Don't be like me and hop into Rabi-Ribi expecting just another weekend fling. Not to sell other games short, but I'm on a tight schedule! Experience a world filled with ladies in small outfits populating the screen with tiny projectiles, complete a few mildly challenging exercises, and then toss together several paragraphs that'll go unread. That's supposed to be enough for me, and yet... I'm staring into the void again. Oh, it's carrot-shaped this time. Very nice. Seriously though, how could a bullet-hell metroidvania about a hammer swinging bunny-girl lead me to the brink of insanity? It's quite simple, really. A 15-hour playthrough with 90% completion still leaves me feeling hollow. There's a whole ocean out there, yet I'm still standing in the ankle-deep water.
Part of why I feel the way I do is because of the difficulty setting I chose: Novice. The game calls it a good choice for newcomers, but I can't even say the word aloud without my tongue feeling like it got stabbed by a thousand needles. Novice is like, one difficulty above the "infant monkey" setting in home ports of Psikyo shmups. If I was a sensible person, I would treat novice as just another word, rightfully ignoring any criticism for choosing Rabi-Ribi's second-easiest setting. Well, considering I'm about to fight myself over whether or not we should do another playthrough, sensible is just another nonexistent word.
Apologies, but this is a subject that I must dwell on for an inordinate number of paragraphs. Challenge, and how we approach it, is not a line that goes up. Every life experience, the current mood, and multiple other factors contribute to our decision to start with the easier or harder difficulty. Speaking for myself; it's been a rough year. Financial and Mental stressors are piling on like the worst game of Puyo Puyo I've ever played. Normally, I wouldn't hesitate to tackle a barrage of firepower, but the worrying possibility that I'd be pounded by a single boss for 10 hours straight got under my skin. Contributing to the decision were reviews from other players, lamenting how the level-scaling kept them feeling slightly underpowered. Seems weird for Metroidvania, right? Couldn't they just find a bunch of upgrades and then smash the boss that was troubling them? I guess not.
The hardest part about relaying a game's difficulty to others is that everything is relative. What might be a herculean task to me is hardly a sweat to you. Yet, we basically ignore all of the possibilities to conclude that either I'm bad at the game, or you're good at it. Also, this being the internet, the answer defaults to "I'm bad at the game." I know I've mentioned it before, but we've created a culture that eschews nuance. Defining difficulty feels like a subject that the community doesn't actually explore. Instead, we take the general opinion and swing it wildly, bashing anyone who is bad at a game and/or chooses the easier settings. The world is not one-dimensional. We don't arrive at the same cliff at once and then shame whoever isn't willing to climb. In the end, everyone is on a journey of self-actualization. Whether that means experiencing everything or being the best at something is entirely up to them.
Even with all of this in mind, it's still hard for me to definitively state which of Rabi-Ribi's difficulty settings will provide the most fun. Fun is a nebulous word anyway. Some people get a lot of entertainment out of running into a brick wall of a boss for days at a time. Since I'm already behind schedule, I'll just go ahead and say that I didn't find Novice mode to be too easy or too hard. Does that mean it's just right? Not really. The point that I've done a fine job of avoiding up until now is that this is a very particular game. It demands a level of commitment that sets it apart from other... bullet-hell metroidvanias. A true example of the niche within the niche.
Erina is a bunny-girl on a mission to unite the 20+ wayward souls of Rabi Rabi Island. There are a lot of mysterious and magical ladies in this strange world, and it's impossible to talk to any of them without starting a fight. These gals hang out in all sorts of weird places, so expect to do lots of exploring and traversal-power gathering. Each place is remarkably large by genre standards. Though they aren't complicated labyrinths to get around, there's quite a bit of stuff to collect. Also, most locations are open-ended enough to be tackled in non-linear fashion. Defeated bosses as well as upgrades are factored into the game's level. Higher levels mean tougher minions and boss-battles. I think the difficulty setting affects the cap. For novice players, it's 49. The highest setting is probably in the realm of 500, but that's just what I've gathered from reading community posts about EX ultimate superbosses. This is a dense game! Additional modes, post-game challenges out the wazoo, unlockable difficulties with horrifying names like "Bunny Extinction"; it's a lot. Even if one were to skip out on the DLC, they'd still have enough to do for possibly hundreds of hours.
