If there’s one game that sums up the old saying, “don’t judge a book by its cover,” it’s Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle. Against all odds, this raving union successfully breathed new life into both franchises while also innovating on the turn-based strategy gameplay characterized by the XCOM franchise. The greater emphasis on movement and streamlining hit accuracies to 0%, 50%, and 100% opened the strategy floodgates for both the player and enemies during battles. This dynamism cemented it as one of the best early Switch titles.
Following up that success was a no-brainer, but Ubisoft could no longer hide behind the novelty of the concept. As fun as Kingdom Battle was, it featured some baffling design choices in hindsight, like limited team customization options and a pointless coin economy. To elaborate on the latter, coins were used to buy increasingly powerful versions of existing weapons to fight stronger opponents. This arms race didn’t make for deeper gameplay so much as offer that pleasureful sensation of seeing the numbers go up. Textbook example of a tacked-on RPG system. Additionally, new enemies stopped being introduced in the last world, which made for a plodding finale.
The sequel, Sparks of Hope, fixes most of these issues. You can now pick any three characters you want for a battle and the coins have been repurposed for buying optional battle items. Enemy variety has also been improved, but it’s unfortunately spread thin throughout the lengthy campaign, especially if you go for 100% completion like I did. The AI should have also been a lot better. Even on the highest difficulty, enemies never take advantage of environmental hazards like Bob-ombs, exploding barrels, and gusts of wind. These could have made for some tense battles of cat and mouse, but instead hazards can only be exploited by the player. Sometimes I could formulate a winning strategy just by looking at the map.
The lower difficulty wasn’t a big issue for me though, and that’s because Sparks of Hope makes subtle gameplay refinements that pack a huge punch once you sink your teeth into them. When I saw the trailers, I was confused on what exactly was different about the combat. Kingdom Battle’s grid-based system being replaced with analog movement didn’t appear to change the fundamentals since it was obvious that tiles were still being used to calculate character movement. They were just invisible now. What was the point of being able to freely move around? Then I started playing, and everything gradually made sense. Let me explain.
One of the ways Kingdom Battle emphasized mobility on the battlefield was dashing. How it worked was if an enemy was within a character’s movement range, they could dash into the enemy for extra damage. However, due to limited controller options, Kingdom Battle forced the use of an analog stick for selecting specific tiles on the grid via cursor. Every PC player knows how imprecise this feels compared to a mouse. Unless you moved the cursor really slowly, it was easy to accidentally select a tile next to a dashable enemy, meaning your character would move there instead of dashing first and waste an attack opportunity. A confirmation prompt would’ve alleviated this, but I suspect Ubisoft thought having to click through the same textbox three times per turn would have been absurd. On that, I wholeheartedly agree. The sequel’s analog movement system improves on this because it allows you to position yourself before you dash into enemies, letting you execute actions quickly while ensuring any mistakes made are your fault. It’s a more natural fit for a home console game.
Another unique movement ability was the team jump, allowing one of your units to jump off a teammate to reach a part of the arena they otherwise couldn’t. Sparks of Hope builds on this by allowing you to move a set distance after jumping, indicated by a range circle. You can pull off some sick jump combos with this newfound freedom if you line up your teammates correctly. The 3D World jump panels in some levels are particularly fun to exploit since they don’t count towards a character’s team jump, letting you use as many of them as possible during a turn. This may sound broken, but the maps tend to be larger than those from Kingdom Battle, so I think it all checks out.
The increased freedom of movement is rounded out with the addition of Sparks, Rabbids that have fused with Lumas from Super Mario Galaxy. These can provide passive abilities like an elemental buff for exploiting enemy weaknesses or something powerful like turning invisible, preventing enemies from targeting the user. Each character can carry two Sparks, meaning you can bring six of them into most encounters. They definitely contribute to fights being easier compared to Kingdom Battle, but I had such a blast trying out different character and Spark combinations that I really don’t mind. It’s also important to note Ubisoft limited characters to performing two actions per turn. An action consists of using a character’s weapon, technique, Spark, or a battle item. This means using a Spark locks you out of being able to use that character’s weapon and technique in the same turn. Sparks and techniques also operate on cooldowns and using a character’s weapon locks them in place for the remainder of the turn, so there are trade-offs to consider during the tougher skirmishes.
The freedom even extends beyond the battles. All of the hub worlds are open zones (open world is too misleading a term imo) allowing you to tackle battles and complete side quests in almost any order you see fit. The light puzzle-solving from Kingdom Battle returns, serving as a nice breather after the normal battles. Beep-O also obtains a handful of abilities that open previously inaccessible sections of a map. Unlike the best Metroidvanias, however, this forced backtracking doesn’t enhance the experience. The abilities you need to fully complete a zone are always found on the next one and there’s so little content you’re unable to access the first time that I don’t see why Ubisoft couldn’t go the full mile and make everything accessible in one visit.
