Rabbids Travel in Time 3D Review




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Developer: Ubisoft Publisher: Ubisoft
Release Date: April 12, 2011 Available On: 3DS

In late 2010, Ubisoft released yet another Raving Rabbids mini-game collection on the Wii. Known as Rabbids: Travel in Time, the game took players on an adventure to a museum. The rabbids used a time machine to travel to the past. It was an unspectacular affair and when it was announced for the Nintendo 3DS, I immediately thought about how pathetic it was to bring a port of an already lackluster title to the 3DS. When I found out that the 3DS version has no connection to the console version, but was instead a platformer, I became intrigued.

On the positive side, Rabbids Travel in Time 3D is an original title, something that has been lacking from Ubisoft’s launch lineup. As a platformer, it is one of the few current ones on the system and with the lack of a Mario game, I suppose this is meant to sort of fill that void. While it’s a logical direction for the franchise to go, it definitely is not a worthy replacement for a franchise like Mario at the launch of a system.

Rabbids Travel in Time 3D takes place over the course of several millennia. In fact, the game starts in what could reasonably be described as the Stone Age (the game calls it Prehistory). Aside from time periods, you will also visit different parts of the globe: from ancient Egypt to the times of the Greeks and Romans. While the thematic change of scenery is nice, it does little to change the game.

Few new elements get introduced as you play throughout this fairly basic platformer. The game mingles with light action by attacking other rabbids in the level and includes a few rudimentary puzzle elements. As far as your rabbid’s abilities, he can hit, slam, jump, pick things up, throw things and run. It is definitely not a complex game by any means and is very kid-friendly.

The game has a heavy emphasis on collection coins and rubber duckies. In fact, you do not even advance in the game by completing a level, but instead by having enough points to unlock a level. Obviously you need to complete levels to get enough points to unlock new ones, and in theory you could skip levels you have a hard time with, but in practice you may actually find yourself completing levels and not having enough points to unlock the next one.

As far as graphics go, I walked away relatively unimpressed. They did a good job getting the eras right and the 3D is not distracting, but as a 2D side-scroller, I expected a little more pizazz. It is more on the level with similar products on the Nintendo DS. In fact, the several year old New Super Mario Bros. for the DS is more visually impressive. Nonetheless, it gets the job done and does not look atrocious by any means.

This is where the franchise should have gone a while ago. Rabbids Travel in Time 3D is the best that we have seen from Ubisoft since the first game in the series. Hopefully they will stick with this format and improve upon it. Adult players will find the game to be overly simple, at one point I had accrued over 50 extra lives, but it would be a great buy for kids, who are probably more of the target audience anyway.

Graphics: 6.5
Sound: 5
Gameplay: 7
Creativity: 6
Replay Value/Game Length: 7
Final: 6.3 out of 10
Written by Kyle Bell Write a User Review

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