Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle
Switch
Now here’s something we never imagined printing: Luigi is one heck of a sniper. But then you soon learn to expect the unexpected from Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle. It looks like a Nintendo game, plays like a Firaxis game, sounds like a Rare game and is overstuffed with collectables like a Ubisoft game. There’s a bit of everything in there: XCOM, obviously, but also Super Mario World, a pinch of Fire Emblem, a dash of Captain Toad and some puzzles and gentle geargating that nod to Zelda and Metroid. Sure, the Rabbids play a huge role – and their brand of anarchic, absurdist slapstick has never been more effectively used – but perhaps the best thing you can say about Kingdom Battle is that it’s a Switch game you could easily mistake for a firstparty title, and not simply because of its star.
That may not come as a surprise if you’ve been following its development. For a while, this was in danger of being better known for the hoopla surrounding it than for its own qualities. Having leaked way ahead of schedule, its belated official unveiling at E3 saw its publisher make a real fuss of it, bringing Shigeru Miyamoto on stage, and in turn bringing tears to the eyes of creative director Davide Soliani. In the months since it’s become clear that Soliani wasn’t just proud of his team’s work; this mattered because the man is evidently a huge Nintendo fan. So, on this evidence, is his team. Kingdom Battle isn’t just XCOM with a Mario skin, as appealing as that may sound; it’s also something that demonstrates a fundamental understanding of what makes Nintendo games tick. As with much of Nintendo’s recent output, it’s a game that puts its own spin on an existing genre – namely, turn-based strategy – and then throws in several twists of its own, such that pigeonholing it alongside its apparent inspirations seems grossly misleading.
Its complicated battlefields are built around two modest pieces of Mushroom Kingdom furniture. The humble brick block functions as destructible cover; partly submerged blocks give you better sight lines. Pipes, meanwhile, are often the most efficient way to cover large distances quickly, though you can also get a leg-up from your teammates to reach higher ground – from which, per genre tradition, your shots will deal more damage. Yes, this is a Mario game with guns, but only after a fashion: these weapons don’t kill, but rather return your aggressors to their more benign natural state. From vacuum cleaner rifles to duck-shaped grenades and explosive sentries fashioned to resemble dinosaurs, they’re playfully designed, and each has a chance to convey a negative status effect with a critical hit. Honey halts enemies in their tracks for a turn; ink disables weapon attacks; ice prevents opponents from using special techniques while also freezing their cooldowns.
The further you progress in the game, the more the critical rate increases, but it’s unwise to rely on these as part of your strategy. The trick, instead, is to capitalise when they do occur. In the meantime, your focus should be on mastering the techniques of your squad of three. Two key rules apply: Mario’s always the leader, and you must always have a Rabbid in your team. Otherwise, you can chop and change to suit the current challenge. If there’s plenty of high ground and some distance between you and your opponents at the start, you’ll want to take advantage of Luigi’s precise shooting, ensuring you have a healer to hand since his low HP makes him something of a glass cannon. If the stage is more cramped, you might opt for Rabbid Yoshi, whose battle cry can frighten opponents into beating a retreat, giving you some valuable breathing space. Alternatively, you can get amongst them as Mario, slide-tackling enemies, bouncing off team-mates to stomp on their heads, before giving them a hearty whack with a hammer, then using Rabbid Peach’s healing powers to recover after the inevitable reprisals. But the real fun lies in combining abilities. Being able to switch characters at any time during their turn frees you up to experiment: activate Peach’s overwatch skill (here called Hero Sight) before using Rabbid Mario’s attract technique and you can bring a cluster of enemies into range of her buckshot volleys, and if you haven’t moved them beforehand, you can guide them both to safety should either have been left exposed. Encase an opponent in stone, and you’ve got the perfect opportunity for an ailing Rabbid Luigi to use his vampire dash and leech some valuable health back. Sometimes, of course, combos happen by happy accident: a bounce shot taking an enemy into a sentry’s explosive radius, for example, or a burn effect propagating to another opponent, sending them hopping out of cover and into Luigi’s sights.
