Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle (2017)

I did not know what to expect getting into this game. I have very little experience with Xcom or any type of strategy game like this. I knew that this being a Mario title, it couldn't have been too difficult for a starter game in this genre, and I was not wrong. This game is charming, and funny (if you enjoy the Rabbids and their sense of humor), and provides a great backdrop for a simple yet creative turn-based tactical combat game.

The story is fine enough, and I really don't think the "How the Rabbids got here" matters much at all. What I did love were all the interactions the rabbids have with the Mario characters, and just how much personality comes from these characters that say no words. My personal favorite is when Peach enters a fight to become a playable character, and I had Rabbid Peach and Mario in my party. I'm not too sure if the scene plays out differently with other characters in the party, but I loved these characters interacting with eachother. Other than that, the story of finding the rabbid with goggles is fine enough to give a reason to explore the worlds here.

The game is broken into 4 worlds with 9 levels each, and I think it's the perfect amount of game that doesn't overstay its welcome. What's better is that as you complete the levels, the game offers replayability through revisiting levels to solve puzzles, or to face levels again in challenge modes to continue to buff your stats. I never felt the need to do this, nor did I ever need to grind or desire replaying the levels. There are also co-operative modes that I did not check out as I had no one to try these with. The levels have 1 to 2 fights each, with boss fights at levels 5 and 9 in each world. In between fights, light puzzles are placed throughout, which I could care less about personally. I think it was a nice idea to break up combat, but I got to a point where I couldn't care less about moving pieces around or finding the right combination of color switches to progress. The fights remained variable with increasing difficulty as the game progressed.

To combat the increasing difficulty, you unlock further characters to play as, each with different abilities and their own skill tree. Each character also has two weapons with dozens of options each which progressively get more powerful. This also adds to the replayability where you can test out different combinations of characters and approach levels differently. I found a groove with Mario, Rabbid Peach, and Luigi and I stuck with them most of the game except testing Peach and Rabbid Yoshi out. You do have the opportunity and coins every 5 levels or so to fully switch up your characters, but the game doesn't provide you enough coins to level all your characters up at one time, so you have to pick wisely for the next 5 levels or so unless you want to grind for more coins, which I never desired to do.

Hidden in the worlds are plenty of music and art pieces and hidden weapon types to buy later. I acquired some as I went but had little interest in 100% of these collectables, and did not re-explore the levels with new abilities. There are also the as previously mentioned challenge arenas and co-op levels but I did not experience these in my playthrough of the game. I also did not purchase the season pass which included more challenge arenas, some new weapons, and the Donkey Kong expansion, although I do look to play the Donkey Kong levels one day when the pass goes on sale.

All in all, this was a fun and short experience that I look forward to experiencing more of when the sale comes for Donkey Kong, and playing the sequel at a future time. I think it's a great starter if you've never played this type of game like myself, and I still think the Rabbids are funny despite being the Minions of gaming.

8/10

ok, so i knew this game was good, it was well received and people were impressed by the fact that the dumb rabbids game is decent, but i was surprised by how in depth it actually was. the story is wack, and 90% of the opening cutscene could be removed entirely and change nothing. the rabbids are surprisingly not annoying, i think because they are sort of everywhere and you just accept them, all enemies except a few bosses are rabbids, and they are in the background of all of the levels if you want to inspect them optionally

each turn you can do 3 actions in any order, move, attack, or use a special. my favorite thing about the game is the movement, you can pass over an enemy and dash them, all of the rabbid characters can dash multiple enemies in a row, and after doing that you can jump off of another ally, or go through pipes and go even further, mario can stomp people too. each character has two weapons ranging in range and usefulness, with all secondary weapons having a turn of cooldown. all of the mario characters have a "hero shot" where they can shoot any enemy in range when they move, and the rabbids all have shields, and then each secondary special does something else

there are skill trees that upgrade each individual aspect of each: dash damage, range, and cooldowns of things, and they are good and let you customize things. you spend power orbs on them which you get from completing chapters and finding chests, same with money for weapons except they are just out in the world randomly

