Hell, appropriately enough, is full of paparazzi. The predatory photographers are just as busy in the afterlife as they are in the mortal plane, and one of them has managed to capture an intimate moment between Prince Ash, the lepus lord of Hell, and his favorite rubber duckie. There’s only one solution to this humiliation: kill everyone who’s seen the compromising photos.
This is how Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit presents itself, with a lurid palette of garish color and its tongue planted firmly in cheek. This is far from a traditional horror title, but it’s a gore-spattered romp that falls somewhere between a rapid-fire anime and a highway overpass’ worth of graffiti in its aesthetic. The game already establishes itself as being less than serious when you, as the titular dead rabbit Prince Ash, leap about the fire and brimstone of Hell hunting down those who have seen the picture. It becomes even more ridiculous when the game goes ever-so-slightly vehicular when you mount yourself inside of a spinning circular saw blade, using it like a murderous monocycle to reduce lesser foes to quivering piles of giblets and smash your way through rock walls. While it’s an amusing change from the usual platforming tropes, the samey levels and floaty physics make it less enjoyable than it should be, especially when the difficulty level ramps itself up to brutal heights fairly quickly, exacerbated by the less-than-stellar controls.
Once you defeat each of the 100 enemies, who act like a miniboss of sorts complete with button-mashing minigame to end their lives, their fate is even worse than they could have imagined. You exile them to The Island, a mini-strategy game that has you exploiting your deceased detractors in order to grab additional items and upgrades to help you on your main journey of revenge. It adds a minimal wrinkle to the gameplay but, sadly, doesn’t add much overall.
There are some additional features to the game that try to elevate it up above the final product, which is an amusing diversion at best, and a mildly frustrating experience at worst. For the substantial $15.00 price tag, it certainly doesn’t want to make you say “hell yeah” to Hell Yeah! But Why Not? Wrath of the Dead Rabbit doesn’t have much of a ring to it.