Kick it Bunny! (Xbox One) Review – A Painful Experience

Kick It Bunny Review
KICK IT BUNNY! (XBOX ONE) REVIEW – A PAINFUL EXPERIENCE


DillyFrame Games have made a lot of bunny games. But quantity should never be placed above quality. At least they have the decency of writing a brief yet honest game description for Kick it, Bunny!: “Solve block puzzles in the Bunny world by kicking it, restoring the figures. You can play the game alone or with friends.” You can read more about the game on Steam. But since DillyFrame Games didn’t include any story in the game, I’ll not waste anyone’s time writing about it.

Kick it, Bunny
The bunny looks stoned, but at least it’s an accurate game cover – Image Via YouTube

Looking A Bit Rough

When you start Kick it, Bunny! you are quickly loaded into the world with no explanation or tutorial. What’s immediately apparent is the low resolution and the assortment of brown textures covering the landscape. This extends to the world map, which also shows one tone of blue for the sea. This sticks out like a sore thumb compared to the drab landmass, but two wrongs don’t make a right. On their own, these issues are unpleasant. However, it’s the fact the brownish player character blends into the environment, as well as the game emanating a warm over-saturated sunny glow, that makes it difficult to look at. At least give your mascot a colour that stands out enough from most of the background. Speaking of which, setting the landscape in a desert and cranking up saturation isn’t an excuse for lack of colour and detail. That’s game design 101.

Also for some reason, my gamer tag on the screen kept glitching. In this case, DillyFrame Games better hope none of their players is prone to having seizures. When a game causes eye strain from just looking at it, not many are going to want to play it. Especially in an age where video game graphics are scrutinized down to finite pixels. Meanwhile, Kick it, Bunny! looks like an early Xbox 360 title gone wrong.

A Ray Of Hope?

Not all elements of Kick it, Bunny!‘s graphics are bad though. The sea demonstrates lovely shades of blue and white while it ripples smoothly. And the grass waves back and forth gently as if pushed by a gentle breeze. Although the player model is simple, at least it is animated correctly for the most part. The rabbit’s ears jiggle how you’d expect as it walks. The walking and swimming animations are a little too simple though. Speaking of the latter, when the bunny hits the water, it speeds off like a runaway jet engine. There’s no in-between animation for transitioning land or water either.

Your bunny can hop as well as give a wimpy kick that sends enemies flying. It also stuns them for a few seconds before causing them to flee. Enemies can also do the same to you though make no mistake; there’s no death in Kick it, Bunny!. Even when your bunny falls off a cliff, it spawns right where it left off, accompanied by a sharp vibration of your controller. I recommend turning this off as vibration isn’t implemented correctly.

Kick it, Bunny
Example of a puzzle you will need to solve – Image Via Steam

Rah Rah Ree, Kick ’em in The Knee

The meat and potatoes of Kick it, Bunny! is solving block shape puzzles. Pressing X kicks a shape forward, while B rotates it. Solving these puzzles through dragging and dropping would have made this a smooth experience. Unfortunately, DillyFrame Games doesn’t agree with me on that. Instead, they’d rather have you kicking about each shape for a while, as well as rotating them with another kick. And with the puzzles being quite difficult, this makes the experience both tedious and frustrating. This is further multiplied by the eye strain caused by the poor visuals.

Outside of puzzles, players can jump through hoops, which feels tacked on. The only instance I remember that being fun is in the Spyro series, where thought was put into the placement of the hoops, the environment, and the obstacles. There’s also football and a race track if you want to get friends involved. But that’s a big if. There’s online multiplayer, but you shouldn’t put anyone else through this pain with you.

Another big problem with Kick it, Bunny! Is it’s a puzzle game that combines a 3D platformer with an open-world setting. The game’s trying to be too many things at once, and as a result, fails at everything. My advice for making future games is to start smaller. Just make a good game that’s focused on one genre. Once they master enough genres, DillyFrame Games should consider combining some of them into a game.

Kick it, Bunny
Some games these days like to add a football to interact with – Image Via Steam

Verdict

To be honest, I don’t believe anyone should play Kick it, Bunny! for any price, let alone around $10. If the team from DillyFrame Games read this review, I hope they consider my criticisms and make the changes I outlined in designing their next game.

The biggest compliment I can muster for Kick it, Bunny! is the music. There are only two tracks that switch between each other, but the country guitar melodies are pleasant to listen to. Adding more music would have been a plus, though the audio is the least of Kick it, Bunny!‘s problems.

Gameplay
Visuals
Audio
Story
Value
Reader Rating0 Votes
Only 2 music tracks but they are nice to listen to
Visuals are so over-saturated they cause eye strain
Character model blends into most of the environment
Low resolution and overly brown textures
Kicking puzzle pieces into place is tedious
1.5
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