Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle is the first instance of 'underrated gem' on the Switch. This game is so packed full of stupid humor and clever gameplay that makes this game an absolute blast to play through. The gameplay is fun and simple but can quickly become challenging as you begin to meticulously plan out each individual move. The game never feels unfair in any instance but never makes it too easy. Humor is pretty good, obviously a little childish because of the Rabbids character but definitely some funny moments. The story is pretty good, nothing too crazy complex but enough to keep you strung along through each battle. If there is anything that I truly believe is a problem is the memorability. The game doesn't entirely resonate with me in the way many other Mario games do and perhaps it's the different developers but there's also the fact that locales are fairly plain, enemies are generic and characters are about as complex as Mario characters come. Still a great time and definitely worth a shot if you're big into grid-based strategy games.

Cuando vi la primera imagen del Mario & Rabbids lo primero que pensé fue » vaya basura con minijuegos nos van a cascar», y como pude equivocarme tanto xD.

En el momento que mostraron el juego en el último E3 no pude evitar enamorarme con esa música, esos gráficos tan Nintendo, ese tipo de juego que no me esperaba para nada, en general fue toda una sorpresa y captaron totalmente mi atención (Adoro los Srpg). Recientemente me he pasado el juego al 100% así que voy a soltarme un poco explicando mi experiencia.



Del apartado gráfico y musical poco voy a decir, sublime todo. Disfruté enormemente con los escenarios y la música que acompañaba en todo momento. Prefiero adentrarme más en la jugabilidad que es uno de los puntos fuertes con un amplio abanico de posibilidades a la hora de afrontar cada combate. Contamos con 8 personajes completamente diferentes entre ellos, con habilidades y roles muy variados que harán que podamos completar una misión de una forma u otra. Luigi por ejemplo tiene mucho daño, alcance y movilidad, pero es el personaje con menos vida del juego.

Quizás una de las «pegas» que le pongo al juego es que solo podemos utilizar 3 personajes a la vez, así que en consecuencia también nos encontraremos con mapas pequeños en su mayor parte. Al menos nos dan la posibilidad de cambiar los integrantes del equipo y las armas antes de cada combate, así que podemos probar diferentes estrategias sin perder demasiado tiempo en hacer las gestiones.

La gran variedad de enemigos por su parte también contará con diferentes habilidades para complicarnos la vida, ya sean de movilidad, de reacción según lo que hagamos nosotros y de otros muchos tipos. También hay bastantes jefes y mini-jefes, muy diversos y divertidos de combatir aunque de primeras parezcan bastante duros.

La campaña es sublime, divertida a mas no poder y llena de humor que a pesar de odiar los Rabbids a muerte les he acabado cogiendo mucho cariño (Sobre todo a Rabbid Peach). Suelo leer que es bastante difícil, pero sinceramente solo lo pasé algo mal en 3 o 4 combates y en la mayoría de ellos ni siquiera morí sino que me pasaba del límite de turnos o perdía algún personaje, y es que a medida que vas avanzando en el juego y desbloqueando personajes se va haciendo cada vez más fácil llegando al punto de que el tramo final casi que fue un paseo, pero como ya he dicho el juego lo he disfrutado mucho igualmente.

A medida que avanzas en la campaña irás desbloqueando misiones extra e irás consiguiendo habilidades para utilizar en el mapa y desbloquear nuevos caminos, por lo que te verás obligado a volver a mundos anteriores a ver que te has podido dejar. El caso es que la mayoría de estos desafíos extra son extremadamente fáciles, a lo mejor te llenan una zona con 30 enemigos, que con correr a la casilla del final en el primer turno ya te la pasas. Podría decirse que en este sentido me ha decepcionado un poco el juego, esperaba que me diera muchas mas horas de entretenimiento como fue la campaña y sin embargo me he encontrado con misiones que se repetían mucho entre sí, sin ninguna chicha y que hicieron que se me quitaran las ganas de jugar por momentos.

A pesar de todo lo he disfrutado enormemente, pero he de admitir que ahora mismo no recomendaría comprarlo al precio que está. Tras pasármelo puedo decir que dudo mucho que lo vuelva a tocar en un futuro próximo y lejano e incluso he barajado la opción de deshacerme de el (y nunca me ha gustado eso de deshacerme de mis juegos xD). Me da pena, pero es que lo tendría en la estantería cogiendo polvo, y si el dlc que van a sacar es del estilo de los desafíos extras pues no me llama la atención.