There are 4 areas in the game, which is pretty weird, like there is plenty of content, and each has its own progressively stronger variations of enemies, and more of them would probably be overwhelming, but 4 is just a wack number for a world count to me. The first world is called the ancient gardens despite the concept of the game being that things have just recently fused all over the place, so it isnt ancient. the second world is a ice/desert and has the only good world boss in the game. along with it having the best bit of the difficulty curve. world 3 is spooky and kind of dull honestly, it has too much different spooky stuff in it and it meshes weirdly. world 4 is industrial lava world with bowser jr and bowser vibes throughout, it doesnt really feel to "final world" until the very end of it though

most the bosses of the game suck, the mid bosses are great, but multiple health bars and summoning goons, and additional things to take care of are not fun. none of them can be dashed, and that just gets rid of half the fun of combat. the mid bosses dont, and resemble suped up versions of other enemies a bit, they are neat.

now time to talk about characters. Mario is always in your party and it is the worst thing about the game. he has a all around gun and a melee hammer, which is not very good in a tactical game with cover. his specials are great, but i would think the game would be way better if it was an option, even if you had to get a certain progression for it, or even beat the game. and you always have to have at least 1 rabbid in your party too. feels restrictive and wack dont like. you start with rabbid peach and rabbid luigi. rabbid peach is probably my leats favorite in personality and usability. rabid luigi is cannonically so repulsive that he drains the life of the enemies he comes into contact with, or makes them so uncomfortable they weaken their attack, and excells at spreading statuses. he is one of my favorites

luigi is a sniper, with a sentry robot explosion thing, who has the lowest health in the game, he can shoot 3 different enemies with his hero shot, and has the best movement in the game, but his dash sucks and he cant jump on enemies. situationally useful, but difficult to use all the time

rabbid mario is good on movement too, and has a shotgun and hammer, and you can upgrade his dash to do splash damage. very close range, and has the specials to tank and draw enemies towards him to make his splash damage more effective. he is good

peach heals people in a radius when she jumps, and has a shotgun and grenaduck. she has the most health, but the worst range and a bad dash, i only used her for boss fights, not my fav

rabbid yoshi acts like an animal, and i dont know if i hate him or not. he has great range, and I do really like his 5 dashes though, and his minigun and grenadeduck combo work well on most teams. i used him a lot

lastly yoshi. you get yoshi 4 chapters/levels before the final boss, there are about 35 chapters in the game. he has a minigun and a rockect laucher, good range but can only dash once. his jumps cause an ground pound explosion around him which could be useful, but he isnt a melee fighter, so he doesnt want to get close to the enemy since you cant move after jumping

last thoughts and gripes: good game, very fun, i perfected all but 2 bonus worlds and the final boss on my first go, (doing them within a certain number of turns and all of your party members surviving) resetting a lot throughout when i made a mistake. my second biggest gripe with the game apart from party diversity is that movement locks as soon as you hit the "a" button, and there is no undo command. i undertstand that each part of the turn happens in a seperate sequence you decide the order for and each action plays out when you do it and undoing would take a lot of progress away, but the number of times i went to dash an enemy and ended up standing next to them instead wasting my movement and being in a bad position was a lot. this is because the cursor is not on a grid and the enemies are off to the side of the grid they are occupying.

also i forgot to mention the worst character "the small round companion who speaks for mario and points out the obvious" Beep-o. they are what you move around as on the overworld and they are so small and hard to see especially when you are in tight spaces or the camera is fixed(all of the blue canon areas suck solely due to this). beep-o does say funny things, but they are one of 3 characters who actually speak in text, and their snark gets pretty old when they are as easily fooled as they are.

also each world is not fully explorable your first time through, each time you beat a world you get a powerup (pushing blocks, lifting statues, breaking blocks, and breaking lumps on the ground) that you need to clear out the world you just went through. you just need that one powerup to do all the secrets in that world, no multiple use of things you havent got yet, so you end up having to go through each world twice, the second time without battles

I think the game was rushed a bit. Three of the collectable songs are titled "unnamed song 1, 2, and 3". Along with the dlc being released fairly short afterwards which has a jungle/beach world with dk, rabbid cranky and rabbid peach. Also the last powerup world exploration tool is literally the same as the one from world 3, just for dirt mounds instead.

