Rabisco+ Review

Rabisco+ is published by Ratalaika Games and developed by Green Dinosaur Games who have also developed Duck Souls+ and Pinkman+ on the Xbox marketplace. Rabisco+ is a 2D action-adventure game that tests the players’ precision and reaction speed. The game starts out by explaining that our Moon is lonely with no stars and we must gather stars in each level before reaching the end by finding the moon. The levels are all top-down view with timed linear puzzles to navigate through. Our blob like character, Ms. Rabisco, looks like a small white droplet of ink and we can dash with ‘A’ to move a little faster. When dashing it looks like our character leaves a trail of whiteout ink. Stamina also drains when dashing but regenerates over time. Later in the game, stamina recharging diamonds are scattered through levels and are required to use to avoid death from some quick moving dangers. Death in this game isn’t a major punishment as the player will respawn back at the nearest checkpoint obtained, which is always close by. The hit boxes for all the dangers are also very giving throughout the game and are easy to squeeze through some small tiles.

The view of the 2D board is limited, but we quickly learn that we can interact by use of ‘B’ at stone circles to look around the entire level as an eye for an action plan of how to advance safely. This feature I used very little and makes this easy game even easier. There are many dangers for Ms. Rabisco to avoid such as: spikes, lasers, flamethrowers, spinning balls of fire, moving spike cubes, squid turrets, shocking grids that expand and contract, all whilst collecting as many stars as possible in a level before reaching the moon. Not all stars are required to advance, but they are often in the pathway so will come naturally and occasionally highlight the correct path. On top of stars, there are paint cans of color that can be collected or some gems that require backtracking after finding some keys to remove blocks in the pathway.

The game continues to add more variety through the different sets of levels like a blue portal that Ms. Rabisco can move through unharmed. While sitting in the blue portal, nothing is capable of killing our character. It does get harder as you progress with moving blue portals and one time use only vents. Switches can be used to shift blocks on or off, so they can allow the player to advance safely and provide cover from dangerous turrets or lasers. Small squid turrets are by far the hardest part of the game since they are hard to outrun, but with little patience and practice, any player will find the game a breeze after learning the small mechanics of each level. Of course, what would be a timed action game without moving treadmills with spikes to avoid or ghosts that track a second behind us and follow our inputs exactly, but just delayed. Timing is everything in this game, which creates a fun challenge to overcome through the levels.

Being another Ratalaika game, this game follows suit of keeping all the achievements very easy to unlock. You can actually obtain all achievements in about 30 minutes of game time played, but this only takes you through 40% of what the game has to offer. Most of the harder, more unique levels, many will never play because of this fact. There are in total 100 levels to play in the game, the last being a small boss battle. I found the gameplay for this game fun and not very challenging at all. I did die often on some levels as I was learning how to beat them, but never felt like any of the levels were intricately hard. I did manage to plow through all 100 levels in an hour and a half which was tracked by a stopwatch given on the first level intended for speed runners.

The visuals for the game stick with the paper and ink theme making the background of all the levels on white lined notebook paper. All the enemies are drawn to have sad faces, so the player should never be confused what is a threat to Ms. Rabisco. The game does have clouds that roll across the screen, but never obscure the view of the level since they fade away when you approach close enough. The game also has a ‘Wiggle effect’ meaning the screen appears to be wiggling side to side when moving around, but this feature never hurt my eyes or caused any deaths during gameplay and can also be disabled in the settings. The audio for the game is on par with the visuals. The music that plays during the levels is looped, but does offer a few songs to listen to that sound like café coffee shop filler. The sound effects for dangerous threats are all tailored and unique. However, some of the sounds you have to sit around close enough and wait to hear and won’t trigger from a small distance.

The longevity for Rabisco+ is quite low considering most will pay the small amount the game costs for a quick buffer to their gamerscore. It was nice that the developers added a stopwatch for speed runners, but I can’t imagine a community for this game replaying the 100 levels repeatedly to smash out a record time.

Conclusion

The gameplay is fun for a short amount of time, which it only lasts for sadly. Yet, the music and cute artsy visuals make up for the lacklustre future the game holds and is fun while playing it. You do get your value out of what you pay for the game unlike other games out on the marketplace and is not overpriced by any means.

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This game was reviewed based on Xbox One review code, using an Xbox One console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.
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Good
  • Fun levels with new threats added periodically
  • Relaxing music
  • Adorable art style that sticks to its theme
  • Screen Wiggle effects
Bad
  • Audio issue with Sound effects
  • Very Easy & Short
5
Average
Gameplay - 4
Graphics - 6.5
Audio - 6.5
Longevity - 3
Written by
Hello, my name is Ross, I live in the United States and love playing Xbox games. There’s almost no better feeling than finishing a fun game and unlocking all the achievements provided. My achievement addiction has led me to play a large variety of games and I love to play any open world or sandbox games. I have a soft spot for survival horror games ranging from Alan Wake to Outlast. I wasn’t always on Xbox, I started back in the summer on 2008 with simply Call of Duty 4 and World at War. Before that, I grew up playing Mario and Grand Theft Auto on PlayStation which is a strange, but a welcome combo. I’m currently 24 years young and also attend undergrad school working on earning my BA in Accounting.

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