This is a decent 2d, semi-precision platformer with an interesting art style but the saccharin story and dialog was just too much for me and there is too much of it. I don't like visual novels in my platformers.

In Lapin, you play as a rabbit who is part of a burrow of rabbits who need to relocate to a new burrow. During which, you will hop, wall jump and use the environment to get from point A to point B. The mechanics, especially the jump control, take a little getting used to and can feel a bit janky at first, but once they click, it can be a lot of fun.

What's not fun is the story and dialog. The story, characters and dialog are always so sweet and sickeningly so. It's very much a preteens approach to a slice of life anime story with rabbits.

You come across the rabbits on your travels through the different levels and chat with them. I never felt like any of the conversations lead anywhere interesting. Constant reminders about how they're there for each other and they will help one another and it's like, yea, I know, you've told me this like 3 times before already.

They also try to pull at your heart strings at every possible corner. Every rabbit has a sad backstory that they try to dive into so you learn about the characters. Every rabbit in the burrow is loved by each other and they're all they have and you're reminded of these things over and over again as you talk to the other rabbits. It gets old.

I have so many other questions though, like, how did the rabbits move all their heavy equipment to the new burrow? Why are there ghost rabbits? How are you able to use magical powers by the end of the game?

However none of these questions are really answered, which is puzzling because they tacked on another hour-plus of optional story if you want to deep dive into the burrow's lore and character relations.

The art style is very interesting as well because the on screen rabbits look great. However, the expanded portrait style rabbits faces that they show during dialog sequences look pretty bad and like amateur anime.

The background and other elements on screen vary heavily as well. Some times you'll see a background that looks amazing and then other times it kind of looks like they slapped it together really quickly. It's strange.

When i was playing the game, I just wondered who this was for? Who is the gamer that WANTS long, saccharin, visual novel style cutscenes and dialog taking them away from the platforming action? They must exist, but I know it's not me.

This game was neat. The platforming is fun enough, the scenery is pretty, the characters are cute, and there's a surprising amount of attention devoted to narrative.
LAPIN spoilers

It's the same flavor of platformer as celeste (although much friendlier). The moveset is simple, but still nice. The way you launch off walls to get a lot more horizontal distance is great, it's pretty distinct from how wall jumps work in most games. Also baked into this movement is being able to trivially "neutral jump" up walls. This coupled with the tuning on jumps and running in general do a good job of serving the experience of controlling a rabbit (as opposed to a humanoid)

The main empthasis is on the enviornmental challenges and traversal objects. Given how dangerous these screens are, no wonder Liebe was scared to leave the burrow. Environment mechanics constantly reminded me of similar things in celeste, although they're plenty distinct. Lots of stuff that lets you go zoom, which is pretty satisfying. Shoutout to the wind fruits in windsong forest, those are rad.

The family of mechanics in each level are well used. There's a nice progression to how they're introduced, they're suitably explored in critical path and main challenges, and no pattern ever gets noticeably repetitive.

The environments themselves are awesome. Each level has a strong identity and is lovely to look at. Shoutout to the entire Windsong forest level actually, it's so cool. {the burrow ruins and final level are favorites as well}. Every chapter has at least 2 absolutely gorgeous scenery screens- probably the highlight of the game, wow these look incredible.

I'd love to see more adventure games like this that focus on a group travelling together. All too often these kind of games serve the classic "start the game with a group, get seperated, don't seem them again until the end". The dialog in each stage adds a lot. I also quite like the sections where your friends are visibly helping due to the way the level design is set up. I wish the game committed to this idea a little harder, because it's neat the few times when it happens.

Speaking of the friends Liebe travels with, it's great how much focus is put on them. There's a lot of solid characterization here. This isn't the type of story that I get much out of, but I respect the work they put in to put in emotional weight and personality. All of the characters are quite likeable (especially talki ). Monteblanc is one of the rare" designated nerd of the party" characters that doesn't annoy me. The whole cast feels well developed

The flashback scenes are sweet. They add a lot of the identity to the narrative, and do most of the hard work in really selling the group dynamic. I like the slice of life style combined with significant reveals. I was engaged in all of them, despite how the big picture story doesn't have much appeal for me.

I appreciate the worldbuilding in this game. It's not so interesting that it blows my mind, but I definitely value when stories give attention to this when they didn't have too. I like how the bunnies have their societies , lore and stories. That said, this game is like an a poorly written anime game in how much it repeats itself concerning what an everwish is. Every time they reexplained it, something new snapped in me. {In fact overall in the game, information is a little more redundant than it should be. This is the biggest area where the writing needs tightening. Although some of this could be due to the optionial nature of flashback scenes- I'm not convinced that was the right choice. }

I like the parallel structure of learning about jorge's expedition as you continue yours. The seeds are solid optionial challenges, and i like the brief text reward they offer.

I like the decision to make the past expedition more and more tragic as the game goes on. It's a great contrast with your present adventure, and makes for some interesting tone.

I don't think it was necessary to make jorge's ghost attack you in an elaborate sequence at the end of level 5. For some reason this game is determined to escape sequences in Ori and the Blind Forest. Nothing this game attempts here comes close to ginseo tree or actually any of the sequences in that game honestly. The elevators + crystal flood section here isn't that impressive. The weasal chases aren't that good. The Jorge onslaught is excessive and overstays its welcome


I experienced a few minor problems that I expect to be patched out eventually
This game is really trigger happy with it's achievments- to the point where it was a bit distracting. There's also some that are just wrong, somehow i got an achievement for doing the jorge section deathless-which definitely did not happen lol.
This game looks amazing, but has moments where certain areas of the screen get excessively pixelated in a way that looks quite jarring.
The sequence where you run through the collapsing tunnel stuttered really hard.
The game crashed right before the credits started playing, which was kinda a vibe killer ngl.


I want to return to talking about the collectibles. I went for every seed, and am bitter because i missed one. The way replaying level sections works feels pretty friendly to going back for seeds, except for this one which I believe is after the jorge gauntlet. I hate collectibles in platformer games like this, because you constantly have to play "guess the critical path" and "spot the optionial pathway". I just want to play every screen of content, why do i have to go through this song and dance.