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Setup & Timing
Basic setup of the game works well. A number of young-ish children will play the game and the designers knew it. Download time is pretty respectable for three mini-games and the opening credit sequence wasn't ridiculously long.
Menus & Navigation
The menus worked well, as none of the options were really small, too close together, or hard to read.
Ease Of Use / Play Control
In a title that features three different mini-games, the quality of play control will vary between them. In I-Bunnies, the primary function of making noise into the microphone is simple and functional (just don't stand too close to another player or you may inadvertantly keep them going is they pause. In Classroom, the game uses a tapping mechanic which, if you aim, works quite well. SandBox uses a dragging mechanic where players go after moving targets of different colors and, while everything is programmed effectively, colorblind players may not be able to play this mini game at all.
Content
The game's graphics provide a fluid, cartoony feel which is perfect for the game. The game might have benefitted from more smoothed out graphics, but it's far from a killer. The sound effects are excellent and add in to both the theme and the enjoyment. The problem is the quantity of the content. Rayman Raving Rabbids (the first game) became more known for its mini games than it did for its story mode. Because of this, the story mode-only versions were all dropped for Rayman Raving Rabbids 2. While the game has MANY mini games, only three of them are available in the Vs download. Also, none of the mini games are available as a Demo download (for one player gaming), even though the game calls the Single-Card Download "Share Game" in the menu, even though "Game Sharing" is a term often associated with downloadable demos.
Category Score: 10.5 / 15
Overall Fun
For anyone who's never experienced a Rayman Raving Rabbids game, the series (on the Wii and, starting with its second iteration, on the DS) is known as a collection of mini games (there also happens to be a story mode, but it just can't compete with the mini games). The mini games take normal mini games and put a spin on them, making them much more wacky. The Rabbids (bunnies) are insane (and stupid) imitators and conquerors that uttely fail in life (which is part of the humor). In Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 for the Nintendo DS, there are (as I stated above) lots of mini games. The majority of the markdowns taken in this review aren't because of any problems with the content that is available, which is enjoyable and of quality. Most of the markdowns taken are because of what isn't there. With so many mini games in the title, why are so few available via Single-Card Download? Why are none of them present as a single player downloadable Demo? There could have been so much more done with the title that wasn't. The game is a fun little play and the purpose of providing a taste to entice players to buy the game was successfully completed, but it seems that more could have been done to entice players by showing a couple more of the mini games (maybe something a little longer and with a little more depth).
Add more mini games to the Single-Card Download function.
Offer each of the Single-Card Download mini games separately as demos (in addition to the current Vs connection).
Change SandBox's floating items so that they differ by something in addition to just color (shape, etc.) to facilitate colorblind players.
Overall Single-Card Download Rating: 77 / 100 (a.k.a. 38.5/50)
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