The indie scene has become well known for being home to some of the best love letters to retro gaming and developer Pug Storm's Radical Rabbit Stew falls into this category. From its extremely detailed sprite art to its progressively escalating game mechanics, Radical Rabbit Stew is well made. Players battle against the Rabbit queen and her army to rescue their chef friends in an overhead perspective action-puzzle adventure that is engaging from cover to cover.
Radical Rabbit Stew's basic gameplay requires players to smack bunnies with their spoon so that they get sent flying into the various stew pots spread across the level. Once each pot has been filled, the level is complete and the game moves on to the next stage. Bunnies can only be sent in the four compass directions, so figuring out exactly how to line up the rabbits will demand players utilize the various tools they find over their playthroughs, such as a grappling hook or bombs. The levels are extremely simple and short at the beginning of the game, but they become far longer with much more complex solutions to puzzles by the end. The buildup is satisfying, but as soon as Radical Rabbit Stew starts to get a little challenging, the game's narrative is done. Luckily, the game does offer a harder difficulty setting which limits the player by reducing their max health.
New mechanics are constantly being introduced and Radical Rabbit Stew makes these features intuitive organically by allowing players to discover their potential in a safe environment. The game never dwells on the same idea for too long without expanding it in a compelling way, which helps keep things fresh until the final boss. At times, the player will be smashing giant sleeping bunnies onto switches that open the door forward, using their grappling hooks to bring bunnies over a gap to solve a puzzle, or blasting from stew pot to stew pot much like the barrels from Donkey Kong Country. Perhaps Radical Rabbit Stew's biggest achievement in gameplay is how it's constantly expanding upon old and new ideas alike, making sure that the player is always doing something new in every level.
Radical Rabbit Stew's presentation is even more impressive than its gameplay. When compared to most other indie games mimicking the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis era, the game's wealth of detail and charm is one of its most compelling features. The overworld map screen in particular is reminiscent of classic 16- bit games like Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars or Trials of Mana in terms of quality. Radical Rabbit Stew's characters and enemies are well-animated as well, and this really sells the whacky and quirky sense of humor that characterizes much of the game. The various types of bunnies hop around comically and fluidly, and are very responsive to the players' actions. The game's mostly electronic soundtrack is also quite good and fits the mood of its world well, but sound effects make Radical Rabbit Stew memorable. Bashes and bangs sound like they came straight out of a Tom and Jerry skit, and the rabbits' squeaks and burps are adorable.
Radical Rabbit Stew also features a multiplayer mode in which players attempt to smack the most bunnies into the central pot of the map and a level editor, but these are side modes that could easily be skipped without missing anything major. Despite the game's strengths, it is very short and only clocks in at a few hours before the game is completed. Unless the harder difficulty setting is chosen or players plan on grabbing every collectible coin in each level, it likely won't take anyone too long until they reach the end. Still, Radical Rabbit Stew is a stellar game for the duration of its playthrough regardless of its shortcomings in a distinct lack of difficulty and its extremely brisk length.
Radical Rabbit Stew is available now on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC via Steam. Screen Rant was provided with a PlayStation 4 digital download code for the purpose of this review.