Rabbiman Adventures departs from the traditional high fantasy setting and story of its genre, in favor of cultural and educational themes.
In Rabbiman Adventures you play as a young boy named Yasha who is from a Modern Orthodox Jewish family. Yasha and his siblings discover a fantasy realm behind a magical secret room found in the family home. It is in this realm that Yasha transforms into the hero of the story, Rabbiman. Rabbiman isn’t tasked with fighting things like dragons, but rather saving the magical forest and the realm of which he’s in from a nefarious entity. That entity takes the form of a scary tentacle monster. This monster is bent on ruining festive moods and Jewish traditions.
The way the story is presented and lays itself out serves a dual purpose. It serves as both a means to provide a compelling hero journey trope while at the same time weaves in themes related to Jewish holidays along with core mitzvot (moral lessons of the Jewish faith). While the game focuses on these themes, it does so in a lighthearted and rather enjoyable way. This helps keep the player engaged in the story and at the same time being an educational experience.
The core gameplay of Rabbiman Adventures is a straightforward and accessible 3D platformer, taking strong inspiration from genre classics like Super Mario Odyssey but grounding its mechanics in its unique character design. Players control Rabbiman through nicely designed, linear levels that emphasize precise jumping, light puzzle-solving, and star collection. The hero’s equipment, while unconventional, forms the backbone of his moveset: the tallit (prayer shawl) ingeniously functions as a glider, allowing Rabbiman to cover long distances and traverse large gaps, essential for exploration. His multipurpose hat serves as a vital tool, not just for basic combat, but primarily for puzzle interactions, allowing the hero to teleport and activate distant switches or mechanisms.
The game progresses by mastering the core acrobatic and puzzle solving abilities in order to complete each level. Each world is unique as they are each themed around a holiday. The difficulty level is intentionally gentle, making it highly suitable for new or young gamers to complete challenges without significant frustration. However, the inclusion of special time trial levels offers a welcome spike in difficulty, demanding precise control and creative use of the hat and tallit for platforming veterans seeking a greater challenge.
While these time trial levels do offer a bit of a challenge, they aren’t by any means brutal. I found that they are rather easy to beat on the first if not the second attempt at them. Once you have gone through a few worlds and go back to do the time trials, they aren’t all that challenging and are a nice break from the rest of the game to an extent.
The graphics and performance of Rabbiman Adventures on the Xbox Series X deliver a smooth, optimized experience that highlights the game’s charming 3D aesthetic. Visually, the game utilizes a vibrant, expansive color palette to render its magical forest environments and themed holiday worlds. The art style is defined by soft, expressive character models and detailed environmental objects, creating an inviting look that translates well to modern high resolution displays.
Graphically, the game isn’t aiming for AAA photorealism, but rather a family friendly and cartoon like appearance. This ensures that the game runs at a locked 60FPS which for this kind of game is really important given this is a 3D platformer. When it comes to performance besides just the frame rate, the power of the Xbox Series X and its built in SSD allows the game to have nearly instantaneous load times. This helps to minimize the time between loading of levels and fast travel points. Given this game is aimed toward a younger audience, this helps ensure that younger players remain fully immersed in the game and the flow of the adventure.
Rabbiman Adventures has a wonderful soundtrack. The game blends traditional orchestral and electronic elements to bring a very unique sound to the game when it comes to its music. This type of music combined with the culturally inspired melodies gives it a dynamic and high quality feel to it. This unique take on the score of the game highlights and even elevates the game’s presentation. The sound effects of Rabbiman’s abilities, the environmental effects, and the sounds that enemies make all sound crisp and clear when playing on the Xbox Series X. The combination of the sound effects and the musical score gives Rabbiman a very unique sound identity.It’s definitely not a sound I’ve heard in other games of its genre and a delightful surprise for a game that’s meant to be an edutainment experience.
In conclusion, Rabbiman Adventures is a successful and delightfully unique 3D platforming experience that uses its cultural foundation to stand out from the crowd. While the gameplay structure is straightforward and designed primarily for a younger audience, the mechanics surrounding the tallit glider and the teleporting hat provide satisfying tools for traversal and puzzle solving. While veterans of platforming games may find this game a tad on the easy side of the genre, I would say it’s still worth playing.
The game is unique in every way and for an educationally focused game, it’s surprisingly fun and addictive to play. I would highly recommend players of all ages give this game a chance. It is a wonderful and unique platforming journey, and you just might learn something along the way!
Disclaimer: A review key was provided
In addition to writing articles, Ryan Byers also creates content for his YouTube channel called "Obscure Games and Consoles", collects video games, and dabbles in video game development.