 $60 poorer, 55 hours of my life later, and I am finally ready to review Mario Plus Rabbids Kingdom Battle, the oddball mashup turned tactical strategy game that literally no one asked for. However, it's true what they say at times, sometimes you just don't know what you want until someone gives it to you. Before I dive deep into this game, I do want to give a spoiler warning moving forward. If you're someone that doesn't want spoilers, this isn't the review for you. After deliberating for weeks on how I want to handle reviews at Nintendo Prime, I decided I did not want to have a limit on my analysis by limiting what I am able to talk about, barring some NDA requirements that may be imposed if a review copy is sent to us in the future. However, this game was purchased out of my own pocket, and I spent way more time playing this game than is really required to beat it. In fact, I'd put the completion time of the main story around 15 hours, give or take your skill level and or your willingness to use the in-belt easy mode solution, which I am not ashamed to say I've used myself a number of times. Still, I spent 55 hours with this title, exploring everything I could find that was relevant to me, though I will note I didn't capture any footage of the co-op mode, which lets two people control two characters over 10 maps. I would like to see them add more maps to that mode over time, but it was still a refreshing change of pace compared to the normal game. So, what is Mario Plus Ragnarok's Kingdom Battle anyways? The Rabbids themselves, at least in the United States, are generally disliked as a group of comedic relief Rabbids that originally were introduced through the Rayman series. In their own individual titles, they mostly contained themselves to Wii style party games, and they did eventually get a cartoon spin off show that I actually found far more entertaining than any of the Rabbids games actually were. In the United States, they are considered to be very similar to the Minions from The Spickable Me, though I think the Rabbids are actually much funnier in their comedic value. That being said, to say Rabbids mixing it up with the Mario series was widely viewed as a negative before the game was unveiled is an understatement. Having completed the game and spent 55 hours in this combined mashup world, I have to say that not only did the Rabbids mix in perfectly, they are largely the most entertaining parts of the game itself in a way that fits right in with the Mario series. Mario Plus Rabbids opens up in a somewhat confusing manner by being in the supposed boy genius's room. In fact, it almost reminded me of the old shows like Dexter's Laboratory where the boy genius is plotting to take over the world. Well, okay, that's what I thought when he threw on these magical goggles that instantly combined two items together. Reality is the story starts out simple enough, but it's actually pretty complex for a typical Mario adventure. While not at the levels of the Mario RPG games, the story itself somehow makes sense as the Rabbids find themselves teleported into the room pointing on those goggles and everything goes nuts as they merge themselves right into the Super Mario Bros. This folks is how the Rabbids enter the Mushroom Kingdom. Upon entering the whole Mushroom Kingdom gets messed up. Spawni, the rabbit who put on the splicing goggles from the genius kids rooms, has had them meld onto his face and he lost all control. The whole kingdom gets messed up, though not every rabbit feels the need to mess things up as some are generally around to help. This is the setup for the whole premise of the game, with Beepo, the rumba looking device that you actually control your characters with, comes to life, as it was originally the AI system that was part of the goggles themselves. The story gets wackier and crazier the rest of the way, but instead of going through all the nitty gritty details, let's just say the story itself is a labor of love, just like the visuals. We now know the game runs at 900p while docked and 600p while undocked at a smooth 30fps, although there are slight dips when the game zooms in on battle animations. But the game features some great depth of field effects and does have anti-aliasing, which really makes the fact the game doesn't run at native 1080p and 720p respectively really hard to notice. Beyond the game's technical prowess, the Snowdrop engine from Ubisoft, combined with the talent behind the game, has made what I am not afraid to say is the best looking Mario game released to date. Maybe Odyssey will top it later this year, but this game can hold a candle to and surpass many of Nintendo's best offerings. You could tell this game was crafted by a group of Mario fans, who finally got to live out their dream of making a Mario game. The attention to story and the visual detail is stunning for such a wacky crossover and hint hint Nintendo does show that Mario fans like myself do care more about story than Nintendo thinks. You can have great wacky and amazing gameplay and a great story to boot Nintendo, one need not sacrifice for the other. Anyways, the game world itself is brimming with details as it masters up the Mushroom Kingdom with the boy's bedroom in masterful ways and there are all rabbits in the background doing some zany stuff that is often wildly entertaining just to watch. The game itself works on