Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle
Story
Mario and Rabbids existing in the same game? How can this be? Ubisoft found a way. Here is how Ubisoft explains it: A girl sitting in her basement has a device that can merge two objects into one. Using AR, she has an AI (named Beep-0) that helps her out. It should also be noted that she is a big fan of all things Mario.
When the girl leaves her basement, a time traveling (and dimension traveling?) washing machine shows up. Inside of this washing machine are the Rabbids. The Rabbids get out of the washing machine and start causing mayhem. One of the Rabbids picks up the girlās AR device and starts merging objects. This in turn starts off a chain of events. The... Read All Story
Mario and Rabbids existing in the same game? How can this be? Ubisoft found a way. Here is how Ubisoft explains it: A girl sitting in her basement has a device that can merge two objects into one. Using AR, she has an AI (named Beep-0) that helps her out. It should also be noted that she is a big fan of all things Mario.
When the girl leaves her basement, a time traveling (and dimension traveling?) washing machine shows up. Inside of this washing machine are the Rabbids. The Rabbids get out of the washing machine and start causing mayhem. One of the Rabbids picks up the girlās AR device and starts merging objects. This in turn starts off a chain of events. The Rabbids get pulled back into the washing machine, along with the object merging AR device. The washing machine then travels dimensions to the Mushroom Kingdom, which in turn gets sucked into the washing machine. From there, Mario & Crew + Rabbids travel to a merged dimension that has merged the mushroom kingdom with the Rabbids and objects from the girlās basement. The Rabbid with the object merging AR device merges with said device. Beep-0 also becomes a physical AI device that floats around and can interact with the environment. What???
Gameplay
Ok, enough about this gameās story shenanigans, how about the gameplay? Mario + Rabbids has two modes of gameplay: a turn-based strategic battle system and a world exploring puzzle solving mode.
Turn-based Strategic Battle System
The main part of the game is the turn-based strategic battle system. You enter each map with three characters and fight various enemies. Each battle field has various objects and levels. These objects and levels affect your offense, defense and sometimes have special abilities. In regards to offense, if you have the high ground on someone, you can get an attack bonus. For defense, the objects provide line of sight blockage. If your attacker has no line of sight, there is zero chance that they can hit you. If the attacker has partial line of sight, there is a fifty percent chance that they will hit you. If there is nothing blocking line of sight, well the character being attacked is quite frankly screwed. Some objects can also affect the characters if they are destroyed. For example: some will bounce characters around the map while some will blind them.
Each battle has a set of stated requirements and a set of secondary requirements. The stated requirements are typically: kill all the enemies or escort a character. The secondary requirements are: how many characters survive and how fast you complete the battle. Based on these secondary requirements, you will get a different trophy. This gives the main battles some replayability in the fact that you may want to get the best trophy.
As mentioned above, you enter each map with three characters. You must always have Mario and a Rabbid as one of your characters. You start off with Mario, Rabbid Luigi and Rabbid Peach as your characters. As you go through the game you will unlock all eight characters. Each character has a specific skill that they are good at. For example: Peach is a healer while Luigi is an expert at long range attacks.
Each character also has a skill tree. As you win battles and open chests you will get skill points that you can spend to enhance and unlock abilities.
Every character has two weapons. You can unlock weapons by beating portions of the game, and then you can buy these weapons with coins. You acquire coins in battle and throughout the world map.
In addition to weapons, each character has two abilities that you can pick from that can affect your characters or your enemies.
There are also different movement modes. Characters can jump off each other (giving a range boost or quick access to a different level in the map), slide into enemies causing damage and sometimes jump on enemies also causing damage.
World Exploring Puzzle Mode
In-between each battle, you will explore this weird world. For the most part it is just sightseeing, but you also can run into some simple puzzles to solve. These puzzles can lead to new areas and treasure. For the most part the puzzles are pretty simple and require you to have an item or move some blocks around. There were a few puzzles that seemed rather difficult, but overall they are not too bad.
Length of Game + Replayability
The game took me about thirty-five hours to beat. This included a good chunk of backtracking. After that amount of time, I have completed ninety-two precent of the battles, found eighty percent of the treasure chests and completed fifty-four percent of the challenges. Overall there is a good amount of gaming.
So how does this all break down?
There are four areas to the map. Each area has eight chapters with one to four battles, one boss battle and one hidden chapter.
Once you beat an area and chapter you can backtrack to them. At this point you can complete challenges which range in difficulty, fight the battles over again to try to meet the secondary requirements and just explore the area.
As you explore the area, you will solve puzzles (as mentioned above), gather coins and unlock chests. Chests can have new weapons, skill points and various game artifacts that do not add anything to the gameplay, but rather unlock things like music, artwork, character design, etc.
There is also a co-op mode that you unlock as you beat areas of the map. I have not had a chance to try this out, but it seems like it could be fun.
Nintendo has announced a Donkey Kong DLC which will be coming out soon and add even more content to the game.
Overall
I really liked this game. The battles are fun, not too long and not too difficult. The world and character design are excellent and really tie the game together. I would recommend this game to anybody that A) has a Nintendo Switch and B) wants a fun turn-based tactical game that is not too complicated.
Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle is available as physical game cart and as a digital download for the Nintendo Switch.
Mario and Rabbids existing in the same game? How can this be? Ubisoft found a way. Here is how Ubisoft explains it: A girl sitting in her basement has a device that can merge two objects into one. Using AR, she has an AI (named Beep-0) that helps her out. It should also be noted that she is a big fan of all things Mario.
