Rabi-Ribi
Our New Game
the Game
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There never quite seem to be enough bunny girls in the world, so here is another for you aficionados out there. This 2D sidescrolling exploration platformer follows the adventure of Erina, whose humdrum life as a regular rabbit is turned upside-down when she finds herself in an unknown world and turned into a human (with rabbit ears)!
Along the way she meets the cheerful pink-haired fairy, Ribbon, who mysteriously chooses to stay by Erina’s side.
These unwitting heroes embark together on their quest to restore Erina’s life to normalcy, but who knows what troubles lurk, waiting for them…
Rabi-Ribi is a 2D exploration platformer that focuses on non-linear gameplay. There will be hints to guide the player along, but they’re never required to follow them, which allows for much greater freedom to—you guessed it—explore.
Players will play as our protagonist Erina, who focuses on close quarters combat. Ribbon the fairy is the ranged attacker who follows Erina’s lead, indirectly controlled by the player.
Erina may be a little rabbit that was turned into a human, but that doesn’t stop her from being capable of some pretty neat moves.
Both Erina and Ribbon’s abilities can be improved by learning new skills and attacks through collecting items and upgrades that are spread throughout the world.
What trinkets and skills to pick up is up to the player; dare you challenge hard mode without any items?
– Retro exploration platformer featuring a bunny girl.
– 4+n difficulty settings for all types of players.
– 9+ main areas and 20+ sub-areas to explore.
– Bunny.
– Over 60 items and upgrades.
– Over 20 fully illustrated characters with cutscene illustrations.
– 40+ boss battles, 1000+ attack patterns with Boss Rush Mode to fight some or all of them in a row.
– Post game story and content with speedrun mode which takes out every section of the game where the player cannot control the main character.
– Over 50+ pieces from an original soundtrack.
– English, Chinese and Japanese support.
– Bunny.
UPRPRC Edition contains
- Rabi-Ribi Game
- Digital OST (Original Soundtrack)
- Rabi-Ribi Digital Artbook
Steam User 27
You'd expect a game with this kind of art to be some cheap cashgrab, but this game is surprisingly a top tier metroidvania. The map design is really good as you can do the bosses in basically any order you want, and you can even beat the game without collecting a single upgrade (including the ability to attack). There are tons of difficulty options, so the game should be enjoyable with any level of experience with bullet hells. I know the art can be a turnoff for many people, as it was for me initially, but the pixel artstyle of the gameplay actually looks pretty nice, and the sexy arts really only appear in cutscenes.
Steam User 28
aside from the questionable character design this is the most fun i've had with a metroidvania in a while
combat is fun the bosses are even better challenging and engaging
and everything else just feels good so put aside the fan service this game is riddles with because behind that weeb stench is a really solid game
Steam User 16
This game is incredible. It's one of the best games I've ever played, if not outright the best game I've ever played. There's just so much good here.
The exploration aspects are the best I've seen in any metroidvania styled game, providing you with insane freedom of movement the second you beat the prologue. Some bosses are locked behind others being beaten and a handful of areas are gated by story progression, but aside from those exceptions and some prologue railroading, you can get to any area on the map whenever you want. There are a number of achievements available for doing things in weird orders, whether that's heading to the furthest area from the start first or beating one specific boss while maneuvering around the other boss you're "intended" to fight first. There's even an achievement for sequence breaking into the postgame!
This nigh-unprecedented level of choice in terms of direction provides a huge amount of replay value, as simple choices regarding which area you go to first will have you getting your upgrades in a different order. When pretty much all the upgrades are both incredibly useful and fairly unique, this means that your pathing through the game will heavily affect your playthrough. Since the best upgrades are usually on completely seperate parts of the map, the routing adds a new level of depth to a game that was already filled with phenomenal exploration.
And the bosses. Oh my god the bosses. There's like twenty bosses in this game, and even though they're all just anime girls who jump around and shoot a bunch of projectiles, they all manage to feel distinct from one another, whether through their bullet hell attacks, their movement patterns, or their gimmicks. The bosses are all pretty lengthy, most of them taking a good two to three minutes with postgame bosses easily taking ten, but they never feel boring, as they all have a crazy variety of attacks (15+ per boss) to the point that you'll probably never see a repeat attack even during a long fight on the highest difficulty. They're also super engaging, as the balance between melee damage being higher and ranged damage being easier to hit bosses with means that not only will you always be attacking the boss (no waiting around for openings here!), but you're also incentivized to weave through bullets in order to get up close and maximize damage between attacks, which makes for a really fun ebb-and-flow gameplay loop. They're definitely the highlight of the game, and slowly learning to overcome each of their patterns and maintaining enough HP to dig in further is the exact kind of experience I look for in video games.
The higher difficulties offer similarly fantastic replay value, as the bosses getting denser patterns and doing way more damage forces you to really learn their patterns and sharpen your gameplay as well as exacerbating the importance of routing to good items early. And on top of all that, there are no-hit achievements for every boss (with much appreciated leniency that allows for one to three hits for some of the super long lategame bosses), which will really have you branding their patterns into your brain. Working to collect the no-hit achievements is one of the most fun things I've done in this game.
I really must emphasize over and over how incredible these bosses are. They're obvious love letters to the Touhou series, with a few of them being adaptations of existing spellcards and most of them exemplifying Touhou's ideal of patterns that are both really pretty and interesting to dodge. Rabi-Ribi's bosses are the best translation of Touhou's game design style that I've ever seen. If you're looking for a Touhou metroidvania, this should be your first stop, accept no substitutes.
