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Welcome to Budget fitness Game month! Each Year I go through and play a few older, shorter, or cheaper games for one week and then post up this review. There are five weeks in March, so prepare for five fitness game reviews! If you don’t like that… well, watch a few of my other videos instead. For this example, I thought it would be fun to review the Rayman Raving Rabbids series until I review Just Dance 2. See, these adorable and annoying little creatures completely ruined the Rayman franchise for one moment and birthed the just dance franchise in the next. The developers got the idea from an mini-game in the third game where you dance like a primitive Just Dance demo. That of course is an expansion of mini-games in the first and second one. To honor really the only dace game left on consoles let’s take a look back at Rayman Raving Rabbids!
[Intro]
Rayman Raving Rabbids was my first ever Nintendo Wii game other than the Wii Sports one. I remember being in elementary school and watching the IGN trailers for this game and thought it looked amazing. Originally, it was going to be a platformer staring Rayman, an armless Ubisoft Mascot that acts as its Mario. Eventually, the franchise went extinct after the third game’s good, not great, reception. That is until the developers saw the Nintendo Wii prototype. From there, Rayman was back. However, Ubisoft was also developing RedSteal, a third-person shooter that was my second-ever Nintendo Wii game. They switched the concept from a Platformer to the Mini-game collection we have today to focus more on that. As far as the mini-game collections go, this is one of the best on the system.
The premise is simple. You are Rayman, who is out having a picnic with Globox, a weird green frog. An earthquake happens, and the Globox gets pulled in. It turns out that the earthquake was caused by these ugly bunny things. They kidnap Rayman and force him to play in these reindeer games. You control Rayman in this arena. All you can do is run around and go to these holes that dictate what mini-game you get to play. Beat three of them you get to unlock the final challenge, which is usually an on-rails shooter section or a racing one. Beat the fourth, and unlock a cool costume or song to play in the juice box. Beat the final challenge, and you get a plunger. Rayman sticks these plungers on the wall in the hopes of one day climbing out toward freedom. Afterward, you keep playing more mini-games and beating challenges, and earning plungers.
The plot is incredibly simple, but it’s a big help in giving the game a purpose. Most mini-game collections don’t have single-player modes, which makes the game boring and a chore for me to accomplish. I actually extended my playtime to one hundred percent complete it. I played it for nine days instead of seven. It’s honestly a great time. As you complete more challenges, the world changes. Your cell starts to get new furniture, and the stadium turns from them screaming at you with hate to them throwing hearts at you. My only issue is that the game is way too short. The game needs to be twice as long… I had a blast, man, and it was just over.
The reason why this game is so awesome? The mini-games man! Rayman Raving Rabbids have always been the best collection of mini-games on the Wii which I know isn’t saying much. But there are a ton of fun ones. For example, closing the stalls on the rabbids as they try to open them and shoot you. This ones frantic and gets pretty hard. How about the one where you control a ball inside of a brain and have to manuver to the exit. Of course there’s the classic whack-a-mole with a shovel. Swinging on these annoying trash monsters is so rewarding. Seriously this video could be filled with me listing off all of the fun and for the time unique mini-games. Again, this came out on launch… it started the trend.
What makes these mini-games better is the increase in diffuclty later on. You play through each mini-game up to three times with each time getting tighter and tigher. It took me a few times on some of the later levels to get it but man… when I do accomplish the goal it feels good. Take a look at this one [Encode_1080P_109_1], I’m getting the ball to the brain and have to get it in by fourty seconds. My hands where sweating as I was running down the clock but I made it with a second and a half to spare. The game reaches a perfect balance of achievable yet difficult that so many kids games, including ones further on in this series, just don’t do.
The one mini-game type that we can say changed history was this dancing one. It’s pretty simple. Shake the controller and numchuck to the beat of the music. The songs range from Rabbid covers of “Girls Just Wanna have fun” to this cool techno song. While simple in nature, it will evolve over time to ventually become one of the biggest dancing series ever. You have to try and check it out to see Just Dances orgins if you are a hard core fan.
The last type of mini-game collection that I want to talk about is one of the challenges. The on-rails shooter section is an epic showdown through various levels where you must gun down rabbids with a toilet plunger gun. It’s a very fun time and a great way to provide an epic feeling scope. Replaying these levels as an adult I have to say I never noticed how dark these are. Serously, apart from the western ones they all take place in graves or evil labrotories. It’s oddly horror themed for something aimed at yunger kids. The shooting gallory is also something that expanded as the serious went on. Going from live action to movie parodys. They even made a full on arcade shooter complete with a hundred and twenty inch screen. It’s a great time and recommend everyone hit up the local arcade to see if they have it.
As far as fitness goes, this game gets one from me. I played for an average of nineteen minutes, seven seconds, and almost three hours. During that time, I have burned an average of a hundred and seventy-two calories for a total of one-thousand five-hundred and fifty-one calories or about half a pound. I would give this one burn as far as intensity, as I never truly sweated. The actual intensity depends highly on the mini-game being played. Again, this is not a true fitness game, so I expect all of these in this series to be a burn, but… I just had so much fun that I am giving it for thumbs-up! It’s an absolutely great time worth busting out the Nintendo Wii for. My non-gamer wife also had a blast playing the mini-games with me, so it is perfect for couple-play.
With that said, I can’t wait to dive into the rest of the Rayman Raving Rabbids games! I will cover 2 and the TV party and maybe the other ones later since that’s when Just Dance was born. If you like these videos, please give them a big old thumbs up. Subscribe to the YouTube channel for new videos every single week. If you have any ideas on video topics you want me to cover, leave them below. I will do pretty much anything that isn’t illegal. Follow me on Twitter and Instagram @truejackjenk. Lastly, I want you all to have an amazing day! All of you guys are just so incredibly amazing.