You may remember that when the first leaks appeared for this game about a month before E3 2017, the internet went berserk. All of the Nintendo subreddits were incredulous with rage - “How could they poison the glorious world of my sacred son Mario with these disgusting discount minions?” They typed angrily, adjusting their fedoras and wiping Cheeto dust off their neckbeards. Oh, how they raged. This is why leaks are bad. People decide what something is before they know and make a decision about it with no basis in fact.
When Ubisoft’s conference came around, everyone was braced for the worst - a Raving Rabbids game where Mario maybe jumps on some goombas and farts on Luigi, or something. What we were shown was incredible. A turn-based tactical strategy RPG? Starring Mario??? This hadn’t been seen since the last time Nintendo rented out Mario to another studio (Square Enix in 1996 for Super Mario RPG) 20 years ago. And Shigeru Miyamoto is here? Mario’s father?? Fans ran out of reasons to be angry quickly as the presentation continued. Tactical overhead strategy cameras, skill trees, weapon upgrades, status effects, party composition strategy, 16 completely different weapon types - no one had expected any of this. And people started to get hyped. And they were not disappointed.
The raving Rabbids have been known as the “Minions of video games” and to some extent, yeah, that’s true. But they have a certain charm to them in that they haven’t become the face of excessive, all-consuming capitalism like their yellow, one-eyed counterparts. Yeah, they’re wacky and dumb. But that’s why they slide so easily into the Mushroom Kingdom and feel like they were always a part of it. Mario games are about a plumber and his cowardly brother that go on adventures crushing mushrooms and turtles, sometimes riding a dinosaur, in pursuit of a princess who’s been kidnapped by the turtle king for the Nth time. They’re already wacky and dumb, and that is part of what makes them great.
So, the game. As stated above, this an overhead camera tactical strategy RPG… it’s XCOM. It’s XCOM, but this time, Mario and is friends are here. And the Rabbids too? First of all, the story is exactly wacky enough that it is self-aware, but not so far that it becomes a parody of itself. A big Nintendo geek scientist (I related closely to her) creates a machine that combines items into one. The Rabbids predictably get up to their shenanigans and combine themselves with all of her Nintendo merch, creating a Rabbid-infested Mushroom Kingdom. You’ll take control of Mario, Rabbid Peach, and Rabbid Luigi at the start of the game, looking for your friends and a way to rescue the Rabbid with the combining power from the villain, Boswer Jr. It’s cute, it’s funny, it’s non intrusive, and it doesn’t involve a lot of farting on Luigi. A little, but not a lot.
There’s two modes: exploration and combat. Exploration mode is a simple jaunt through the kingdom, with funny remarks on the Rabbid monuments and puzzles ranging anywhere from “my hamster could solve this” to “I can’t believe I’m googling the solution to a puzzle in Mario Rabbids.” Collect coins and do some minigames for extra skill points. Simple stuff, beautiful environment, and wonderful musical arrangements by Grant Kirkope. He does a great job on the base game, but his work for the Donkey Kong DLC is even better.
Combat mode is of course the meat of the game. The turn based strategy combat pits you against a wide variety of enemies with different abilities and weaknesses, and a healthy amount of unique bosses across the 4 worlds. You pick a party of 3 characters from the ones you’ve unlocked, upgrade their individual skill trees, upgrade their weapons if you’ve got the cash, and then head into battle. Each turn consists of movement, an attack, and a special attack.These are fairly standard trappings for this sort of game.The completely undersold revolutionary mechanic in this game is called the Super Jump. Sheer brilliance.
Your characters, as well as the enemies, have the ability to run to a teammate, jump on their heads, and sail through the air to another spot on the map. This means you can effectively double the mobility of your entire team if you are smart about where you position them. Some characters can even be tossed onto enemies’ heads and perform a stomp attack (you guessed it, that’s Mario’s thing). There are ground pounds and other aerial attacks that can only be performed this way. Super jumping off a teammate also heals them of status effects! Super jumps are a very important part of the game and if you haven’t used one for a turn, you probably could be doing better.
Each of the 8 available characters has a totally different primary and secondary weapon. For reference, that’s Mario, Luigi, Peach, Yoshi, Rabbid Mario, Rabbid Luigi, Rabbid Peach, and Rabbid Yoshi. One of my two negatives about the game is that Rabbid Yoshi is not available to unlock until ¾ of the way through the game, and Yoshi is not unlockable until shortly before the final boss. Switching between just Mario, Luigi, Rabbid Luigi, and Rabbid Peach for the first half of the game still gives you surprising versatility though. Luigi is a Sniper, Rabbid Peach is a Healer, Rabbid Luigi is basically a rogue assassin… it sounds insane when it’s put like that, but it is how the game is built.