Throughout my playthrough there were a few graphical glitches of little decoration objects like pebbles floated in the air and some walls clipped through the floor for a second or so. But that was only when I had the game on for a while

And the story just wraps up on its own without any mention of what happened in the opening cutscene being referenced or even explained, even though it was a well animated cutscene and they could have done something with it easily

I absolutely loved this game.

This game has probably the best combat I've ever played in a game. At first I didn't think I would like it because it takes longer than regular turn-based combat, but I quickly realized that the combat is actually the main attraction of the game. Rather than being that thing you have to do between story elements, the story ends up being the thing that's happening between fights.

The combat in this game is closer to dungeons & dragons than most RPGs (which is surprising given the main cast of characters) because they included that all-important element of movement. That one single addition completely changed the game, and it created so many different challenges to take on.

Instead of simply choosing between attacks, magic, and items, on every turn you can move, attack, and do a bonus action specific to each character. It's almost identical to D&D. And it's a ton of fun.

I thought the puzzles were going to be boring and simple at first, but they actually get pretty good. There were a few good headscratchers along the way and tons of hidden surprises to find.

Literally my only complaint in the whole game is that you're restricted to certain camera angles during combat, which is kind of annoying sometimes, but most of the time it's not that much of a hinderance.

Absolutely go play this game. It's amazing.

PS, my favourite character was Lapin Luigi (I played it in French... I don't know what he's called in English).

I don't care for strategy games - and frankly, I don't think I've ever played one completely through before - and Rabbids are essentially the video game equivalent of Minions, so I couldn't care less about them. The beauty of Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle is that by the end, I sort of became a newfound fan of both.

I always find myself frustrated with turn-based aspects of other games I've played, especially when asked to set up weapons before a fight ever started. I'm thinking specifically about recent games I've played like Sunset Overdrive and Assassin's Creed, where the strategy elements almost completely put me off the game. What I realized when playing Mario + Rabbids is simply that I hadn't played a game with good strategy elements.

Now maybe the reason I truly liked Mario + Rabbids is because the strategy is clearly aimed at kids, and my proto-beginners style synced perfectly with what this game was doing. When playing strategy games, I realize I hate thinking in insanely far ahead terms, planning out everything, then watching how a fight plays out. Mario + Rabbids asks you to do some planning ahead, but the game never falls apart if you take it more on a turn-by-turn basis. By the end of the game, I felt excited about scanning the field, picking my method of attack, and wiping my enemies away. Because the game is more action-oriented in its approach, I found the strategy elements to almost be secondary.

The other thing I didn't expect was how funny I found the game. Not necessarily the Rabbids (they're mostly harmless fun), but the way the game plays off the Mario license, and especially the comments your companion Beep-O makes along the way. I sincerely worried that this mashup of characters would be a disaster, but Ubisoft makes it work far better than it probably should have.

My biggest problems with Mario + Rabbids come from controlling in the overworld map. Controlling Beep-O is at times awkward, especially when you have three characters following you around, sometimes looking in other directions. I also found the camera to be particularly cumbersome at points, often taking control out of the player's hands at inopportune moments. Also, despite this game being fairly easy in its gameplay, I still found the boss fights to be surprisingly tough, and were frequently the only fights in the game I couldn't get a perfect rating on. Frankly, by the time I finally finished them, I just wanted to wash my hands of the fight and didn't have the interest to retry.

I'm thoroughly impressed with what Ubisoft did with the Nintendo license, and how they combined their biggest franchise with the biggest video company in the world. I wish there had been slightly more Nintendo props or weapons, but the balance is pretty solid throughout. If anything, Mario + Rabbids is the first game to make me rethink strategy games on the whole, with this fun and exciting turn-based action game that didn't frustrate me the way that every other strategy game ever has.

