Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle Review
Mario gets involved with a lot of pastimes: go-carting, golfing, playing tennis, playing soccer, fighting every other video game character he can, and having parties which are likely to end your friendships. But in 2017, Nintendo and Ubisoft gave Mario a chance at one of his strangest new hobbies: picking up a gun and going to war with unhinged cartoon rabbits.
Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle is weird. Rabbids are Ubisoft characters that can best be described as distant relatives of the Despicable Me minions. Their overall purpose is to cause cartoon-ish chaos. In this particular game, the Rabbids come to the Mushroom Kingdom with a device that can fuse two objects or creatures together, and some of the Rabbids band together with Mario to save the day… by shooting their enemies in the FACE.
I was not particularly interested in this concept the first time I heard about it. Strategy games can be pretty hit or miss for me, and the Rabbid humor doesn’t particularly speak to me. But this game threw me for a loop when I picked it up recently because the gameplay is a LOT of fun.
The game gives you a roster of characters (made up of Mario’s friends and their Rabbid doppelgangers) and a large variety of enemies with which you fight across battlefields, dodging behind cover, tackling enemies, and, yes, shooting them point blank… with honey. Or springs. Also, sometimes, fire. This is a kids’ game, so the violence is family-friendly, though it’s still a weird look for Mario to grab a laser pistol and start blasting away, even if he usually stomps monsters out of existence for gold.
I’m going to choose not to examine the implications of that.
While the game is clearly made with children in mind in terms of comedy, animation, and all-around charm, the difficulty is surprisingly high. I spent the game buying the best gear available and approaching combat with my adult human logic, and there were still a fair few fights that I couldn’t beat on the first or second try, and puzzles that took me longer than I feel comfortable admitting to solve. There’s not even an easy mode. The closest thing available is an “extra health” option available at the beginning of each fight, which will certainly help young players, but I honesty don’t know how much.
While some of the choices in the game confuse me and the humor isn’t really for me, I like it a lot and I’m glad it exists. The boss fights are genuinely clever and make you strategize several moves in advance in order to keep you going. The fights get a little repetitive, but it’s not the same fight over and over again: new maps, enemy types, and area hazards are introduced to keep you on your toes.
There’s also a sequel coming out sometime in the near future, which I find that I’m really excited to play. I give this one a 3.75 burning shotguns out of 5.