They come out with seven or eight different Mario games every year. From platformers to party games, there is always something new to play. It’s exhausting to keep up with it all, so you kinda need to figure out which ones you like. For me, I enjoy the main 3D platformers, plus any Papers, Parties, or Karts that come out. Sports games aren’t my speed and I’ve never been very good at 2D platforming outside of the super classic staples.
But a few years ago at E3, a trailer dropped for something called Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle. Obnoxious white rabbits from Ubisoft’s IP locker were jumping around, horrible mutations were consuming the Mushroom Kingdom, and Mario had a gun. Sure, it was a silly laser gun instead of a rifle, but it certainly didn’t look like any Mario game I’d ever played.
No, instead it looked like XCOM.
If you’re unfamiliar, XCOM is a game in which you control a ragtag group of humans as they fight off an alien invasion. Combat is turn based and, much like chess, you move your players about the map, which has a grid-like structure. When you fire at enemy aliens, your shot is given a likelihood of success. If you’re far away, you might only have a 22% chance of making the shot. Get closer, and that number jumps to 78%. They might be hiding behind cover, which lowers your percentage, but you can always use a different method to fight, like throwing a grenade. It’s tactical strategy, basically, and it can be engrossing as all hell once you really understand the nuts and bolts.
XCOM is not for kids. It’s not an outrageously inappropriate game, but it’s mentally demanding in a way that leads to a de facto adult audience. You take out some of the blood effects and swap out grenades for rubber duckies and it still wouldn’t work for small children because, well, their brains aren’t really there yet.
So I saw this new Mario trailer and immediately thought “Why is Nintendo taking out the blood effects and swapping out grenades for rubber duckies? This won’t work for small children! Their brains aren’t really there yet!” From the get-go, this game was pretty much Diet XCOM in my head. Why would I play this watered down lookalike when I could play the real deal? I’m not gonna buy this thing!
So I didn’t.
Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle was released in August of 2017 and I didn’t touch it. It was top shelf at the Nintendo store, then it got demoted to the second shelf, and then slowly faded from view. Newer games got released, priorities changed, and we all just kind of moved on.
In the winter of 2018, I was taking a lunchtime walk; I like to get out of the office for twenty minutes or so a day. One of my favorite places to stop is a used bookstore on 45th street. They have more than books, of course, with tons of DVDs, CDs, and video games spanning three floors. That fateful day, I saw that Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle was 50% off. I grabbed it and, hey, it appeared to be in good shape! And for only $30, what the heck! I bought the game and promptly stuck it on my shelf, where it would sit untouched for three months.
I was eventually hit with a bad case of strep throat, because apparently I’m a third grader. I was cooped up at home for five days and had run out of Brooklyn Nine-Nine to binge. I was going to get cabin fever! Luckily, I remembered I bought this weird little game and decided, “Alright, let’s give it a go.” I popped in the cartridge and hit “Start.” As the game began, it appeared as though the developers wanted me to hate it. There was an unskippable cutscene that seemed to never end. It…just…kept…going. Minute plot point after minute plot point, all in service of explaining why the Mario world mixed with the Rabbid world. “I don’t care! I get it! Rabbids are here now, let’s move on!”
After what seemed like an eternity, we finally arrived at real gameplay. It was incredibly, almost embarrassingly, easy. Yeah, shoot the mean Rabbid, I get it. The game is divided into four worlds, each with ten chapters, and each chapter one or two battles, broken up by a logic puzzle of some kind. The combat was exactly what I was concerned it would be…XCOM, but stupider.
But I was home sick, so let’s just see this thing through.
About halfway through the first world, I lost a battle. It was kind of shocking. This was the easy game, remember? Was I…being challenged here? I sat up and started to pay more attention as I gave that fight another go-round. I prevailed, only to find myself losing the very next battle that came up. What the hell? I’ve conquered much harder fights in XCOM, how was this little kid version giving me so much grief?
After struggling for a little while longer, I realized my problem. Yeah, this is a grid system and, sure, you take turns, like in XCOM, but those similarities are just a sort of framework for the game. Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, though on the surface looks a lot like XCOM, is fundamentally different. In the same way that we all share similar skeletons but are wildly diverse people, this game proved that it was something very unique.
“Clone” has long been slang for “thing that is like that other thing.” Sometimes it’s used derisively, because that game couldn’t possibly be worth your time since it’s just an ABC clone! Other times, though, it can be an indicator of things to come. After all, there was a time when Half-Life was considered a DOOM clone. That wasn’t meant as an insult to either game, since they’re both awesome. No, it was used because the phrase “first-person shooter” hadn’t been invented yet. Hey, look at this neat chart!
So, is Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle really an XCOM clone? The answer is: uh, kinda?