Now for my only other gripe with this game - you have 3 spots in your party. One of them is always Mario. That’s right, Mario is always on your team. In addition, one of your party members must be a Rabbid at all times. The second thing doesn’t anger me, because this game is called Mario Rabbids. But goddamn, Mario. He’s possibly the weakest character of the bunch, and while sometimes his unique abilities are useful, you’ll mostly be thinking “Why can’t I just use Luigi instead?” This game could have been a perfect 10 if this was fixed. The main reason I gripe about this is that you only get healed every 2 fights, and you HAVE to use Mario for both of them. Meaning that if Mario is gravely injured in the first battle, the second battle becomes “Protect Mario.” And that’s … not as fun. It kills it a little for me. There was actually a time in World 4 where Mario was so hurt going into a second battle that I had to restart the first battle in the set so I could have a chance at beating the second one, which is insane. But I digress.
So how hard is this game? Um, it can get pretty damn hard. There’s luckily an “easy mode” you can activate on a per-battle basis, which I have to admit I used 4 times over the course of the game when I got stuck. I’m not an avid player of these kinds of game, and maybe someone who plays a lot of XCOM found it easy. For me, this was a challenge. I had to restart probably a dozen different battles because I was outsmarted by the AI. Be patient and don’t be afraid to use easy mode if needed.
So the DLC adds a few super hard stages, which I have not yet completed, a ton of co-op stages I haven’t played yet, and an entirely new expansion almost half the size of the base game, Donkey Kong Adventure. I am roughly halfway through DK Adventure as of writing this, and I’ll just say that it is, for better or worse, more of the same. You’ll find all the same charm and wit of the base game, just based in the world of Donkey Kong country instead. New enemies, new heroes, new weapon classes, new game modes - it’s well worth the price of admission. If you get this game, you’re doing yourself a disservice by not playing the DK expansion. If you didn’t like the base game, you won’t like this. I haven’t played the co-op modes because they are local co op only, and my local friends are not really the gaming types. The co op challenges will last you about 30 hours to do all of them, so there’s plenty there as well. So the verdict.
With the exceptions of the two negatives I mentioned earlier (character unlocks being spaced too far apart and having to use Mario all the time), this game is perfect. The world is charming, the jokes are funny, and it’s not too easy or handholdey. Even if you’re not a fan of strategy games or the Rabbids, this is one not to miss. Make sure to get the Gold Edition - the DLC is well worth it.
When Ubisoft’s conference came around, everyone was braced for the worst - a Raving Rabbids game where Mario maybe jumps on some goombas and farts on Luigi, or something. What we were shown was incredible. A turn-based tactical strategy RPG? Starring Mario??? This hadn’t been seen since the last time Nintendo rented out Mario to another studio (Square Enix in 1996 for Super Mario RPG) 20 years ago. And Shigeru Miyamoto is here? Mario’s father?? Fans ran out of reasons to be angry quickly as the presentation continued. Tactical overhead strategy cameras, skill trees, weapon upgrades, status effects, party composition strategy, 16 completely different weapon types - no one had expected any of this. And people started to get hyped. And they were not disappointed.
The raving Rabbids have been known as the “Minions of video games” and to some extent, yeah, that’s true. But they have a certain charm to them in that they haven’t become the face of excessive, all-consuming capitalism like their yellow, one-eyed counterparts. Yeah, they’re wacky and dumb. But that’s why they slide so easily into the Mushroom Kingdom and feel like they were always a part of it. Mario games are about a plumber and his cowardly brother that go on adventures crushing mushrooms and turtles, sometimes riding a dinosaur, in pursuit of a princess who’s been kidnapped by the turtle king for the Nth time. They’re already wacky and dumb, and that is part of what makes them great.
So, the game. As stated above, this an overhead camera tactical strategy RPG… it’s XCOM. It’s XCOM, but this time, Mario and is friends are here. And the Rabbids too? First of all, the story is exactly wacky enough that it is self-aware, but not so far that it becomes a parody of itself. A big Nintendo geek scientist (I related closely to her) creates a machine that combines items into one. The Rabbids predictably get up to their shenanigans and combine themselves with all of her Nintendo merch, creating a Rabbid-infested Mushroom Kingdom. You’ll take control of Mario, Rabbid Peach, and Rabbid Luigi at the start of the game, looking for your friends and a way to rescue the Rabbid with the combining power from the villain, Boswer Jr. It’s cute, it’s funny, it’s non intrusive, and it doesn’t involve a lot of farting on Luigi. A little, but not a lot.