Mario Rabbids Kingdom Battle is simply put one of the best experiences I have ever had with a turn-based tactical game. What does that mean? Well, my first experience with turn-based tactical games was way back on the GameBoy Advance with Tactics Ogre, then later I moved on to several Fire Emblem installments, codename S.T.E.A.M. and even XCOM. These games feel like something in between playing a tabletop game like Warhammer 40K and a turn-based RPG. You take turns moving your fighters and executing actions. In many cases, terrain and loadout of your characters have a direct effect on the outcome of your actions. As you progress your characters level up and you have to make choices on how you want to grow that character.

What makes Mario Rabbids different, and why do I think it is so good? Simplification of the genre. In most cases, tactical games get more and more complex as the series age. Mario Rabbids strips the unnecessary away. Each character represents a class. For example Mario is an all arounder, Peach is AOE and healing and Luigi is a sniper. At the start of the battle, you pick your characters and fill out their talent tree. You don't have the option to build a team of snipers, but you always have access to what you need. Each level is designed with unique challenges that favor specific strategies. The depth of strategy and combat is all still there - but they have managed to simplify unit management the most tedious boring part of this style of game. In addition, each upgrade feels so much more significant. Each upgrade has significant cost but also returns a significant reward. This makes gathering the orbs for upgrades much more meaningful. You'll never be able to max out a character - but this leaves you with the challenge of accepting that if you take one upgrade you may not be able to afford another. In addition, each character can move, make an attack and do one special action per round and you only control 3 characters. Weapons either have a 100%, 50% or 0% chance of hitting and most of the cover is destructible. This eliminates a lot of the frustration of missing an easy shot. In addition, weapons have elemental bonuses that have a smaller chance of happening - which still gives you that aha moment of surprise when things go your way.

Outside of the gameplay, the graphics are amazing. Ubisoft really gave it their best in order to earn Nintendo's trust with their IP. Mario looks as good as any main series game and that is saying a lot. The plot of the story is simple but the banter between the crude practical joking Rabbids and the too serious Mario characters keep things light and enjoyable. Bosses seem to have a lot of character as well. They have their own cutscenes and music to really set things off.

Tactical games aren't for everyone. The pacing and design don't have the same appeal as action/adventure or platforming. I still give it 5 stars for those willing to sit down and think for a few minutes will definitely enjoy this Nintendo Switch gem.

I've never played an XCOM game and I'm not experienced with the strategy genre, but I picked this up to hold me over for the couple of weeks leading up to the launch of Super Mario Odyssey. I'd learned with Splatoon 2 that Nintendo can put their spin on a genre I'm usually disinterested in, making it something I really dig.

But while I had a blast with Splatoon 2, I think I'm going to trade this one in.

It's a beautiful game. It's very charming and pretty funny, though in a world where Despicable Me's minions are impossible to escape the rabbids' similarly manic, gibberish-filled behavior wears thin pretty quickly. But the more I played, the more I felt the outcomes of battle were more a matter of luck than strategy.

Starting in World 2, I noticed this pattern:

1. I'd start playing a level using whatever strategies I'd built to that point.
2. I'd encounter some new challenge that would expose a flaw in my strategy. This "ah-ha" moment is usually one of the more rewarding aspects of a puzzle game.
3. I'd try again, playing with a more deliberate and informed strategy.
4. Some random string of bad luck would make me lose even faster than when I was barreling through. Zero shots would connect, or enemies would take a formation and focus all of their attacks on one character till they died, etc.

Any game incorporating random outcomes will occasionally suffer from this sort of thing, but it happened to me repeatedly, and it sucked the fun out of the experience. Now that Super Mario Odyssey is out, I just don't see myself returning to this.

Rating: 8.5/10

I'll make this review short and sweet:

As many people will tell you, this is probably the biggest surprise of the year. Reaction went from mockery (when announced) to intrigue (when revealed as XCOM) to legitimate praise (when released). I like this more than XCOM 2 even though they really only share similarities in combat, and this lacks the strategy elements outside of combat... but XCOM 2 pissed me off. Anyway, this isn't about that.