a level based system that is somewhat structured like a Mario game. There are four worlds and in each world there are eight levels, all of which are accessed in order of completion through a hub world that is built around Peach's castle. Each level consists of two battles, giving you a grand total of 64 battles in the main mode of the game. Of course, upon entering each world, 10 new additional battles open up in each world so you can return for additional challenges and items. The worlds also encourage you to come back yet again as each level also introduces several different puzzle elements you have to conquer on your way to the next battle, which feels very much like a combination of Mario and Zelda, Zelda more so because there are a lot of clever block pushing puzzles, though those aren't the only type of puzzles you will face. There are certain areas and puzzles you cannot complete the first time through because they require abilities you only gain after beating each world, thus a loop of what feels like infinite replayability is instilled early on. I'm 55 hours in and I still haven't 100% of the game for what that is worth. Speaking of being a completionist, this game is really a completionist dream. While the extra stuff in the game mostly pertains to finding collectibles and content like soundtracks and trophies, the act of finding and getting this contact often involves puzzle solving, making it a lot of fun to replay worlds with new abilities. What I mean to say is, this game is actually really enjoyable to complete, in comparison to many games where it can feel like a chore, breath of the wild, 200%. Getting into the meat of the combat, if you were expecting a lighter version of XCOM, you couldn't be further from the truth. Mario Plus Rabbids Kingdom Battle is not an easy game, and if you enable easy mode, it really only gives you some extra health. You could still get absolutely wrecked in many occasions if you don't perfect your strategy. The game isn't as restricting in movement, but rather than it seeming like a compromise to make the game easier, instead it's just a very different type of tactical strategy game, the feeling that you get playing a game like XCOM is still there, but different. By the late stages of the game, you're launching, pipe gliding, double jumping off your teammates and enemies, and all of this gives a feeling of massive progress in every turn. Though naturally, your enemies also have many of these same abilities, so their freedom of movement can actually completely destroy your strategy. In fact, there are times that I failed and lost a battle, and as you're doing that, you learn how the AI itself wishes to play with each enemy type. But then, even as you learn that, the pure freedom of movement can almost always throw you for an unexpected loop. This is especially true because the difficulty sprites in this game are very tough. One battle will seem like a breeze, only for the next battle to have you wipe your group in just a couple of turns. The game lets you play as eight characters during these battles, and you unlock these characters throughout the adventure, which is pretty hefty amount, and it doesn't bother me that the rabbit characters are just counterparts to the Mario ones. They all each have their own play style on any given move, and you have up to three actions you can take, one of them simply being the act of moving your character, which can involve jumps and slides and just ducking behind cover. The other one is, you know, one of two attack options, your base attack plus an extra damage side attack, and the last option is a special ability, all of which are unique to each character. Though there are a few characters that do have a hero shot like ability, sometimes it's called something else, but it has the same practical effect as one of their two special abilities. I really have no issue with this, and it is fun playing with the many different combinations of characters, and they all have their strengths and weaknesses. The game does require that you have at least one rabbit in your party at all times, and I'm guessing rabbit peach will frequently be your choice, as she is the most effective and easiest to use healer option. Peach can heal as well, though her weapon combination with her healing ability is not a very good combination in many situations. Mario is essentially the lone tank of the group, but I found it easier to leave him on the bench and develop strategies that involve avoiding damage rather than drawing enemy damage away from your other two members of your team. What does suck, at least on the surface, is that you have to use Mario all the time. I think it should have been just a requirement to have one Mario character and one rabbit character in each three person group, rather than locking Mario in all of the time. I think they could have worked around the cutscene issue with Mario not in the party by simply having all unlocked characters up to that point just be included in every cutscene. As you can change your party on the fly before the start of every battle, that doesn't mean Mario isn't a great character, but it could have added more variety to the team-ups and conversely, me trying out a lot more combos. I probably beat around half the game using Mario, Luigi, and Rabbit Peach as that combo works so well together, though by the end of the game I swapped