The Rarity and Value of Easter Games: A Look at Easter Bunny's Big Day

When it comes to holidays, Christmas tends to get all the attention when it comes to video games. Halloween also receives a significant amount of love from game developers, but Easter often falls by the wayside. This is particularly evident in the case of Easter Bunny's Big Day, a game released by Mastiff and Seven Computerized Creations for the Sony PlayStation in 2003.

One notable aspect of this game is its unique packaging. The game's purple spine stands out in an otherwise sea of black label PS1 games. However, it's hard to say whether this makes it stand out in a good way or a bad one. The reviewer isn't too fond of the game's packaging, describing it as "horrific." This is not a promising start for what promises to be a holiday-themed game.

The game's intro screen sets the tone for what is to come. Accompanied by cheesy music that sounds like a $30 Casio keyboard's demonstration song, the reviewer decides to adjust the music volume in an attempt to make the experience more enjoyable. However, this change of pace doesn't seem to have a significant impact on the overall game.

The player is then given the option to play either Easter Bunny's Big Adventure or simply choose to play the game without any additional context. The reviewer wonders what happened to the "Big Day" title and why it was replaced with "Adventure." This lack of clarity may be due to space constraints, as the reviewer mentions that a fourth Easter egg was omitted from the final version.

One interesting feature of the game is an album that can be unlocked by completing certain tasks. However, upon unlocking this "album," the player is simply presented with some poor artwork and left feeling unimpressed. It's hard to see what significance this element serves in the overall gameplay experience.

The player then has the option to choose their difficulty level, but be warned: expert mode is not for the faint of heart. The reviewer describes it as "purely for masochism," suggesting that even the most dedicated players may want to steer clear. However, there is one more surprise in store for the player - a MIDI tune accompanied by a bizarre story and a cheap Shockwave animation.

The story behind Easter Bunny's Big Day is somewhat confusing. It appears that the Easter Bunny has lost his way and is struggling to fulfill his purpose as a symbol of springtime joy. A robot, known as Robo-Rabbit, arrives on the scene and offers to lend a helping hand. The reviewer wonders if this plot twist was added as a last-minute change or simply an attempt to add some semblance of depth to the gameplay.

Once the player has completed the introductory sequence, they are free to explore Easter Village, where they can roam around in search of minigames to complete. One notable aspect of these minigames is that each building features a unique art style. However, it seems that this attention to detail was wasted on the addition of school buses inside various buildings - an unusual and unexplained choice.

The reviewer does note that at least the puzzles within Easter Village have their own individual artwork. This is a welcome respite from the otherwise generic and uninspired design of the game's world. Unfortunately, it's hard to overlook the repetitive nature of the minigames themselves, which seem to be little more than rehashed versions of familiar concepts.