When the girl leaves her basement, a time traveling (and dimension traveling?) washing machine shows up. Inside of this washing machine are the Rabbids. The Rabbids get out of the washing machine and start causing mayhem. One of the Rabbids picks up the girlās AR device and starts merging objects. This in turn starts off a chain of events. The... Read All Story
Mario and Rabbids existing in the same game? How can this be? Ubisoft found a way. Here is how Ubisoft explains it: A girl sitting in her basement has a device that can merge two objects into one. Using AR, she has an AI (named Beep-0) that helps her out. It should also be noted that she is a big fan of all things Mario.
When the girl leaves her basement, a time traveling (and dimension traveling?) washing machine shows up. Inside of this washing machine are the Rabbids. The Rabbids get out of the washing machine and start causing mayhem. One of the Rabbids picks up the girlās AR device and starts merging objects. This in turn starts off a chain of events. The Rabbids get pulled back into the washing machine, along with the object merging AR device. The washing machine then travels dimensions to the Mushroom Kingdom, which in turn gets sucked into the washing machine. From there, Mario & Crew + Rabbids travel to a merged dimension that has merged the mushroom kingdom with the Rabbids and objects from the girlās basement. The Rabbid with the object merging AR device merges with said device. Beep-0 also becomes a physical AI device that floats around and can interact with the environment. What???
Gameplay
Ok, enough about this gameās story shenanigans, how about the gameplay? Mario + Rabbids has two modes of gameplay: a turn-based strategic battle system and a world exploring puzzle solving mode.
Turn-based Strategic Battle System
The main part of the game is the turn-based strategic battle system. You enter each map with three characters and fight various enemies. Each battle field has various objects and levels. These objects and levels affect your offense, defense and sometimes have special abilities. In regards to offense, if you have the high ground on someone, you can get an attack bonus. For defense, the objects provide line of sight blockage. If your attacker has no line of sight, there is zero chance that they can hit you. If the attacker has partial line of sight, there is a fifty percent chance that they will hit you. If there is nothing blocking line of sight, well the character being attacked is quite frankly screwed. Some objects can also affect the characters if they are destroyed. For example: some will bounce characters around the map while some will blind them.
Each battle has a set of stated requirements and a set of secondary requirements. The stated requirements are typically: kill all the enemies or escort a character. The secondary requirements are: how many characters survive and how fast you complete the battle. Based on these secondary requirements, you will get a different trophy. This gives the main battles some replayability in the fact that you may want to get the best trophy.
As mentioned above, you enter each map with three characters. You must always have Mario and a Rabbid as one of your characters. You start off with Mario, Rabbid Luigi and Rabbid Peach as your characters. As you go through the game you will unlock all eight characters. Each character has a specific skill that they are good at. For example: Peach is a healer while Luigi is an expert at long range attacks.
Each character also has a skill tree. As you win battles and open chests you will get skill points that you can spend to enhance and unlock abilities.
Every character has two weapons. You can unlock weapons by beating portions of the game, and then you can buy these weapons with coins. You acquire coins in battle and throughout the world map.
In addition to weapons, each character has two abilities that you can pick from that can affect your characters or your enemies.
There are also different movement modes. Characters can jump off each other (giving a range boost or quick access to a different level in the map), slide into enemies causing damage and sometimes jump on enemies also causing damage.
World Exploring Puzzle Mode
In-between each battle, you will explore this weird world. For the most part it is just sightseeing, but you also can run into some simple puzzles to solve. These puzzles can lead to new areas and treasure. For the most part the puzzles are pretty simple and require you to have an item or move some blocks around. There were a few puzzles that seemed rather difficult, but overall they are not too bad.
Length of Game + Replayability
The game took me about thirty-five hours to beat. This included a good chunk of backtracking. After that amount of time, I have completed ninety-two precent of the battles, found eighty percent of the treasure chests and completed fifty-four percent of the challenges. Overall there is a good amount of gaming.
So how does this all break down?
There are four areas to the map. Each area has eight chapters with one to four battles, one boss battle and one hidden chapter.
Once you beat an area and chapter you can backtrack to them. At this point you can complete challenges which range in difficulty, fight the battles over again to try to meet the secondary requirements and just explore the area.
As you explore the area, you will solve puzzles (as mentioned above), gather coins and unlock chests. Chests can have new weapons, skill points and various game artifacts that do not add anything to the gameplay, but rather unlock things like music, artwork, character design, etc.
There is also a co-op mode that you unlock as you beat areas of the map. I have not had a chance to try this out, but it seems like it could be fun.
Nintendo has announced a Donkey Kong DLC which will be coming out soon and add even more content to the game.
Overall
I really liked this game. The battles are fun, not too long and not too difficult. The world and character design are excellent and really tie the game together. I would recommend this game to anybody that A) has a Nintendo Switch and B) wants a fun turn-based tactical game that is not too complicated.
Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle is available as physical game cart and as a digital download for the Nintendo Switch.
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I have to askā ānot too complicatedā is relative to the player. How do you fare in turn based strategy games generally? And do you have a few games you can compare it to based on difficulty?
Iām kinda terrible at this kind of game so Iāve been holding off. But I did ADORE Valkyria Chronicles and had no issues with it.
I haven't played very many outside of X-Com. So if I had to compare it to the original X-Com, I would say this is a lot easier. :) I feel that some of the challenges are a lot harder than the battles, but those aren't mandatory.
When I get a Switch this game is on the list of things to get along with Mario Odyssey.