The Night of the Rabbit Switch Review
Summary: One Rabbit hole you'll want to take a trip down
4.3
Curiouser and curiouser
The Night of the Rabbit was one of the first games I ever reviewed when it first came out back in 2013 on PC, I still remember my creaky old laptop could barely run the game, so I sneakily installed Steam on my work PC so I could play it during my lunchbreaks, first because I’m a professional (but not that professional) and secondly because the game was so damn good that I wanted to play it on hardware that wasn’t moments away from coughing farting and dying throughout the experience.
Now, more than a decade later, The Night of the Rabbit makes its way to Switch, and I’m captivated all over again. But it’s hard not to be. Daedalic makes some of the finest point-and-click games known to gaming, and this curious trip down the rabbit hole is no exception.
It’s funny to think that The Night of The Rabbit was part of the awkward start to my adventures in journalism as the game has trouble starting its own story, which opens with two mysterious figures meeting at a foggy crossroads, hoping to find the right path that will lead to the beginning of their own adventure.
It makes sense, though. A blank page is a daunting prospect even if you’ve been doing this malarky for years, and trying to get the opening right is often half the battle.
NotR then begins properly, introducing players to its protagonist, Jeremiah Hazelnut, a 12-year-old boy who dreams of being a magician and wants one final adventure before the summer holidays end.
Jerry gets his wish when he summons the enigmatic Marquis De Hoto after performing a ritual from a magic letter that shoots itself into the family mailbox.
Hoto then offers to teach Jerry how to be a magician and takes him on as his apprentice. The two venture to Mousewood, another dimension almost identical to Jerry’s, except that Jerry is now the size of a field mouse, and a rollerskating rat runs the local cafe. It’s like Beatrix Potter crossed with The Secret of NIMH, a magical world that’s eerily similar to our own.
There’s an air of Don Bluth about the whole thing, and the mixture of hand-drawn sprites, painted backgrounds, subtle particle effects, and well-animated characters creates a game that feels like an animated movie from the late 1980s—oozing with charm and whimsy.
The Night of The Rabbit’s gorgeous visuals are accompanied by a fitting soundtrack by Tilo Alperman and solid performances by its voice cast. Especially, then-13-year-old Jed Kelly as Jerry does a wonderful job as the plucky kid who doesn’t quite believe what’s happening to him and doesn’t seem to care either.
There’s a meandering charm to The Night of the Rabbit, much like the long, lazy summers of youth, coupled with a kind of bittersweetness as Jerry dreads having to go back to school, and you get the feeling that once he leaves Mousewood, he’s never going back.
It’s pretty beefy for an adventure game, too, clocking in at about 20 hours to get through. There’s plenty to do, too, as you help the citizens of Mousewood with their problems while Jerry learns how to be a Treewalker, that is, someone who helps others and knows a bit of magic to boot.
As well as the usual point-and-click kleptomania, Jerry also learns a series of spells throughout his adventure. Thematically, it’s a clever idea; in practice, it’s basically a handful of reusable items you forget you have half the time.
On top of that, like most classic adventure games, Night of the Rabbit’s puzzles run on their own strange logic, and if you lose track of the thread, chances are you’ll get stuck. There is a hint system, but it’s not particularly useful.
The conversion to the Switch is a solid one, though, with almost no load times. The controls have been given a makeover so they work well on a console, and include giving players direct control over Jerry’s movements, the ability to cycle through on-screen objects with L and R, and constant access to your inventory using the D-pad.
Jerry’s incredibly handy magic coin, which used to see invisible fae folk (hint, hint) and illuminate everything you can interact with on any given screen, can now also be used by simply pressing down the right stick. This eliminates a lot of the pixel hunting that plagues these kinds of games, and it’s all the better for it.
Final thoughts
The Night of the Rabbit remains one of the best adventure games I’ve ever played. It’s an expertly crafted point-and-click by a developer who knows the genre inside and out.
It’s charming, whimsical, and, although a little obtuse at times, a fantastic showcase for what made Daedalic one of the best adventure game developers.
If you long for the days of your youth spent exploring the countryside with only a stick for company or your teenage years spent cooped up inside playing classics like ToonStruck, Day of the Tentacle, and Broken Sword, then look no further than The Night of the Rabbit.
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