Project Rap Rabbit

Project Rap Rabbit is an adventure rhythm game, which is the result of cooperation between two dev teams - NanaOn-Sha (whose portfolio includes the legendary PaRappa The Rapper) and iNiS (the devs of Gitaroo Man). The title was made possible by a successful crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter.

Story

Project Rap Rabbit moves the player to an alternative version of the sixteenth-century Japan. The country has fallen victim to a disaster and its inhabitants are becoming increasingly isolated and suspicious of each other. The task of repairing the surrounding reality, bringing justice and reunifying the homeland is undertaken by Toto-Maru, the title rabbit. Although the main character is only a simple farmer, he has the ability to draw power from rap - so that he is able to face the evil rulers of the land. He is not alone either - he is accompanied by a faithful friend, Otama-Maru.

Mechanics

What distinguishes Project Rap Rabbit from other games of this type are the original gameplay mechanics. Unlike most other representatives of the genre, where the gameplay boils down to rhythmic pressing of specific buttons and following the linear path, in this game, the songs are presented a complex dialogue trees, and the subsequent lines form the successive lines of a given song. Success is guaranteed, first of all, by taking care of the right rhymes, although this is only one of its pillars.

In the word battles that are the essence of the game, experimentation is scored - the condition of Toto-Maru and his opponents is reflected in the so-called Swag indicators, and the course of the battle is supervised by a specially designed system called Call and Response. In practice, it boils down to three activities. When the hero is attacked, the players first have to choose the words they want to answer with. Then they choose the tone of their speech, using a kind of dialogue wheel, evoking associations with systems known from modern RPGs, beginning with the Mass Effect series; the choice made at this stage is important in that particular adversaries are resistant to various emotions. The last step is that the hero sings the song prepared in this way - it is then that the player has to press certain buttons while taking care of the right rhythm; the better he can cope with it, and the better he manages to fit the emotions in the weakness of the opponent, the more the value of his own Swag indicator will increase.

It is worth remembering that if the struggle does not go our way, the value of the latter begins to fall - after reaching 50%, Toto-Maru goes into the so-called "Back to the wall" state, in which specific lines of his songs deal higher damage to enemies. The whole thing is designed so that seasoned players can constantly balance on the verge of defeat, at the same time inflicting the highest possible damage to opponents and thus beating point records. When the battle is over, our actions are evaluated - we can boast of our achievements on the online leaderboards, where we can compare our results with the results of other players.

Technical aspects

Project Rap Rabbit can be liked because of its unique visuals, successfully combining motifs taken from Japanese history with elements characteristic for rap and hip-hop. The whole thing perfectly matches the original cartoonish style.

Last updated on 19 May 2017