Angry Bunnies (Nintendo 3DS) Review

When starting up Angry Bunnies, it is very clear that this game is not only in name, but also in gameplay, an almost identical clone of Angry Birds, except with bunnies. The concept is simple: shoot bunnies at the foxes, trying to make them explode, and if all of them can be hit, then proceed to the next fox-filled stage.

There are some significant differences, though, that makes Angry Bunnies pretty different from Angry Birds. The first thing is that there are no scores; instead, the star value is measured by how many carrots are collected. It is a very clever system, as the original point system in Angry Birds could be very fickle from time to time. The second is the possibility to change which rabbits will launch by pressing on a rabbit in the queue, and replacing it with the rabbit that shoots them away. This means that at the end one rabbit will always be left, which adds the strategic element of choosing which order and which bunnies to launch.

While these are some fresh elements to the game concept, Angry Bunnies fundamentally falls flat due to some significant and game-breaking problems within the gameplay.

The first big thing to point out is that the physics in the game is horrible. For a physics-based puzzle/demolition game, one of the most important aspects for good gameplay is the physics. This game, however, has very underdeveloped and bad physics that is extremely fickle, which becomes very obvious at certain stages where one is supposed to wait for the level to "fall" into place. Sometimes it falls correctly, making the level winnable, but sometimes it does not fall like expected at all, making the random elements of the physics in the game painfully obvious.

The second big thing is the level design. At the beginning it felt like playing the first stages of any Angry Birds game, but quickly the stages become less and less inspired, and start to appear as levels designed by a kid during their lunch break in school, making it painfully obvious that the level design was rushed to add quantity rather than quality to the game. The most painful offenders are "domino stages" - levels that have the player shoot at a very obvious spot to make domino bricklike blocks fall on each other to eventually hit the rabbit, and some stages that seem like the designer randomly tossed out blocks into a pile and made a stage of it.

These two offenders are nothing compared to the last offender, though: the Choleric Rabbit. While the physics engine can be fickle most of the time, it is possible to predict at a certain range of accuracy how the blocks will fall. However, the Choleric Rabbit is a whole other story. Once launched and when it hits the ground, the rabbit starts to spin around the stage like crazy. The idea is cool, a very strong rabbit that can destroy the entire level.

The problem is that this happens in an almost completely random pattern, turning stages that rely on the Choleric Rabbit to be completed into total luck-based missions. Words cannot describe how frustrating it is to sit on the same level for 30 minutes, knowing what to do and how to do it, but waiting for that Choleric Rabbit to act like it is supposed to act for the stage to be completed. Worthwhile to add is that its ears fly all over the stage, detached from the body, making it painfully obvious that either this rabbit is not working as intended, the developers rushed the game and did not playtest, or both.

Ultimately, this is a game that has some very good ideas that could have become so much better than it turned out due to horrible game physics, poor level design and a rabbit that works like a random number generator. These things make the game almost unplayable. Both the carrot and bunny swap mechanics would be welcome additions to any future game in the genre, but sadly it is doubtful anyone will look at Angry Bunnies in any positive light, giving those nice additions any second thoughts.