Overall, Sparks of Hope feels more confident with its gameplay foundation, but Kingdom Battle is still worth playing for its higher difficulty and deviant Mushroom Kingdom setting. The playerbase seems split on which one they like more. I’m currently swinging towards the sequel, but not by much. Both are quality titles and well worth your attention.
Following up that success was a no-brainer, but Ubisoft could no longer hide behind the novelty of the concept. As fun as Kingdom Battle was, it featured some baffling design choices in hindsight, like limited team customization options and a pointless coin economy. To elaborate on the latter, coins were used to buy increasingly powerful versions of existing weapons to fight stronger opponents. This arms race didn’t make for deeper gameplay so much as offer that pleasureful sensation of seeing the numbers go up. Textbook example of a tacked-on RPG system. Additionally, new enemies stopped being introduced in the last world, which made for a plodding finale.
The sequel, Sparks of Hope, fixes most of these issues. You can now pick any three characters you want for a battle and the coins have been repurposed for buying optional battle items. Enemy variety has also been improved, but it’s unfortunately spread thin throughout the lengthy campaign, especially if you go for 100% completion like I did. The AI should have also been a lot better. Even on the highest difficulty, enemies never take advantage of environmental hazards like Bob-ombs, exploding barrels, and gusts of wind. These could have made for some tense battles of cat and mouse, but instead hazards can only be exploited by the player. Sometimes I could formulate a winning strategy just by looking at the map.
The lower difficulty wasn’t a big issue for me though, and that’s because Sparks of Hope makes subtle gameplay refinements that pack a huge punch once you sink your teeth into them. When I saw the trailers, I was confused on what exactly was different about the combat. Kingdom Battle’s grid-based system being replaced with analog movement didn’t appear to change the fundamentals since it was obvious that tiles were still being used to calculate character movement. They were just invisible now. What was the point of being able to freely move around? Then I started playing, and everything gradually made sense. Let me explain.
One of the ways Kingdom Battle emphasized mobility on the battlefield was dashing. How it worked was if an enemy was within a character’s movement range, they could dash into the enemy for extra damage. However, due to limited controller options, Kingdom Battle forced the use of an analog stick for selecting specific tiles on the grid via cursor. Every PC player knows how imprecise this feels compared to a mouse. Unless you moved the cursor really slowly, it was easy to accidentally select a tile next to a dashable enemy, meaning your character would move there instead of dashing first and waste an attack opportunity. A confirmation prompt would’ve alleviated this, but I suspect Ubisoft thought having to click through the same textbox three times per turn would have been absurd. On that, I wholeheartedly agree. The sequel’s analog movement system improves on this because it allows you to position yourself before you dash into enemies, letting you execute actions quickly while ensuring any mistakes made are your fault. It’s a more natural fit for a home console game.
Another unique movement ability was the team jump, allowing one of your units to jump off a teammate to reach a part of the arena they otherwise couldn’t. Sparks of Hope builds on this by allowing you to move a set distance after jumping, indicated by a range circle. You can pull off some sick jump combos with this newfound freedom if you line up your teammates correctly. The 3D World jump panels in some levels are particularly fun to exploit since they don’t count towards a character’s team jump, letting you use as many of them as possible during a turn. This may sound broken, but the maps tend to be larger than those from Kingdom Battle, so I think it all checks out.
The increased freedom of movement is rounded out with the addition of Sparks, Rabbids that have fused with Lumas from Super Mario Galaxy. These can provide passive abilities like an elemental buff for exploiting enemy weaknesses or something powerful like turning invisible, preventing enemies from targeting the user. Each character can carry two Sparks, meaning you can bring six of them into most encounters. They definitely contribute to fights being easier compared to Kingdom Battle, but I had such a blast trying out different character and Spark combinations that I really don’t mind. It’s also important to note Ubisoft limited characters to performing two actions per turn. An action consists of using a character’s weapon, technique, Spark, or a battle item. This means using a Spark locks you out of being able to use that character’s weapon and technique in the same turn. Sparks and techniques also operate on cooldowns and using a character’s weapon locks them in place for the remainder of the turn, so there are trade-offs to consider during the tougher skirmishes.
The freedom even extends beyond the battles. All of the hub worlds are open zones (open world is too misleading a term imo) allowing you to tackle battles and complete side quests in almost any order you see fit. The light puzzle-solving from Kingdom Battle returns, serving as a nice breather after the normal battles. Beep-O also obtains a handful of abilities that open previously inaccessible sections of a map. Unlike the best Metroidvanias, however, this forced backtracking doesn’t enhance the experience. The abilities you need to fully complete a zone are always found on the next one and there’s so little content you’re unable to access the first time that I don’t see why Ubisoft couldn’t go the full mile and make everything accessible in one visit.
Overall, Sparks of Hope feels more confident with its gameplay foundation, but Kingdom Battle is still worth playing for its higher difficulty and deviant Mushroom Kingdom setting. The playerbase seems split on which one they like more. I’m currently swinging towards the sequel, but not by much. Both are quality titles and well worth your attention.