At launch, Feel the Magic XY/XX (or the infinitely inferiorly-named Project Rub to us Brits) was by far the best of the DS’ third party crop. That Japanese creativity and the sheer madness of helping a girl to find her lost belongings by clearing the sand away using your stylus was enough to sell the DS to this reviewer. However, the game was far too short for most, and basically contained a single player mode and the ability to play through previously completed stages. The Rub Rabbits! ‘ I’m glad to say ‘ is the fully fleshed-out game that Feel The Magic XY/XX should have been.
If you didn’t play the first game, let me describe the early stages for you. In single player mode, your first task is to make the girl (the target) notice you. To do this, you have to run up an escalator, which she is standing at the top of. To run faster, you push upwards on the touch screen as fast as you can, using left and right movements to dodge the flower-wielding guys who are trying to get to her, the top-hat wearing Willy Fogg-alikes and the sumo wrestlers. Yes, sumo wrestlers. They use escalators too. And it gets stranger, believe me. The game sums it up well before the first stroke has even been made, by warning you that ‘continuous stroking, blowing or poking could lead to unwanted attention in public places!’ ‘ aside a picture of a sheepish looking male gamer holding a DS, been scowled at by two women.
And Sonic Team are right, bless them. If you’re sat on a train, furiously rubbing your touch screen, with the DS sitting on your lap ‘ you’re probably going to end up being collared by Larry Law before long. Plus, the games where you have to yell into the microphone will cause some strange looks. So you’re best to keep this one at home. Luckily, The Rub Rabbits! is a strong enough title to draw you away from your ‘big’ consoles for a while.
The single-player story has been expanded on somewhat, and there are now over 35 chapters to play through in the story mode. On top of this, they are a lot tougher than in the previous game. The second level’s piano playing can be a right pain in the backside, causing endless frustration when you’re marked as playing too slow or fast yet again. Each stage must be completed on five increasingly tougher difficulty levels for you to be granted a pass to the next task. As in the first game, this can be frustrating when you fail the third or fourth level, because failure starts you off at the first each time, which now seems like child’s play.
Some of the challenges are innovative to say the least. Turn the DS sideways for some tasks, upside down for others ‘ or if you fancy some co-op play, hold it with a friend. Speaking of which, the rather misleadingly named ‘Baby Making’ mode sees you holding the DS with your beau, to complete a small game together as the ultimate test of your compatibility. Weird’ Check. Fun’ Check. Innovation’ Check.
Other multiplayer functionality has been included, with six of the games available for play by up to four players at a time via Wi-Fi, and if you got strangely drawn to the ‘Dress up the silhouette girl’ mode in Feel The Magic, then you’ll be cock-a-hoop over the updated version.
thanks!