Your opponents have similarly diverse movesets, often analogous to your own. Units with powerful ground-pounds encourage you to keep your distance, while healers need taking out quickly. Though the heavily armoured Valkyries have relatively weak weapons, their high health, combined with their ability to absorb damage taken by nearby units, make them a nuisance. Environmental hazards add welcome variety, from explosive cover to powerful whirlwinds and molten rocks falling from the sky. Familiar Mario enemies mix things up still further: a Chain Chomp will focus its attention on the nearest unit from either side; alert a nearby Boo, and if it catches up with you it will spirit you to another part of the map.
As such, this isn’t really the kind of strategy game where you can plan several turns ahead. Rather, you’re forced to react to new threats on every turn, to adapt and improvise. It’s a lot to take in, and at times you may feels the odds are stacked slightly too heavily against
Yes, this is a Mario game with guns, but only after a fashion: these weapons don’t kill
you: like when successive critical hits bounce you into the path of two enemies with overwatch enabled, a single unfortunate dice roll depleting a full health bar. The range and volume of enemies means there are rarely any spaces in which you can guarantee your safety. And the environments are, at times, a shade too complex, demanding a total appreciation of 3D space without quite giving you the feedback required to achieve it.
On occasion, there are simply a few variables too many for efficient play, which would be less of a problem if story chapters didn’t sometimes force you to complete two battles without a health top-up in between. Yes, you can substitute two of your team if they’re struggling, but if Mario’s a hit away from death as the second successive battle begins, you’re in big trouble. It’s mitigated by an Easy mode option, available at the start of each encounter, which refills your health and gives you 50 per cent extra to play with – and without penalising your rank for using it. The ability to reset each character’s skill tree, meanwhile, allows you to better tailor your loadout according to your objective. If a stage simply asks you to reach the exit, for example, you can max out Luigi’s Itchy Feet special that expands movement distance for all characters, while boosting the exit range from pipes. The further you progress, the more options you have to redress the balance.
Besides, you’re given regular breaks between skirmishes to cool down. Signposts guide you to your next destination, but the path often forks or opens up, giving you room to explore a vivid new vision of the Mushroom Kingdom that’s intricate and spacious by turns. The Rabbids’ mischief has resulted in a jumble of ideas: the second area is both a desert world and an ice world, while elsewhere a Banzai Bill suffers the indignity of being caught up in a giant pair of underpants and an ice golem boss wields a fridge door as a shield. This irreverence isn’t entirely unfamiliar, since Nintendo’s always been willing to poke fun at itself, but this sprawling, interconnected world is an unexpected treat. Its secrets aren’t always worth chasing (the reward for one elaborate late-game puzzle is a piece of concept art) and there are at least two sliding-block sections too many. But it’s strikingly pretty – Ubi’s Snowdrop engine adapting well to very different demands from The Division – and stuffed with secrets, miniature challenges, red-coin hunts and a host of delightful details besides. You’ll see cacti plucking harp strings, and flowers trumpeting in time with the score, while the Joy-Cons offer a light shudder of feedback for every coin you collect, reverberating with celebratory glee when you smash breakable objects or locate a hidden chest.
If at times its volume of perfunctory unlockables remind you that this is a Ubisoft game, elsewhere Kingdom Battle boasts a generosity of ideas that feels startlingly Nintendo. Even once the story’s over, there are still plenty of reasons to keep playing, with bonus challenges for revisiting completed worlds, whose final surprises only yield to an ability you gain from the final chapter, and a co-op mode that gives you and a partner a pair of characters each to control, potentially letting you concoct even more elaborate combos. It’s perhaps not quite good enough to bring you to tears, but if Odyssey is to be Mario’s best game this year, it has a pretty high bar to clear. Now there’s something we never imagined writing.