Pese a todo lo considero un buen título de la consola, y espero que en el futuro exploten mucho más la idea y nos traigan algo de mayor calidad sin tener que recurrir a la repetición de misiones ni similares. En mi opinión donde mas falla es en el Postgame, no está a la altura de lo que debería ser tras la pedazo de campaña que nos han ofrecido y además deberían ajustar un poco la dificultad para que vaya evolucionando a medida que va evolucionando el jugador también. Por lo demás vuelvo a repetir que ha sido una grata sorpresa y que estoy deseando ver mas proyectos de este tipo en la Nintendo Switch.

Lo que me ha gustado:

+Apartado Visual y Música.
+Los Rabbids importantes de la historia, sobre todo Rabbid Peach que se convirtió un personaje fijo en mi equipo solo por las tonterías que hacía xD.
+Los bosses y los mini-jefes, muy originales y divertidos.
+Gran variedad de enemigos.
+Muchas mecánicas diferentes al ser tan diferentes todos los personajes jugables que dan pie a que puedas usar muchas estrategias diferentes.

Lo que no me ha gustado

-Post Game muy repetitivo y soso.
-Baja dificultad, a medida que avanzas en la campaña se va facilitando muchísimo.

This game has been out for years now so if you haven't played it, you either don't have a Switch or don't have enough interest in it. So I will try and give you reasons why to play this game and spoil some gameplay details along the way but will save what the bosses are.

This game doesn't appeal to me, "Mario and Rabbids: Battle Kingdom", I mean Rabbids are basically the original Minions. I've heard it called a "Baby's first XCOM" and I, for one, am not about strategy or turn based combat. So, then why is it that when I got my Switch, this was the first thing that came to mind that I wanted to get?

I haven't played many games on the Switch yet but I can tell that there are games that are best played on the TV, best played on tablet, and best played with the Joycons loose, some fall under all of the above such as Super Mario Odyssey. This falls under the best kind of tablet game, it's like it was meant to be played port-ably and is something you can play a level here and there, casually, or seriously and play a whole chapter's worth.

This is pretty much as clever as it gets, it's no wonder they got Grant Kirkhope to compose it, it has the humor of Banjo Kazooie, it's not even Minions-like humor, it's charming to the max.

There are times where you'll play a stage and just go guns blazing but you need to be careful because sometimes there will be a gauntlet of levels and you will either have to find a mushroom or just go straight to another level before it heals you again. Of course later in the game you can switch up the characters (that have more health) but you shouldn't always assume it as a fail-safe, especially for a boss, so if you're low on health and haven't found a mushroom, change BEFORE you get to the level, that is if you keep your other character's stats and weapons, good and balanced.

Ok, I hear this and that about how everybody loves Rabbid Peach and while her gameplay has a lot of perks, Rabbid Luigi was instantly my favorite and I tried to use him for every battle, I mean he has a Yo-Yo and his hat is on sideways, how can you not love him? I made him a beast with his 'Vampire' ability which allows you to slide into enemies and take some of their health to add it to yours. There is a Fridge boss that it's strongly recommended not to use him but I sure as heck tried. So you will more than likely get attached to a certain character but it's up to you who it will be towards and remember that you might not be able to use them EVERY time. You can choose to have 3 different characters at a time but one of them has to be Mario, he's a default and you can't exchange him. There have been multiple times where all my other characters have died and all I have left is Rabbid Luigi and I pull a clutch with that Vampire ability, making a clean sweep and finishing the level alone, I wasn't really able to do that with any other characters (though I valued Rabbid Luigi more so maybe I didn't try hard enough). And don't worry, even if you don't have a character in your current party, they still obtain skill points for the skill tree so you won't have to grind for a character once you unlock them or anything.

