

Hell Yeah also suffers from other aspects of its design. Since we are dealing with a Metroidvania style of game, a huge emphasis is on the exploration of the world map, which is connected by a few loading screens and locked doors with monster-kill quotas for you to surpass in order to proceed. Ironically though, the design of the game, killing monsters to unlock locked doors, forces most of the progression to be linear, with no real exploration occurring. Of course there are alternative pathways, but most of the time they only lead to riches or a way to heal yourself, instead of finding a new way to bypass a boss or to find a special item to deal with them, leaving exploration largely unnecessary.

In fact, all items are either given to Ash during his murder spree, or purchased at a robot rabbit’s shop with hard-earned cash. Ash’s main mode of transportation is a large, spinning saw blade that can cut through most surfaces, but the main weapons you use against your monster targets are a number of projectile weapons, from missile launchers to machine guns. So the saw acts as both a killer of minor baddies and a way to break through walls to new areas. Thankfully you need to employ some strategy against the major monsters in question, from catching them from behind to forcing them to fight each other. The simplistic puzzle aspect of the “monster hunting” phase of the game is pretty good, and is more of a throwback to what 2D side-scrolling games always were.

Unfortunately a lot of little things plague the gameplay. The controls are a tad dodgy when it comes to movement–hell basically has weird gravity and Ash can jump in his rolling saw blade with no inertia blocking him. The floaty controls lead to imprecise jumping, which you do get used to as you play the game, but sadly is just a constant nuisance throughout the relatively short adventure. Hell Yeah! also has some issues with fairness as well; namely, projectiles shot by you don’t travel off-screen, while enemy projectiles can come barreling down on you from just about anywhere, forcing players to play up close and personal against the monsters and bosses.

Since you are the prince of hell, you can have killed monsters then work for you on their own private island death camp. It is essentially a lite resource management simulator, forcing each “collected” monster to work for you to harvest food, mysterious items, or gold during your in-game travels. You also need to keep them happy or punish them severely, a sort of Sims-like approach that truly feels added on to just pad the game further.

Hell Yeah! also tries to be hip with a number of micro-games that you need to play in order to kill the monsters. Ranging from simple tap-the-button games to five second search-and-destroy missions, Hell Yeah! borrows the WarioWare formula to keep the game as fresh as possible. Sadly, the premise wears thin after a while, especially since it feels like there are only about 25 or so micro-games to be seen.

I don’t feel like squeezing blueberries anymore than I have to.

If there is one nice thing to say though, Hell Yeah! is a gorgeous looking game. The sheer amount of colors and the entire world design of hell is very aesthetically pleasing. We have many callbacks to classic side-scrolling games, casino levels, a haunted castle, even a psychedelic, hippy world that practically bleeds a lava lamp over your eyes. The monster designs are also fairly clever, offering a kinetic style from popular designs tropes that give them a sort of modern edge, like cartoon art from the 1990s.

In fact, in hindsight Hell Yeah! feels like a “90’s cool” kind of game, the one where everything is over-emphasized and made to be awesome in some way, when in reality the product is at best sub-par beyond the surface. It is inoffensive as a game, despite trying its hardest to be “edgy” and honestly, has no real reason to exist beyond being a short distraction for $15.00. So, despite the impressive visuals and the simple, but effective puzzle-solving that plays throughout, it may be wiser to avoid Hell Yeah! until a price slash due to the sheer amount of design flaws.

A copy of the game was provided by the publisher for review purposes and played to completion in about 8 hours. The title was played on PS3 (PSN), but is also available for Xbox 360 (XBLA). A PC release is scheduled for mid-October.

Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit Review

By Robert G.

Hell Yeah! feels like a "90’s cool” kind of game, the one where everything is over-emphasized and made to be awesome in some way, when in reality the product is at best sub-par beyond the surface.

GView Mini : HELL YEAH! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit Review

By MegaGWolf

Will being a dead rabbit with a mission to slaughter 100 demons be worth the time and money? Tune into the GView Mini to find out.