Combat is just a lot of fun and it's challenging. Learning how to master the various things you can do (like jumping off your people) is important, and there's enough diversity in enemies and situations to keep it entertaining. There are also difficult challenges.

Outside of that you mostly just run around and solve some puzzles, but that's okay. I don't think it hurts the game but it doesn't add much either. However, there is sufficient depth in character progression and the amount of weapons you can get.

In terms of Rabbids, I don't have a lot of experience with them. I can see how they'd be annoying, but in context of this game I actually find them a little amusing once in a while. So while I think the game would be better without them, their stupidity is a nice contrast to the heroism of Mario and friends. So, meh, whatever.

“And again there are mornings when ecstasy bubbles in the blood, and the stomach and chest are tight and electric with joy, and nothing in the thoughts to justify it or cause it.” -John Steinbeck, East of Eden

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The most significant thing about Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle is that it was made by human beings, not corporations first, not business first, not contracts first. It is the stuff that dreams are made of. At least in part.

We’re hitting this beat right off the gate because this is a title which would otherwise be easily dismissed. There have been scores of Super Mario games since the icon debuted in the 80’s, so what’s one more Mario game? Where could they possibly take the character? What more could they possibly do with the overall’d hero who has appeared in so many genres of games?

Additionally, there’s the presence of the Rabbids. These are a constant reminder that this is not a Nintendo game, though it features many of Nintendo’s host of familiar characters. Mario + Rabbids was developed and published by French company Ubisoft, thus the presence of Ubisoft’s Rabbids in this crossover. The game comes off almost as a kind of fanfic for them.

At a glance, and even upon closer inspection, many are probably not going to find the Rabbids… palatable, or even enjoyable at all. If you’ve been irked by the meme-level ubiquity of Despicable Me minions appearing in everything from commercials to toys to snarky platitudes old people share on Facebook, then there’s more than the slightest possibility that you’ll find yourself annoyed to the core by the Rabbids. I knew little about them except for that analogy and I thought of the minions more than once during the game.

Ubisoft’s Rabbids hail from a series of games known as Raving Rabbids, Lapins crétins in French, or Idiot Rabbits. They are spin-off characters from the Rayman series, drawn to chaos and mischief. In some circles they’re apparently quite popular but there’s also a large group of individuals who turn their nose up at them.

The little anarchists appear in Mario + Rabbids via the convenience of a washing machine time machine, and they quickly begin abusing the game’s McGuffin: the SupaMerge, a pair of goggles some real life inventor invented which has the power to merge two objects together and create a new one. The Rabbids begin fusing all sorts of things together, even themselves (ew) and this snowballs into the Mushroom Kingdom which finds itself turned upside down by an invasion of Rabbids and merged objects.

Mario and his friends are separated in the chaos and our hero is forced to traverse an elementally changed Mushroom Kingdom in order to find the Rabbid fused with the SupaMerge, now named Spawny. He’s got to hurry, for certain villains are ready to use the SupaMerge for their own nefarious purposes.

So yes, in a nutshell, there are Rabbids all over this game, like it or not. But here’s the thing: having played through this whole game I can safely say that their presence is no reason to put you off playing it, unless for some reason you’re triggered by Rabbids. I get they may be annoying to you. Their humor is crude (and that’s pervaded the game), but this may just be one of the most surprisingly good games this year. By that I mean that many people didn’t expect it to be as good and as fun as it is! I was looking forward to it since E3 and I’m glad I had the chance to play it, despite the bombastic bunnies.

I think this is profound: remember at E3 during Ubisoft’s conference when this game was announced and being presented? Yves Guillemot brought on Shigeru Miyamoto (to the only standing ovation I observed at any presentation during E3) and together they talked about Mario + Rabbids.

Click here for the full review... https://thewellredmage.com/2017/09/03/mario-rabbids-kingdom-battle/