So, how do you make your character stronger if every level is right in front of you and not really an RPG style of sidequests? Well, there are little puzzles you can go around, collect coins, hidden chests, some cannons that you can shoot out of that take you to a Red Coin type level (except blue coins) and you get a new weapon out of it. Also you can go back to worlds you've completed and complete challenges, I usually hate doing stuff like that but it's all good in this game. And it's not required, this game is pretty balanced, it's not too hard but not too easy either, there's no difficulty setting so that's good to hear. Sometimes I would play a boss just to kind of test them out and see what they did and then adjust for my second playthrough for them when I inevitably failed. There are definitely some levels I would spend a few days on, usually those bosses and I would lay in bed thinking of different strategies to beat them, some of those were the most satisfying after beating. Now that may sound like a lot of thinking and seem repetitive but it doesn't force you to come up with a strategy, do you think I actually did stuff intentionally? Not really, I used trial and error and it never even got tired, I usually fail the same level of a game just a few times before putting it down and say "I can't do this." because yeah, I am kind of a baby when it comes to some of these games but I feel accomplished when I beat stuff like this. This is where the 'Baby's first XCOM' comes into play, if you're not into that genre, this is the right game for you but if you are into the genre, you're experienced and it may seem a bit more tame but it's still a good play, Win-Win.

Given that topic, if you feel "too challenged" then it will offer you extra health for a level so it will heal your party up and add some extra, but I like to think of it as the chicken hat in MGS5, only use it if you need it, and even if you do need it, it's not ridiculously easy once you have it. I HAVE failed using the extra health before, sometimes you're just not using the right characters or weapons or need something from the skill tree, it's not a bail out free card, it's just a boost. I've played the ending gauntlet many times and each time it was different, some times I would do great until the third wave, sometimes it's just left up to chance whether your shot hits or not because if they're hiding behind a wall, it may not hit and are you hitting the enemy with the right character? Maybe you need a different order for maximum damage. It's a lot to process but you're not forced to think about it too hard, you have time, that's why it's turn based, I am describing it in a lot of detail but don't think that it's overly complicated or anything, if it was, as I mentioned, I wouldn't play it, it wouldn't seem so darn good of a game to me if it was.

And before you think that enemies get too easy or anything because you just upgraded everyone, they're constantly introducing new ones so it's always even with where you are in the game. Some of these enemies need to be handled differently because of how they attack such as the big ones without guns, they usually have a big stone or log or something and if they get close to you then they'll do a hefty amount of damage so it's always entertaining, keeps you on your toes, and brings me to my next topic.

I suppose it's easy to think that they all just have similar blasters but that's wrong. Most weapons come with a status effect such as honey which prevents them from moving on the next turn, ink which does the opposite and prevents weapons from being used, flame which catches them on fire and and makes them run around until they are extinguished, this ability is especially cool because if they hit another enemy, he will also be on fire, that doubles for you though so be careful with placement. There are also some other abilities but I'll get back to this topic in a minute. Not only are there different variations, which really just fit your preference, but there are also shotgun types which only have a short range but a higher amount of damage, rubber-duck grenades, yes you heard me right, and they're even decorated, there's even a Sam (King)Fisher one from Splinter Cell, not even joking. There are hammers which can get multiple enemies at once if you're within range, and these things that are called sentries but don't shoot anything, they're more like rolling bombs, they can be used to divert an enemy's attention away or can be used similar to a grenade but with more power, and then there are rocket launchers which can fire farther and machine guns which are a bit of an odd ball because you shoot a bunch of weaker bullets vs one big blast but you have more of a chance of hitting due to it's ability to instantly break a wall that an enemy may be hiding behind, leaving them open for the next person. I also wanted to mention that before you attack, aiming at an enemy shows you how much damage you'll do, I guess that's easy to look past or expect but given I haven't played a tactical game of this nature, I want to be thorough.

It tosses it up with a few different types of missions, rather than just walking from area to area to fight the next battle, you actually get some landscape to look at, some puzzles which are actually quite fun, I like a good puzzle and it makes me want to try Captain Toad, but there are also escort missions. Most players dread escort missions in games because they take forever to follow you, this is in a different genre though. It will give you a goal and all you have to do is get that character (most of the time it's Toad) to the goal, sure they can't attack or anything and you have to rely on your other characters to defend but you don't have to defeat all the enemies like most stages, just get to the goal and you control the escort just like you would any other character so they don't drag behind. My only slight complaint with this is that Toad or whoever, isn't be able to use a teammate to bounce like everyone else but it's still fine. Same with the bosses, the only requirement is to just beat the boss, there will be other enemies too though. Before you think you can cheese it that way, most bosses have multiple health bars so you may take out their first form tanking hits with guns blazing but will you have enough to last the second and third form? Probably not so you need to take out those side enemies first because for one, they make it harder, and two, once the second form comes, the boss will bring a second wave of enemies and if you don't have the first wave beat yet then it will stack.