Some metroidvanias can be cleared with a pseudo "0%" item completion, which is more of a low-item run where you still have to pick up a couple movement upgrades. Rabi-Ribi instead has a true 0% achievement, as you can complete the game without ever picking up a single upgrade (aside from your ranged weapon and the Bunny Amulet). This includes skipping your melee weapon. The maingame is explicitly designed to facilitate this while still being engaging on a regular playthrough, and although the postgame is less charitable to a 0% toolkit, the game adds some extra springs here and there to make it possible to beat the postgame final boss on 0%. It's a really cool challenge to have in the game.
Nothing is perfect, and this game has a few failings. They're primarily focused on its writing and art, the former being occasionally incomprehensible and the latter being kinda horny (though there is absolutely nothing explicit). However, the story is comprehensible enough to function as an excuse for the gameplay (which is all it really needs to do), there's a workshop mod to turn off portraits in dialogue, and most importantly, if you really don't like the art or the writing, you can just mash the "skip cutscene" button and the game will still mark up your map with notifications of where you're supposed to be heading off to, so you won't miss anything on the gameplay front.
Honestly, I wouldn't worry at all about writing or art. This game could have literally no plot and flash game tier graphics and it would still be better than half the games on the market because the gameplay carries it so hard. The cast's writing may not be memorable, but their boss fights absolutely are.
Item cleanup is iffy though. I can't really excuse that. The itemfinder is not great and there's no way to mark up the map. Even so, there's so much good in this game that I'm willing to give it a pass here, and a lot of the unique items can be found with an average amount of intelligent exploration and due diligence. Plus, the fan-made RabiDB site is so good at helping find the more generic items that the lack of of a good itemfinder / map pins hurts way less than it could've.
Oh, right, the music is also fantastic. The boss themes most of all, but even the area themes are really good.
Seriously, this game is amazing. I genuinely believe that Rabi-Ribi is better than 99% of the games I've ever played.
Steam User 35
100% fanservice;
200% story;
300% music;
400% gameplay;
And 1000% reason to remember the game.
Steam User 34
Rabi-Ribi: Best Played Behind Closed Blinds
Hello, my beautiful bastards. Today, we're diving headfirst into a game that’s as deceptively cute as it is challenging. Prepare yourselves for the pastel-soaked, bullet-hell madness of Rabi-Ribi. Yes, it’s a metroidvania, but don’t let the cutesy, borderline-questionable aesthetic fool you. Beneath that sickeningly sweet exterior lies a game that will test your reflexes and your dignity.
Let’s address the elephant in the room. Rabi-Ribi looks like it was designed by a bunch of pederasts/anime fetishists. There, I said it. The game’s visual style might make you feel like you’re one step away from landing on some sort of registry. You may want to play this one with the blinds closed, lest your neighbors get the wrong idea and you find yourself trying to explain why your screen is filled with scantily clad, chibi girls battling it out in colorful, chaotic arenas.
But don’t let that deter you, my friends. Beneath the questionable art style lies one of the finest metroidvania experiences you can get your hands on. Rabi-Ribi excels in its gameplay, delivering a tight, responsive, and surprisingly deep platforming experience. The game’s world is a labyrinth of interconnected areas, each teeming with secrets, upgrades, and challenging boss battles.
Combat in Rabi-Ribi is a frenetic mix of bullet-hell chaos and traditional platforming. It’s fast, it’s unforgiving, and it’s damn satisfying. Every boss fight is a beautifully choreographed dance of death, pushing your reflexes and pattern recognition to their limits. The game doesn’t hold your hand, and it doesn’t apologize for kicking your ass. But oh, the sweet, sweet satisfaction when you finally conquer a particularly brutal boss - well it’s quite a feeling, let me tell you.
The upgrades and abilities you acquire throughout your journey are varied and impactful, opening up new ways to explore and tackle challenges. The level design is top-notch, constantly encouraging you to backtrack and discover new paths with your ever-expanding skill set. It’s classic metroidvania design done right, with a modern twist that keeps things fresh and engaging.
And let’s not forget the soundtrack. The music in Rabi-Ribi is a delightful blend of catchy, upbeat tunes and intense, adrenaline-pumping tracks that perfectly complement the on-screen action. I'd actually even caught myself humming a couple of them while I was doing various things around the house: be careful, as they're definitely the type to get stuck in your head on repeat.
And so, my beautiful bastards, if you can look past the surface-level creepiness and embrace the chaotic, bullet-hell brilliance underneath, Rabi-Ribi is a metroidvania that deserves your attention. Play it for the challenge, for the exploration, and for the sheer thrill of overcoming its relentless difficulty. Just, for the love of Christ, make sure your blinds are closed and your door is locked.
Stay classy, stay curious, and above all, stay magnificent.
— The Magnificent Bastard
Key Points:
Deceptively Cute, Brutally Challenging: Don't be fooled by the aesthetic. Rabi-Ribi is a hardcore metroidvania that will test your gaming skills.
Bullet-Hell Combat: Fast, chaotic, and unforgiving battles that require precision and reflexes.
Deep Exploration: A labyrinthine world filled with secrets, upgrades, and tough bosses.
Engaging Gameplay: Tight controls, impactful upgrades, and top-notch level design.
Memorable Soundtrack: A blend of catchy tunes and intense tracks that enhance the experience.
If you enjoyed this review, give it a thumbs up! If you’re ready to embrace the cuteness and challenge yourself, grab Rabi-Ribi and dive into one of the best metroidvania experiences out there.
Steam User 9
This game lures you in with it's cute art and then castrates you with it's difficulty.
A must have for any fan of bullet hells OR Metroidvanias.
RABI RIBI 2 HYPEEE
Steam User 9
Don't let the scantily clad theming fool you, this is genuinely one of the best and most brutal metroidvanias out there and somehow made bullet hell + platforming work extremely well.