This year we won’t review crappy horror no-budget slockfests about killer rabbits, i’m quite fed up with killer easter bunnies and we can done those next year, anyway.
So we’re instead digging up a fairly obscure 2d spaceship shooter/side scrolling shoot ‘em up from the late 80s arcade resurgence, and as i guess it’s almost mandatory for forgotten games of this genre, its only home console port was on the PC Engine… in Japan, North America did get this released in arcades, localized as Rabbit Punch, but we Europeans never did in any shape, not until the recent Arcade Archives rerelease, in this case the Switch one (it’s also available on PS4).
The plot is fairly simple and starts off the “ol’ fashioned” (as in “putting cats in bags and throwing them in the river to drown” ye old fashioned) royal kidnapping by a mechanical army of space aliens that come down to the peaceful planet of Bunnyland, taking awat the rabbit themed king (he has a rabbit onesie), the princess and her sister (which are just Playboy bunny girls… to commit to the theme, yes), so it’s up to the rabbit shaped mecha unit to save the monarchy.
The presentation and cutscenes are quite nice, it’s all pretty typical 16-bit videogames stuff, with the parallax scrolling, the digitized english voicebits that border on incomprehensible to announce a power up or boss encounter coming up, the weirdo sci-fi setting (here mixed with fantasy stuff and weird shit that’s so old fashion japanese 2D spaceship shooter material), and overall it looks quite good for the time, music is mediocre and kinda annoying, to be blunt, but nothing abysmal.
Developed by V-System/Video System, better known for their Sonic Wings/Aero Fighters series (and when most of the staff from that left they formed Psykio and then Hamster), Rabio Lepus/Rabbit Punch it’s a typical 2D sidescroller shootem up at first glance.. and it is, but there are some quirky ideas and peculiar choices thrown in.
For example, you can’t power up the shot, but you can perform a punch move when close to enemies and power up cans, also useful to avoid the power ups falling off the can before you can catch them, as these improve or restore the other weapon at your disposal: a barrage of rockets.
There are scarcely made available and extremely useful as there’s no smart bomb weapon of any kind, there is a rare power that makes you invicinble and instakill any enemy on touch for 8 seconds… but if you simply shoot at the power up cans you could see that fall out of reach.
It’s a decent game, almost good, definitely pretty solid for a relatively early entry in the genre, but it’s hold back by some flaws, and not small ones.
Aside from the fact the game tries to make itself longer than it is by having twelve stages when these are often quite brief (and the penultimate one is a boss gauntlet)… often these are quite brief and cramped in design, and while it’s also fairly generous in terms of difficulty for a spaceship shooter, as you have an energy bar, an actual one, it doesn’t quite matter as the game often loves to ambush you with sudden swarms of enemies, some of which even has telegraphed almost constant invincibility, and the rabbit punch is useful but only from the front, it’s no “Force” module from R-Type, so hope you have some rockets left to deal with some enemies that have moved beyond you.
Apparently the PC Engine port also was even moder harder due to some checkpoint bullshit, but it’s not an issue since this is the original arcade release, mostly using the original Japanese rom, so you can just add credits (as in other Arcade Archives rereleases), but still, it can be quite challenging, though the final boss is a crock of bullshit, as in even more than usual for arcade games, since it bullshit hard as expected, BUT also pulls a cheap trick you won’t notice immediatly, all to ensure you drop lots of quarters into the machine in trying to figure out what to do.
Though it’s not a difficult game, aside from the aforementioned energy bar bosses themselves are easier than they look (the stages themselves are far harder most of the times) especially as some are trio of what should be medium tier normal enemies, or fold easier-faster than expected, leaving aside the cheap move of some stages just being just the area boss with actual stage to build it up.
Still, it’s a decent 2D side scrolling shoot’em up, it’s quite quirky, like a more cutesy Cho Aniki without the homoeroticism but not quite Parodius either, as there’s everything from robots, to weird ghost, human stone heads, demons, robot cheethas, Alex Murphy with his helmet off and brain exposed (or angel anime women in sacral poses) in the background, and the more you go on, the more it all meshes with fantasy stuff like dragons, even a muslim (?) Yogi throwing fire while sit upon a floating rock.. Fun stuff!
Not quite a forgotten gem, but definitely worth playing for genre buffs, it’s a decent one and definitely weird enough, so pick it up when it goes on sale on PSN or the Switch eShop.
Aside from a Japanese only PS2 port, the series begin and ended here, though various characters (mostly the battle bunny mecha) would make camoes and even be playable in Sonic Wings/Aero Fighters and its sequels (among other Video System titles), a series that is far more well known and it’s actually coming back, with Sonic Wings Reunion, releasing in late May 2025.
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