As has been mentioned many times before, the end of the world isn’t the end of the world. It’s just a change in state, from a planet where humans can live comfortably to one where they can’t, leaving room for something else to rise up and take their place. This time around it’s rabbits, living comfortably off the wreckage humanity left behind on the frozen Earth. It may be winter everywhere, but Smokestack Mountain has warm thermal vents where good crops can be grown and is large enough to support multiple towns around its base, and not a bad place at all to be a grizzled old junk collector scavenging the ruins for useful tech.
Rooting Through The Junk Of The Old World To Survive In The New
Stamp, known as Rusty to his friends, was married once and even had a daughter, but nowadays lives alone performing the only job that ever suited him. He can hear the voices of the junk, letting him know what it wants to be and either tinkering with it in his workshop or selling it on to those who can make better use of it. He’s a slow-talking old rabbit who knows himself and is content with that, with one day pretty much the same as the next. Granted, that day usually involves hopping in his mech, Junkster, to explore a giant mountain of abandoned tech, but then one day a group of junkers called the BBs come to town to push Rusty farther into the heart of Smokestack Mountain than he’d ever planned to explore.
Rusty Rabbit is a story-focused, level-based Metroidvania, which admitted isn’t how Metroidvanias tend to work. Starting off piloting Junkster wielding a drill as both tool and weapon, Rusty needs to make his way through each expansive section of Smokestack Mountain, fighting and platforming while searching out containers filled with junk for crafting, and occasionally turning up a blueprint for new weapons and augments. After a tutorial section where Rusty walks you through the variety of tools Junkster has at its disposal, including dash and a grapple, the mech takes a hard hit and (don’t be too shocked) loses most of its abilities, dropping back to the very basics of run, jump and drill. It’s enough to get started with, but exploring every nook and cranny of the mountain is going to need all the upgrades Rusty can find and install on his mech.
Each area of Smokestack Mountain is a biome constructed of blocks, without a single sloped surface in the entire game. Most of it is surface and walls, of course, but breakable blocks and containers are everywhere, with the level map not only letting you know how many are left, but also marking them in the areas you’ve explored. Some of the breakables require a specific weapon type to crack open, and as Rusty Rabbit progresses, areas are gated off by needing upgraded versions of the weapons to access. All told Junkster has four different weapon types available: drill, blade, gun and hammer, each handling differently from the others and some being more effective on certain types of the mechanical rust beasts guarding the mountain than others.
Each area of Smokestack Mountain is a biome constructed of blocks, without a single sloped surface in the entire game.
While the mountain is dangerous, it’s also got a decent number of travel pads scattered throughout, some in safe rooms where Rusty can repair Junkster back to full health and others out in the open. In addition to simplifying quick travel through the area, the pads also let Rusty head back to Brass Village. The village is where Rusty can craft and upgrade weapons, stock up on supplies and most importantly fill in the background details of the world. Taken on gameplay alone Rusty Rabbit is a mixed bag, with the platforming feeling stiff and combat frequently coming down to trying to avoid getting hit by sheer gaming habit, but not sweating it too much once health and defense are boosted a bit in the upgrade tree. Meanwhile the exploration boils down to looking at the map and heading to the blacked-out areas, the «hidden» sections are marked with a magnifying glass icon, and the one puzzle room in the whole game makes you wish there had been more. Nothing is actively bad, but it’s never great either, topping out at decently playable.
It's Nice When The Best Part Of A Game Is Gameplay, But Not An Absolute Requirement
The story, world and characters, though, make Rusty Rabbit well worth the time, with the cutscenes and hints of world lore perfectly spaced throughout in numerous ways. The opening is a bit cutscene heavy to get the show started, but once that settles down and the game lets you approach its story at a more reasonable pace, every new bit of conversation and lore feels like a reward for meeting the next goal. The church on the edge of town preaches the rabbit gospel, derived from the stories of Peter Rabbit, while the diner has numerous characters to chat and become friends with. The diner talks are particularly interesting because midway through there are three conversational branches and there’s no way to know for sure which one will get the best outcome. Back at home base, Rusty also takes on contract work for some of the townsfolk, restoring vehicles from parts found in the mountain, which is where he’s at his least guarded.
Seeing as the game is named after him, Rusty needs to be a great character to carry the story and this is done well. As a grizzled old rabbit set in his ways with a past that he’s mostly made peace with, Rusty is already a highly unusual lead, and while the game is clear that he doesn’t change much in his adventure, it’s more about dealing with the past than personal growth. The junker group the BBs are a lot of fun and their story leads the first two-thirds of the game, but slowly the focus shifts from Rusty dealing with an inexperienced crew to him finding out what happened to his daughter.
After Rusty’s wife died he and his daughter slowly drifted away until one day he woke up and she was gone, chasing after her beloved archeology while Rusty dismisses it all as nonsense. The deep dive into Rusty’s character as an experienced and gifted junker, but also a flawed parent who doesn’t realize he’s right only about eighty to ninety percent of the time, trying to reconnect with the daughter he didn’t mean to drive away, is a story that’s compelling enough that even him learning the origins of rabbit sentience and where the humans went becomes of secondary importance.
Closing Comments:
There’s a video gaming trope that some of the most fondly remembered games are 7 out of 10 and Rusty Rabbit could be the poster child for this. From a gameplay perspective it’s good, decent, not a bad way to spend a surprisingly large number of hours if you want to unlock everything, even if it can’t quite live up to its ambitions. The game isn’t just the gameplay, though, and when taken as a whole, Rusty Rabbit is the type that sticks in your brain and will be remembered more fondly than actually playing it might justify. The secrets of the history of the rabbits’ frozen world are buried in the caverns of Smokestack Mountain, but Rusty knows they’ll take care of themselves while he deals with a base filled with hostile rust beasts, chasing after the far more important goal of reconciling with the only family he’s got left.