Ok, so easily the best thing about this game is the atmosphere, every little detail feels so good to just walk around in, they didn't have to make the world so good but they did, this accompanied with Grant Kirkhope's music is splendid even the different versions of classic Mario tracks. My favorite one would have to be "Exploring the Mine". With that, the designs for characters, enemies, and such will be added as collectible models throughout the worlds, it's a fun little thing to look for if you're into that sort of thing, I made sure to get a few for the bosses I liked the most. This goes double for the music tracks, you can collect them and go back and play them in the museum. But back to the way it looks, it looks so good that there will be points where Beep-O (who is kind of the guide and serves as a reason this tactical map exists) will have a magnifying glass option and if you press it, he will bring attention to certain landscapes and sights such as a Rabbid in a hot tub burning himself or a Bullet Bill with Underpants on his head, it's all in good fun and really makes you see the vibe they're going for with this fusion between worlds. The landscape for battles includes these pipes that you can travel between to slide kick enemies easier and get a better piece of ground to defend, it's really cool when you get a chain of attacks for example: With Mario, you can stomp on top of enemies, so you slide kick an enemy, bounce off of a teammate to get farther, land by stomping on another enemy then finally make your destination where you want to shoot, so much damage can come from just one turn if you really know what you're doing. And about those effects like flame, there will be different boxes around the stage where if an enemy is stationed behind them and you can't see them good enough to get a hit in, you can fire anyway and hit the box, making the effect hit the enemy so it wasn't a wasted shot and may even make them vulnerable enough for another character to shoot.

Some characters have something like "Hero-Sight" or "Steely-Stare", this is amazing, it's up there with the Vampire ability for me. This comes in handy for those bulkier enemies with the stones and if you have a weapon that has "bounce" it's so freaking satisfying because you can use the ability, fire at the enemy and if they make an attempt to get closer then your character will shoot a few more times.

There is a bit of a problem when you don't properly close the game however because sometimes I would just leave it open on the home screen then shut the console off and come back to it later. Yeah only do that once or twice, don't leave it on standby every time because what will start happening is that the models for some of the items and characters will glitch and turn into blocks, it's not a performance based issue, just visual but it was my fault in the first place for not closing the game for so long so I can't really complain.

There is a bit of DLC that I'm actually considering getting (if it wasn't as much as the base game, crimeny!)because it expands off the story and revolves around Donkey Kong, so that's cool. Speaking of after the game, there is end game content. Throughout you unlock puzzle abilities such as moving crates, picking up totems to put them on pedestals so you can unlock new areas, break blocks, and drill a hole. You can go back to each of the worlds and finish some puzzles you weren't able to before because you didn't have one of those unlocked, if you're going for 100% that is or even if you're just trying to make some extra moolah during the game.

It really sucks how many people never gave this game a chance because of the IP and concept. The extensive movement available in a single turn and the options you have for kit customization gave me a strong sense of pride as my team's identity developed across the game. My biggest issue is the restrictions on who you put on your team: I used Mario, Luigi, and Rabbid Peach for pretty much the whole game and felt discouraged from using anyone else. The late-game puzzles also felt like a bit of a slog, and the game ended a little abruptly. But otherwise, this is a really great tactics game.

This is one of those games that makes you say "This has no right to be as good as it is". Before borrow this game from a friend, I had never played a tactical game like this. But, as a sucker for all things Mario, it intrigued me. And I'm glad it did.

The blend of Rabbids and Mario works extremely well. The antics of Rabbids almost temper the crazy of the Mario characters, but it works well when they bounce off each other. The combat was entirely new to me, but is extremely complex and well thought out. It requires you to think about positioning and not just power, making for some very enjoyable strategy.

The weapons and customization for every character was great, especially the skill tree progression. Story wise it's nothing amazing, but it's good fun for a game with Rabbids at its focus.