This review was originally published on the Console Purist Facebook group on April 20th, 2019.
After
getting enough eggs, the game shows you the credits and congratulates you. It
only took me about 30 minutes. There is no ending sequence showing the Easter
Bunny and Robo Rabbit giving the eggs to the children. Like many other aspects,
this was very lazy. Easter Bunny’s Big
is a very lazy creation, and it does not respect a child’s curiosity, wonder,
or imagination as well as a simple activity book or a video game like Super Mario Bros.
It’s almost
Easter, and it is also time for PlayStation Basement! PlayStation Basement is a
weekly review of an odd or obscure game for the original PlayStation. Games are
rated Good, Bad, or Neutral. Now, let’s go!
Since it’s
Easter time, both a religious event and a special celebration for young
children, I have an Easter game for you. It’s Easter Bunny’s Big Day. This game was developed and published by
Mastiff who have mostly worked with these kinds of budget, filler games. Easter Bunny’s Big Day came out in 2003
and only in North America. As I have alluded to, this is basically children’s
activity book with cute Easter characters. There’s nothing religious here.
On the cover
of Easter Bunny’s Big Day we have the
Easter Bunny strolling down a windy, Wizard
of Oz-ish road flanked by some whimsical buildings. The Easter Bunny is
doing a little pose for the viewer. The name of the game is written on Easter
eggs above in a way that’s kind of cute but kind of generic. That’s sort of the
situation with the whole image. It has a sort of generic greeting card quality
to it. I do like the colors. As a side note, I will also mention that the spine
to this game is blue instead of black or green. The actual ridge image is still
there to the left of the cover; only the actual side of the game is blue. This
is the only PlayStation game I have seen like this, though I think there may be
a few others.
When
actually playing the game, you get more or less the same quality of visuals. The
game has some short minigames and also jigsaw puzzles. While, the minigames are
more Flash quality, the jigsaw puzzles look pretty nice. Some of them even
move. Easter Bunny’s Big Day also has
some short story scenes that set up the scenario along with a map of a small
town. These are both fine but nothing amazing.
The sound in
this game is not very good. The musick is repetitive, and the sound effects are
very tinny. It’s not a very pleasant game to listen to.
As for the
actual gameplay, as I have said, Easter
Bunny’s Big Day is basically a digital version of a children’s activity
book. Due to the limited nature of this game and some technical issues, I think
that those books are much more fun. You control Robo Rabbit, a small wind-up
guy that decides to help the Easter Bunny find the missing eggs at the start of
the game. After selecting a difficulty level (which determines the amount of
eggs missing and the difficulty of each minigame) as Robo Rabbit, you go
through the town, select a store, and then select one of the options within.
There are jigsaw puzzles and three minigames The minigames include a matching
game where you crack open eggs to see what is inside, a game where you catch
falling eggs, and a game where you press buttons that are on the screen. None
of these are done particularly well.
The matching
is very basic. It takes place on a single screen with a pathway that shows
where you can move. Eggs are lined up in various places and can be cracked open
with a button press. Inside, you can find various types of peeps or rabbits.
The developers did this messily, as some of the rabbits’ ears will pop out of
the side of the egg before the top actually disappears. Once you match all the
creatures within the generous time limit, you win. Higher difficulties increase
the variety of Easter animals to find and make the path harder to follow or
invisible.
The catching
game reminds me of something from a Game
& Watch game. It’s not an LED game, but it’s also not as fun. You must
catch eggs as they drop from the top of the screen or are tossed from the side.
If you miss an egg it cracks, but there is no penalty other than wasting time.
Once you catch so many eggs within the time limit, you win. Higher difficulties
add some different ways the eggs fall and require you to catch more of them.
The third
minigame only occurs after getting enough eggs to head to the Easter Village
School. It is done to wind the Robo Rabbit up. Basically, symbols that
correspond to the PlayStation’s face buttons appear on the screen and you must
press them in order. It’s not challenging at all; I don’t think that there is
even any rhythm to it.
The jigsaw
puzzles are done the best, but they still are not done well. The pieces all
clump together on small areas to each side of the puzzle, so it is annoying to
sort through the pieces. I do like the various images, ranging from whimsical pictures
of rabbits parachuting to odd gnomes, semi-eerie plush bunnies, and pfotos of
Easter eggs around buildings. There are 40 puzzles total, including 10 that are
short videos. The videos are cool and make solving the puzzle a bit harder, but
they also cause the game to have to load the video after each playthrough of it
during the stage. This is kind of annoying. Once you match all of the puzzle
pieces, you win. Higher difficulties add more pieces, but it’s kind of moot
since the time limit also increases. The puzzles can be looked at in a gallery,
and you can play a puzzle only mode from the main menu.
Easter Bunny’s Big Day receives a Bad.
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