There’s two modes: exploration and combat. Exploration mode is a simple jaunt through the kingdom, with funny remarks on the Rabbid monuments and puzzles ranging anywhere from “my hamster could solve this” to “I can’t believe I’m googling the solution to a puzzle in Mario Rabbids.” Collect coins and do some minigames for extra skill points. Simple stuff, beautiful environment, and wonderful musical arrangements by Grant Kirkope. He does a great job on the base game, but his work for the Donkey Kong DLC is even better.
Combat mode is of course the meat of the game. The turn based strategy combat pits you against a wide variety of enemies with different abilities and weaknesses, and a healthy amount of unique bosses across the 4 worlds. You pick a party of 3 characters from the ones you’ve unlocked, upgrade their individual skill trees, upgrade their weapons if you’ve got the cash, and then head into battle. Each turn consists of movement, an attack, and a special attack.These are fairly standard trappings for this sort of game.The completely undersold revolutionary mechanic in this game is called the Super Jump. Sheer brilliance.
Your characters, as well as the enemies, have the ability to run to a teammate, jump on their heads, and sail through the air to another spot on the map. This means you can effectively double the mobility of your entire team if you are smart about where you position them. Some characters can even be tossed onto enemies’ heads and perform a stomp attack (you guessed it, that’s Mario’s thing). There are ground pounds and other aerial attacks that can only be performed this way. Super jumping off a teammate also heals them of status effects! Super jumps are a very important part of the game and if you haven’t used one for a turn, you probably could be doing better.
Each of the 8 available characters has a totally different primary and secondary weapon. For reference, that’s Mario, Luigi, Peach, Yoshi, Rabbid Mario, Rabbid Luigi, Rabbid Peach, and Rabbid Yoshi. One of my two negatives about the game is that Rabbid Yoshi is not available to unlock until ¾ of the way through the game, and Yoshi is not unlockable until shortly before the final boss. Switching between just Mario, Luigi, Rabbid Luigi, and Rabbid Peach for the first half of the game still gives you surprising versatility though. Luigi is a Sniper, Rabbid Peach is a Healer, Rabbid Luigi is basically a rogue assassin… it sounds insane when it’s put like that, but it is how the game is built.
Now for my only other gripe with this game - you have 3 spots in your party. One of them is always Mario. That’s right, Mario is always on your team. In addition, one of your party members must be a Rabbid at all times. The second thing doesn’t anger me, because this game is called Mario Rabbids. But goddamn, Mario. He’s possibly the weakest character of the bunch, and while sometimes his unique abilities are useful, you’ll mostly be thinking “Why can’t I just use Luigi instead?” This game could have been a perfect 10 if this was fixed. The main reason I gripe about this is that you only get healed every 2 fights, and you HAVE to use Mario for both of them. Meaning that if Mario is gravely injured in the first battle, the second battle becomes “Protect Mario.” And that’s … not as fun. It kills it a little for me. There was actually a time in World 4 where Mario was so hurt going into a second battle that I had to restart the first battle in the set so I could have a chance at beating the second one, which is insane. But I digress.
So how hard is this game? Um, it can get pretty damn hard. There’s luckily an “easy mode” you can activate on a per-battle basis, which I have to admit I used 4 times over the course of the game when I got stuck. I’m not an avid player of these kinds of game, and maybe someone who plays a lot of XCOM found it easy. For me, this was a challenge. I had to restart probably a dozen different battles because I was outsmarted by the AI. Be patient and don’t be afraid to use easy mode if needed.
So the DLC adds a few super hard stages, which I have not yet completed, a ton of co-op stages I haven’t played yet, and an entirely new expansion almost half the size of the base game, Donkey Kong Adventure. I am roughly halfway through DK Adventure as of writing this, and I’ll just say that it is, for better or worse, more of the same. You’ll find all the same charm and wit of the base game, just based in the world of Donkey Kong country instead. New enemies, new heroes, new weapon classes, new game modes - it’s well worth the price of admission. If you get this game, you’re doing yourself a disservice by not playing the DK expansion. If you didn’t like the base game, you won’t like this. I haven’t played the co-op modes because they are local co op only, and my local friends are not really the gaming types. The co op challenges will last you about 30 hours to do all of them, so there’s plenty there as well. So the verdict.
With the exceptions of the two negatives I mentioned earlier (character unlocks being spaced too far apart and having to use Mario all the time), this game is perfect. The world is charming, the jokes are funny, and it’s not too easy or handholdey. Even if you’re not a fan of strategy games or the Rabbids, this is one not to miss. Make sure to get the Gold Edition - the DLC is well worth it.
Reviewed on May 30, 2022