Overall, Easter Bunny's Big Day is a game that stands out for all the wrong reasons. Its purple spine may be a conversation starter, but its cheesy music, poor artwork, and lackluster gameplay make it a holiday-themed disaster waiting to happen.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enAs far as holidays go, Easter really gets the short end of the stick when it comes to video games.Christmas gets tons of stuff, Halloween has a bunch too.So why not Easter with it's bunnies n' candies n' Zombie Jesuses?Well, minus the latter, it seems Mastiff and Seven Computerized Creations thought the same thingand released Easter Bunny's Big Day in 2003 for the Sony PlayStation.And this is a prime example of a game that's pretty rare but has almost zero value.But it stood out from the rest due to its purple spine.It sticks out in the worst of ways when up against all those luscious black label PS1 games. I kind of hate it.Grab a basketful of egg-citing holiday fun!Raaaaaagh, that egg pun is so bad, it gave me shell shock.Omelet-in' this one slide though. Let's get cracking with the review!Easter Bunny's Big Day begins with a hideous intro screen accompanied by cheesy musicthat sounds like a $30 Casio keyboard's demonstration song.After this, I promptly decided to adjust the music volume andI DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON AAAAAAAfter this, you're given the option to play the Easter Bunny's Big Adventure.Wait, what happened to the Big Day? I guess adventure was too long to print on that fourth easter egg.And then there's an album, which just lets you look at some crap artwork once you unlock it, who cares...Choose your difficulty, but choose wisely, because expert mode is purely for masochism.After this, it's another MIDI tune accompanied by a bizarre story and a cheap Shockwave animation.The story goes that the Easter Bunny sucks at his one and only purpose in life and somehow ran out of eggs.Just then, Robo-Rabbit appears and says it'll help out, because plot.After this, it's on to Easter Village where you can roam around anywhere, even into the sky.And on top of the scorecard for some reason.Each building has a selection of minigames to completelike the candy store with a school bus inside or the toy shop with a school bus insideor the every other building with a school bus inside because creating unique artfor the interior of each building would just been a step too far!Ah well, at least the puzzles all have unique art.Just don't confuse \"unique\" for \"good\", because trust me,good is the last thing I would call Easter Bunny's Big Dayor Big Adventure or Puzzle Place or whatever they actually wanted to call it.You see, despite the Easter theme, this game has absolutely nothing to dowith the Easter holiday whatsoever: not in the biblical sense,not in the Pagan sense, not even in the commercialized, candy-infused, pastel sense.This is simply a conglomeration of nonsensically connected jigsaw puzzles,memory-matching games, and annoying presentation.First up are the jigsaw puzzles and yeah whatever, jigsaw puzzles, they are what they are.And while I am prone to enjoy one every decade or so in real life,I cannot for the life of me imagine why anyone would want to play this one.Or really, any virtual jigsaw puzzle.They're just puzzles, they're cheap as day-old balls, and unless you're living in a shoebox,chances are that you can spare the space to put one together.Not only that, but assembling one with a controller is god-awful,especially when the controls are as stupid as this.It's slow and painful to pick things up and slide them around.Beyond that... dude! Who in the seven bloody hells thought it would be a good ideato include hour-long puzzles in this game?Now, there are also motion puzzles which are the same exact thing, but have moving faces on each pieceand this is kind of neat at first, except that each piece is identical other than the faceand putting together a bunch of squares is as boring as putting together a bunch of squares.Plus the moving faces slow down your cursor even more, so screw this.Next is the memory-matching game which takes the form of eggs that have to be bashed opento reveal a creature. If you match two, they disappear and if you don't, no one gives a sh*t.Finally, there's the egg catch mode, which is exactly what it sounds like.You catch eggs, it's a mode, you play as Robo-Rabbit and dead or alive, those eggs are coming with you.Eggs fly your way thrown by specters unmoved and unseenand before they hit the ground and break, try to catch them in your basketor your head or any part of your robo-body, because cyborgs are awesome like that.Finally, once you got enough stupid eggs in your stupid basket, it's on to the stupid ending.Shockingly, it's also stupid. The Easter Bunny isn't even the one doing the final delivering.It's Robo-Rabbit once again, getting down and dirty with the grunt work.But oh noes! He's broken down. Gotta press some buttons.And... it looks like he'll be fine.Yep. He's fine. Totally fine.There's no problems here. It's all good, end credits.If that was Easter Bunny's Big Day, I feel really, truly bad for his other days.The dude had one job and he completely fails at it.And a wind-up toy ends up doing it better than him!Yeah, someone needs to fire that guy and look up the recipe for hossenfeffer.As for the game itself, it's a strange collector's piece simply due to its scarcity,its purple spine and its Easter-y theme.But really, the Easter theme is so nominal, I find it hard to call it an Easter game at all.Photoshopping eggs into the background of random stock photosand throwing pastel colors everywhere does not make it an Easter game.It just makes it obvious at how much they were trying to cash in on a holidaywithout giving any thought to what the holiday means or what could be creatively done with it.You can slap any other theme on the packaging, keep the gameplay the same......it would make no difference whatsoever.Nyah-yah and yeah I know, it's made for little kids probably,but that's no excuse for making bottom-of-the-barrel products.If anything, kids deserve more care, not less!This is about as cynical as games get and I'm just glad it's over, man.Oh you're still here, well that's cool. Click on these if you didn't know how YouTube worksthen y-you can do that. There's videos there, you can watch them.Twitter, Facebook, Patreon, all the things you can do on the internet to... to YouTube, uh...Yeah, I don't know where I'm going with that. Merry Christmas!\n"