Tons of Content
Hell Yeah! features more than 100 monsters (bosses, mini-bosses and the like) for your character Ash to kill. Each of these are equally awesome and enjoyable to take out. From Zues to exiled DJ’s to lonely butt-cheeks there are many unique ways to ‘finish’ these monsters off. There are over 25 ‘finish him!’ moves in the game for the player to execute on enemies when their health has been depleted.
Some of these moves include squeezing until the monster pops, sending them flying out of the scene, and even a throwback to Pulp Fiction. Unfortunately, many of these finish him scenes are used multiple times and can become old rather quickly due to the vast amount of monsters, but they are still a nice addition to the game.
NOT
Gameplay Focus
While Hell Yeah! isn’t a bad game, the gameplay focus seems a bit off. You can easily find yourself focusing on just running through the level finding the monsters throughout. This is because that is all there really is to it. When there is so little to playing, the game can quickly lose appeal, and the incentive is usually lacking. Having 100+ (101) monsters in the game to kill is nice as the player usually won’t feel as if there is a lack of content, but this also feels somewhat overwhelming. You could run through a whole zone, destroy around ten monsters, and still have a bunch left. The whole game starts off as an enjoyable experience, but near three quarters of the game in, I found myself bored killing the monsters.
Game Mechanics
A point where I wasn’t particularly fond of was how the game worked at times. For one, spikes were the bane of my existence. Spikes will insta-kill Ash, and force you back to the nearest checkpoint. On that note, checkpoints seemed annoyingly far apart in the game. When you die, you will pop back up and the nearest checkpoint, but you will also retain the possible small amount of health you had when you originally passed the point.
It can make it rather annoying to have to keep playing a particular monster with the same health as if you simply messed up in your execution, versus just not having sufficient health to continue. The same goes for having to re-collect any items you had before you died, until you finally checkpoint again with them in your possession. The game helps you out a little when you kill a monster, since it will then save, but your latest checkpoint will not be where it saves, but where your checkpoint was. What this saving process does is just make sure that your killing of the monster holds.
The Island
The Island is well… an island that you unlock some ways through the game. All of the monsters that you encounter throughout the game will show up here. You as the leader of this island will be able to command these previously vanquished monsters to search for items such as money and rare items. On paper this sounds like a fine addition to the game, but in play it adds so little to the game it doesn’t even feel worth the time. Even when putting a maximum of twenty monsters per portion of the island to work, it can still take multiple hours for anything to even happen. When the monsters do finally find something, it could be as meager as thirty dollars, which will hardly do you any good later in the game when you can significantly use The Island anyway.
Verdict
Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit does a great job in many game elements. While some setbacks like the near uselessness of The Island, at time poor gameplay mechanics, and off gameplay focus don’t help the game, these do not drag the game down too much. For the content that is included, the game is certainly worth the going price of $15, if the game does appeal to you. Even if it isn’t top priority, a solid sale will surely come along allowing you to give it a run.