Luigi for Yoshi just because I have a totally shameful love of that character. The enemy variety is fantastic, up until World 4. As by the time you get to World 4, they are done introducing new enemy types. I feel like it's a bit of a shortcoming, as they should have had at least two enemy types added per World for a total mixture of eight enemy types. As an example, the enemy only has one type of healer, while I have two, so it didn't feel like the sides were ever perfectly balanced. Of course, the game makes up for this by overwhelming you with my pure numbers or including mini-boss battles that are downright clever and at times brutally difficult. The final encounter is still one I am scratching my head over. While the fight itself was great, I don't really think it's that big of a spoiler to say and involve Bowser, each boss was a mix of a rabbit and something else, whereas the final encounter is Bowser plus a weird made up thing that had literally zero presence in the entirety of the game. It's an odd mix, but I mean this is a game where Mario shoots gun and there is a boss that sings opera songs about how much they are jealous of Mario. Yes, that actually happens, and no, I'm not going to care about spoiling it. I did warn this review would have spoilers, and this is by far my favorite part of the game. Enjoy. That's the end boss from World 3. By far my favorite world, though it did not have as much comedic variety as the other three words. It is Halloween themed and I just happen to love Halloween, so I'm not ashamed to let my bias slip into this part of the review. The themes of each world are dramatically different as you'd expect in a Mario game and all are tackled in new and fresh ways that most Mario veterans will not have experienced before. Of course, what sets us all up is the music itself, composed by Grant Curpope, yes, of old, rareware fame, though the entire music set is orchestrated it feels a bit sporadic. The battle music is amazing, but some of the overworld pieces felt a bit out of place, almost like they were going for an orchestrated ambience like In Breath of the Wild, but with an odd fit, given the more direct nature of many of the other scores in the game. Not a wholly negative thing, and you may actually love this approach, but I would have preferred for some more punchier overworld music. If there is one aspect of this game I found extremely frustrating, it was the camera controls in the non-battle situations. At times it gave you full control, while at other times it takes the control away and forces a very awkward angle that doesn't let you fully take in the beauty of the world. And trust me, this is a game where you want to take in the beauty of the world. It's incredibly frustrating and is the sole aspect of the game that felt jarring in any way. I know some of you may be wondering how the DLC exclusive weapons impact the game after I made a video complaining about them, but I have yet to purchase the season pass for this game, and I won't be doing so until I see more of what is being offered in the new content packs. I am not upset that DLC is happening, this game is the perfect game to have DLC for, and there is certainly enough content on board to justify the entry price. However, I did have 8 exclusive 8-bit items that came with my copy of the game that I did use, and I have confirmed not everyone gets those items, while they are not the best weapons in the game. They definitely do give you an advantage as you purchase new weapons with coins, and every time you unlock a character it also unlocks their 8-bit weapon, which at the time of unlocking the character those weapons will be tied for the best weapon you have in your arsenal, and you won't have to pay for them. This does allow you to purchase upgrades for other characters faster, and as such this is an advantage, of course as a primarily single player game that advantage won't matter or bother most folks, but I did want to mention it does help, and I am sure the exclusive season pass weapons work in a very similar fashion. Beyond the weapons, the game lets you customize your character through talent trees. You earn orbs for each battle, and you can also find additional orbs in each level through hidden chests. The type of talent trees I am most familiar with come from games like World of Warcraft and other more traditional RPGs, so I felt right at home as I tailored each character to my desired playing style. Of course, if that's not your thing, you can let the game auto-spend your orbs for you, though you may not learn about the new abilities you have gained while doing it that way. Overall, I have to say that I am really impressed with this game, and it is dethroned Splatoon 2 as my favorite Switch exclusive title to date. Whether or not it can hold onto that crowd after Super Mario Odyssey releases is up in the air, but Mario Plus Rabbids Kingdom Battle isn't some side dish that I will be quickly forgetting. It's a labor of love for both franchises and brings each series very best. And a tactical strategy and puzzle based game that can stand toe to toe with the very best games that genre has to offer, and is an entertaining romp both for ex-com veterans and newcomers alike. Set your rabbit hate to the side, because this game is going to make you fall in love with them. Mario Plus Rabbids Kingdom Battle gets a firm 4.5 out of 5.