Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle Review

Introduction

Back in Ubisoft’s press conference in E3 2017, I was wonderfully surprised to watch the reveal trailer of Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle for the Nintendo Switch. The mashup between the characters from both the Mario and the Rabbids universes is, at first glance, a wacky concept, but this game genuinely proves how to execute it right. Moreover, it lands in a genre that was never seen before in neither the mainline Mario or the Rabbids games: turn-based tactical RPG. David Soliani, the creative director behind M+RKB became famous overnight as the crying man meme because during that reveal, the cameras at the conference panned to him crying tears of love and passion for his craft (besides his adoration and respect for Shigeru Miyamoto, who was up on stage for the reveal) - and this game very clearly exemplifies that.

Story

Although the Mario games are not usually praised for having exceptional stories, there is a simple plot to follow here. The game kicks off with a cutscene of a young tech-genius girl at her desk in her basement working on a headset called the SupaMerge, and who is clearly a huge Mario fan herself, given that there are posters and figurines of the characters from the Mario games - a nod from David Soliani of course. She leaves the SupaMerge, which comes with an AI-assistant called Beep-O, in the basement as she heads off to bed, not long before the Rabbids show up in their dimension-hopping washing machine and sure enough, chaos ensues. As its name suggests, the headset glitches out and merges the Rabbids with the characters from the Mario memorabilia in the basement before finally a portal opens up in the washing machine sucking everything into it. Meanwhile another portal opens up in the sky above the Mushroom kingdom, sucking up Mario and all his friends. Eventually the Rabbids, Mario, the Rabbid who wore and merged with the headset, now called Spawny, as well as Beep-O are dropped into a new dimension where everything between the Mario and the Rabbids universes are merged. It is now upto Beep-O, Mario and his ‘new’ friends to rescue Spawny from Bowser Junior, who seeks to create an army of corrupted/merged Rabbids. This is a crazy set up for a Mario game, but the premise starts off pretty interestingly. And as the story progresses you get to rescue all of Mario’s friends from 4 different worlds until you rescue Spawny. However, there are no call backs to this opening scene or to the girl who created the SupaMerge. But it did not bother me much as this context provides enough motivation to go on the adventure.

Characters

While the humour in the Rabbids games is not for everyone, M+RKB really flexes its creativity here in the designs and mannerisms of its characters. Throughout the game you play as Mario, Beep-O and his party of new friends - merged versions of the characters from the mushroom kingdom, like Rabbid Peach and Rabbid Luigi! As an example, Rabbid Peach is presented as a hilarious caricature of an angsty Instagram influencer with a lot of sass. All of the cutscenes never shy away from the opportunity to showcase its characters reacting to events in the story and interacting with each other. The game fully excels in visual comedy because even as you read through dialogue bubbles and exposition, there is always something funny happening on screen, which means you are never truly bored. There is not much to say here without getting into spoilers but there are some cutscenes further into the game that will leave you giggling or in awe.

Gameplay

Mario games are well known for perfecting their gameplay and M+RKB is no exception. With a variety of characters to play as and with each having their own special abilities and weapons, as the player you can make a choice in each battle to choose a combination of upto three characters with Mario as the leader and with at least one Rabbid character in your party. No two combinations of characters fare the same, so you can use this as leverage in battle. Often you will need to clear a series of 2 or even 3 battles before your party is fully healed. Each character also comes with a skill tree with the same number of points, called power orbs, that can be equally spent to unlock and enhance their abilities. Between series of battles, you win both these power orbs as well as coins - which can be used to purchase newer and stronger weapons. However, there are only limited coins that can be earned throughout the story, so I recommend you purchase the next best unlocked weapon in your campaign as you will definitely not earn enough to purchase them all. Power orbs, on the other hand, can be reset and so you have the flexibility here to optimize your characters’ abilities as you see fit.

When it comes to the battles, there are a variety of enemies you go up against, starting off with your basic Ziggies, Hoppers and Bucklers. As you progress through the campaign, you unlock more enemies and with each of the 4 worlds you travel through there are tougher and meaner versions of the same enemy types that fight you. Each enemy type is uniquely designed, has their own sets of actions and abilities and thus knowing how they tick is truly half the battle. In each of the 4 worlds, you will come across a mid-boss as well as the final boss. However, not all bosses are created equal here and I found a few to be pretty cliched in their design. Some proved to be such a difficulty spike during my playthrough that I was put off from beating M+RKB, which is surprising because it is a kid’s game after all! However, do not fret from looking up walkthroughs or guides as in a lot of instances, I realised that there was no way I could have figured it out myself. On the other hand, some bosses are truly memorable in their presentation and have well designed mechanics that put you to the test.

Bonus

There is another element of exploration in the game that rewards players with artwork, digital figurines, soundtracks, as well as more power orbs and special weapons. With each final world boss defeated, Beep-O gets newer abilities to clear paths to hidden chests, thereby incentivising players to revisit older worlds from the hub area and even discover secret zones with additional battles. The exploration is a nice add-on but I often did not truly feel the need to go back to previous worlds and spend hours trying to find additional unlockables. However, in this process you may also play through challenge stages which are of various difficulties that progressively ramp up in later worlds. These challenge stages provide an interesting twist on the normal battles from the campaign and really force you to flex your understanding of the gameplay and I found these to be quite the treat.

If you really dare to push yourself to the limits, once you beat the campaign and with all of Beep-O’s abilities unlocked, you can also beat 4 different ultimate challenges. Consider these as a final test of M+RKB, where beating these finally unlocks you the best weapons in the game. Unfortunately for me, this was not enough incentive to beat them as there is simply no need for these weapons, because by that point, you do not need to use them! If you are still yearning for more, getting halfway through the first world unlocks the Buddydome in the hub area, which allows you to play an optional co-op side campaign with a friend. Although this presents even more challenges to beat, I felt that not having a coop mode in the main campaign was a missed opportunity.

The soundtrack by Grant Kirkhope is mostly excellent as well. During boss battles, the orchestral arrangement is on full blast and really adds to the spectacle on screen.

Conclusion

There is a lot of depth in the combat here to satisfy any tactical gameplay itch, but I often found myself cursing at the screen for misclicks and not having enough flexibility to plan all my movement and actions before executing them. Some jokes and visual gags landed better than others, and I found most of the characters cute and charming. Though I wished the exploration was handled slightly better, the campaign and the additional challenges were an absolute blast to play through. Do not be put off from the childish humour and art style as Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle is a lot of fun!