Yes, the two games share a loose framework. Battles are both turn based on a grid-like map, your shots in both games have a percentage of success, and you need to learn the “strategy” of enemy combat in order to succeed. That being said, Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle really comes into its own once you look beyond these similarities.
Mario is a man on the move—always has been. He loves to run and jump and bounce and go through pipes. Soldiers in an alien invasion, however, don’t usually do many of those things. It makes sense, then, that Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle is a much more movement-oriented game. It’s not prudent to find a good vantage point and hunker down for the coming battle. No, Mario should run up to Peach, get a boost to his jump, bounce off one Rabbid, land behind another, and then take his shot! Luigi should activate a drone to distract a group of enemies while he runs into a warp pipe that takes him across a chasm. There is a whole map at your disposal, so use it!
XCOM's maps are not randomly generated, but enemies are. Mario + Rabbids isn’t randomly generated in any way. That sounds like a clear vote in favor of XCOM, right? Why would you want your game to be predictable and static?
Again: different, not worse.
The joy of Mario + Rabbids comes from approaching every battle like a puzzle, not like a fight. Because your enemies have some insanely powerful or dynamic moves, every round of combat must be handled with the care of walking a tightrope. The farther you get in the game, the tighter that rope becomes (or is it less tight? What’s harder? I don’t know, I’ve never walked a tightrope). There are ways you can build synergy in your team and, as you develop an understanding of the game, it becomes clear how to play. It’s trial and error right up until that point where you become Neo, looking at the Matrix, and seeing that it’s all just a bunch of ones and zeroes.
Want an example? Here was one of my strategies: Mario and Luigi both have something called “Hero Sight.” It sends them into a watchdog mode, and they will shoot at the next enemy that moves on the field, within range. These skills can be upgraded several times, which means you can get off more shots per “Sight.” Rabbid Mario, on the other hand, has something called a “Magnet Dance,” which attracts all enemies to him. You see where I’m going with this? Activate both Hero Sights, then use a Magnet Dance to get the enemies walking, and Mario and Luigi will unload.
It was a winning strategy, right up until I found myself face-to-face with some ghosts, who don’t move across the map; they teleport. I had to readjust my entire strategy and figure out “the puzzle.” Additionally, boss battles work your brain in much the same way. Your team has all the same abilities against a giant monster as it did in every other fight, but there is an underlying question that you need to answer: “What’s the right way to do it?”
I’m a guy who loves hard sci-fi. In my messed-up brain, everything can be improved by putting it in space. So, again, I never thought that a venue other than that of XCOM would be what my brain wanted. But that’s the other joy of a “clone.” You can do something similar in a different environment and it completely changes things up. In this case, putting things in the family-friendly Mushroom Kingdom did not ruin anything. On the contrary, it gave the game many new freedoms.
Like the freedom to get weird.
Guns shoot ink, so enemies can’t see and bonk into things! Hammers spawn fire so baddies burn their butts and go running in random directions! Rockets shoot honey so Rabbids get stuck to floor, leading them to be eaten by Chain Chomps! Princess Peach, and I can’t stress this point enough, has a grenade that is a rubber ducky!
Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle has since grown to be one of my favorite games on the Nintendo Switch, only behind Breath of the Wild. It’s a game that proves that no “formula” is ever set in stone or that any genre is fully exhausted. It’s a testament to ingenuity and thinking outside the box and the very nature of fun. It’s my top recommendation to anyone any time they are getting burned out on the same old same old. I’m so glad I jumped down the rabbit hole (Rabbid hole?) and I can’t believe I almost missed out on it.
All because it was “just” an XCOM clone.
Post Script
There is a certain wonder to Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle. The sense of adventure is front and center and it fills you with determination. Part of that can be chalked up to good ol’ Nintendo magic, but the other part of it is because of, you guessed it, the music. The score for this game was written by the award-winning Grant Kirkhope, of Banjo-Kazooie fame. So, as tradition in these parts would have it, here are some of my favorite tracks.
Midboss Mayhem: Holy crap. Feel that energy? It’s fun and exciting and springy. The perfect theme for when you’re fighting a Rabbid that’s hurling fireballs at you from inside a plant costume.
Rabbid Kong Rumpus: Same energy as the last track, but this time if feels more, uh, soaring? Like you would be, oh, I don’t know, at the top of a giant tower made out of building blocks fighting a Rabbid version of Donkey Kong?
A Song of Ice and Desert: This game is all about hybrids. It is called Mario + Rabbids, after all. The second world has Mario and friends exploring the unholy merger of a frozen tundra and an arid desert. The result is this track, that manages to capture both wonderfully.
The Phantom of the Bwahpera, Act 1: When you’re in the third world, this one spectacularly spooky, you eventually fight a phantom—one with a fondness for the opera. So, in truly batshit insane Nintendo fashion, you have a Mario-themed opera. Enjoy!
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