Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle shouldn’t work. A tactical strategy game built on a crossover between Nintendo’s Mushroom Kingdom and Ubisoft’s screaming, incoherent Rabbids sounds like a pitch that died in a boardroom. It came out in 2017 on the Nintendo Switch, and it works anyway.
Trailer, via IGDBcom.
Davide Soliani and the Pitch From 2014
Ubisoft Milan creative director Davide Soliani and Ubisoft brand producer Xavier Manzanares conceived the game in 2014. The design brief leaned into the dissonance between the two franchises rather than hiding it, and aimed for a strategy game with elements that stood apart from the rest of the genre.
The result is a turn-based tactics game set after a mysterious vortex tears the Mushroom Kingdom apart. The Rabbids arrive in the once-peaceful land, and Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach and Yoshi have to team up with four Rabbids heroes to put it back together. A small robot named Beep-0 guides the group.
That premise is nonsense on paper. It is also the reason the game has a pulse. The Rabbids are loud, stupid and unpredictable, and the game never asks them to be anything else.
Four Worlds, Turn-Based Combat
The campaign splits into four worlds, each with a linear path to completion. Puzzles block progress or hand over weapons and collectibles when solved. Finish a world and Beep-0 learns a new ability for the next round of puzzles.
Battles start when the team walks into territory held by enemy Rabbids. Most fights want every enemy on the field defeated. Others set a fixed objective, like escorting a Toad to the end of a stage. You lose when everyone runs out of health or the objective fails.
Before a fight you pick your squad. Three of eight playable characters can take the field, and Mario plus at least one Rabbid are required. Each fighter carries a weapon with its own damage and special effects, and each turn offers three options:
- Move to a new location, limited by that character’s set travel distance
- Use a weapon, with two attack choices that vary by character
- Use a special effect, which differs per character
Two weapons unlock by connecting the console to any one of several Amiibo figurines. Grant Kirkhope composed the music, and the visuals and animation stay casual and vibrant throughout.
A Rough Leak, Then E3
The game’s reception flipped hard. It was met with poor reception when it leaked, mostly over the Rabbids and the weaponry. That changed when Ubisoft officially announced it at E3 2017.
The turn is worth noting because the leak reaction was about taste, not the game. Once people saw the combat, the argument moved to whether the tactics hold up. They do.
Critical reception landed overall positive. Characters and turn-based combat drew praise. The puzzles and the level-based structure of combat drew mixed responses. Both reactions are fair. The puzzle rooms are the weakest part of the package, and the combat is the reason to stay.
In 2018, a Donkey Kong-centric expansion pack was released as downloadable content. A sequel, Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, followed on 20 October 2022.
What Holds Up and What Doesn’t
The eight-character roster is the smartest decision here. Three slots against eight fighters means every battle starts with a real choice, and the Mario-plus-one-Rabbid rule keeps the crossover from becoming decoration. The weapon effects and the special abilities give each character a reason to exist beyond a stat line.
The puzzles do not earn their place. They break the pace between fights, and Beep-0’s new abilities are a thin reward for clearing them.
What matters most is that Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle commits to its own absurdity. A crossover this strange could have played it safe and coasted on the two brands. Instead it built a tactics game that stands on its own, then let the Rabbids be exactly as irritating as they have always been. That is the part worth remembering.
Key facts
- Release year: 2017
- Platform: Nintendo Switch
- Developer: Ubisoft Milan and Ubisoft Paris
- Publisher: Ubisoft Entertainment
- Genre: tactical turn-based RPG with puzzles
- Playable characters: 8, with 3 per battle
- Worlds: 4
- Composer: Grant Kirkhope
- 2018 expansion: Donkey Kong-centric, released as downloadable content
- Sequel: Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, 20 October 2022
- Score: 8.3/10
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