Of course, this all depends on if they're able to gel with the game's unique mechanics. Every woman Erina confronts is a master in the art of screen-filling chaos. The catch is that while our heroine has a tiny hurtbox, her maneuverability is very grounded. She moves like this were a hop & bop SNES platformer. Evasion options do grow over time, and there's plenty of bullet-dodging tech like jump-cancelling. In most cases though, the best you can do is watch, look for an opening, and hop through. Since we're nowhere near the Lunatic settings, those openings are pretty big. Before we continue, a bit of knowledge you might want to keep in your back-pocket is that there's an NPC who can lower or increase the difficulty. Visit them if you're sweating too much or not enough. Also, even if the game starts fairly easy, do not under any circumstances expect it to stay that way. A lot can happen in the 10-15 hours a typical playthrough will take. Even Novice's post-game is no joke.
Erina's weapon of choice is also uniquely limited. Smashing opponents with a hammer sounds good, until they remind you that they counterattack with Touhou spell cards. Since the bunny-girl can't mount a prolonged assault, she'll have to make the most of every opportunity she gets. The hammer has a variety of moves that can be linked into each other, and will stun opponents long enough to get a full combo in. Button-mashers tend to be bullet-eaters, so don't go overboard. Another detail to be mindful of is the SP meter. Erina can't attack once it's drained. Upgrades and certain badge combinations mitigate this. If it helps any, go into boss battles with an almost turn-based mindset. Land your combo, then step away to dodge the counterattack. I think it's possible to "steal turns" with some well-timed carrot bomb & hammer combinations, but the game makes it quite clear that every battle is a marathon.
To keep fights from being too lopsided, Erina has a fairy assistant named ribbon. This magician is quite skilled at pelting faraway foes with ranged attacks. Holding down the requisite button will charge up increasingly powerful blasts. While the hammer is still the difference-maker in most fights, magic damage definitely adds up. Some players might also appreciate the tertiary effects that are tied to certain wands. The healing wand is great to start with, since its homing shots are easy to land and replenish a tiny bit of HP. Managing MP also isn't as demanding as SP, but that can depend on one's playstyle. Eventually, Ribbon gains access to the Boost power, and its effects differ depending on the equipped wand. This is just one of those "learn as you progress" mechanics. A handful of consumables and Erina's bunny amulet - which grants nearly 2 seconds of invulnerability - round out the duo's arsenal.
In order to get a better a better sense of the level-scaling complaints, I had to give the Normal level of difficulty a try. Fights on Novice do last awhile, but there's usually a lot of back & forth, and Erina is pretty durable herself. That's not the case here. Mistakes add up quickly. One early boss that comes to mind is Ashuri. She's a witch with a charging broom attack that'll easily clip the unaware. That's around 25 damage on someone who has maybe 200 HP to work with. Ashuri will also fling a few projectiles around midflight, which serve the secondary purpose of placing Erina in a bad position to dodge the next charging attack. Most devious of all is the fact that when the witch comes in for a landing, she actually moves in a small crescent. Getting struck by this little flourish happens a lot. There's so much to every boss fight, and it's going to be grueling when their HP totals swell up, and the toughest of the bunch get additional phases.
Furthermore, while the Novice mode's level-scaling cap is pretty low, I never got the sense that I was overpowered. It's weird. Rabi-Ribi threw so many upgrades at me. Some of the badges offer amazing benefits like poison damage or immunity to debuffs. All this, and not once did I ever think "This is too much. I need to bump the difficulty up." At the same time, though, the only occasions I died on bosses were due to the ultra-rare instant death attacks. I could've, probably should've stepped it up, but I didn't. The reason why is simple: I've already spent plenty of my gaming life retrying. Butting heads with the same boss over and over while midnight turns to 4:00 am is something I've dealt with too many times before. You could look elsewhere on this blog and find several examples of me fuming about some bullshit that took dozens of attempts and left me without an iota of satisfaction. Believe me, I appreciate everything this game is doing. It's dense and complex and has tons of replayability, but I can see why other players hit their limit and walked away.
This all leads to why I try to avoid judging others when they don't succeed at a game, no matter how easy it's perceived by others. Difficulty matters only as much as we're able to give. When the fun ends and the frustration is overwhelming, what else should one do but move on? Let me be real with ya'll. I'm not aiming any higher. In fact, I'm going to take this Novice mode clear of a mildly horny hop & dodge to my grave. No regrets.
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