Hello and welcome to The Backlog where we review video games based on a certain word or genre each month. For February we’ve been looking at strategy games, and today we will take a break from the dark tones of “Buckshot Roulette” and “Inscryption,” by looking at “Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle.”
Only available on the Nintendo Switch, “Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle” is a crossover between Nintendo and Ubisoft. Released in 2017, it won the year’s award for Best Sim/Strategy Game and was nominated for Best Family Game. The gameplay is turn-based and pushes the player to think every action through. The player can control up to three characters in their party and each one possesses unique abilities. The closest thing I could compare it to is a game of chess with blasters, crazy Rabbids and a robotic vacuum cleaner named Beep-0 to guide you.
Each turn, the three characters chosen can perform three moves. This includes moving to a different spot, attacking and using their power. Some aspects that can change the way you play are that you can melee enemies if you are close enough, and thus doing more damage, or that you can use another character to jump off of and allow your character to move further than usual.
Each one also possesses special abilities — for Mario he can use Hero Sight to instantly shoot at any enemy he spots moving by — not to mention that he’s useful when moving because he can land on enemies and cause damage. Other characters include Luigi, Princess Peach, Yoshi, Rabbid Luigi, Rabbid Peach, Rabbid Yoshi and Rabbid Mario. If you already didn’t guess, all of the Rabbid characters are just them wearing the outfits of the “Mario” characters. As you progress you can level up their skill trees, giving them more health, stronger attacks or generally making their special abilities more effective. Because of this you may find yourself using only a few characters instead of cycling through them. Personally, I find that it’s best to reorganize your party every now and then to better combat certain enemies and obstacles.
As a family game, there isn’t much of a story to “Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle” beyond what is necessary to explain why the two franchises are in one game. Basically, the two universes collide and the group of heroes of the Mushroom Kingdom and Rabbids must work together to stop invading Rabbids from wreaking havoc, which is essentially their only goal. As a staple point of “Mario” games, your group traverses various kingdoms and landscapes in order to reach the final boss. This includes the Ancient Gardens, Sherbet Desert, Spooky Trails and in typical Nintendo fashion, ending at a volcano-based biome called the Lava Pit. The game is mainly a single player experience but you can do a versus mode to fight against one other player.
Despite this, I find that “Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle” can get the whole family to play together. It’s easy to pass the remote to the next person in line or switch at every battle. It’s best to work as a group in case you get stuck, which is often because the levels can become difficult quickly. Anyone of any age can enjoy this game, and games are best experienced with people beside you.
Because of the nature of the gameplay it can take quite a long time to finish it, but that is normal for most Nintendo family games. Anybody who’s finished a “Mario” game in one day did so due to sheer determination and willpower. The sequel, “Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope,” released in October of 2022. Hopefully I will get the chance to play it — once the price goes down — and review it for you faithful readers.
Rating: 4.5/5