Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle - Fully Brewed
Story
Although
the Mario games are not usually praised for having exceptional stories, there
is a simple plot to follow here. The game kicks off with a cutscene of a young
tech-genius girl at her desk in her basement working on a headset called the
SupaMerge. And she is clearly a huge Mario fan herself, given that there are
posters and figurines of the characters from the Mario games - a nod from David
Soliani of course. She leaves the SupaMerge, which comes with an AI assistant
called Beep-O, in the basement as she heads off to bed, not long before the
Rabbids show up in their dimension-hopping washing machine and sure enough,
chaos ensues. As its name suggests, the headset glitches out and merges the Rabbids
with the characters from the Mario memorabilia in the basement before finally,
a portal opens up in the washing machine sucking everything into it. Meanwhile,
another portal opens up in the sky above the Mushroom Kingdom, sucking up Mario
and all his friends. Eventually, the Rabbids, Mario, the Rabbid who wore and
merged with the headset, now called Spawny, as well as Beep-O are dropped into
a new dimension where everything between the Mario and the Rabbids universes
are merged. It is now up to Beep-O, Mario and his ‘new’ friends to rescue
Spawny from Bowser Junior, who seeks to create an army of corrupted/merged
Rabbids. This is a crazy setup for a Mario game, but the premise starts off
pretty interestingly. And as the story progresses you get to rescue all of
Mario’s friends from 4 different worlds until you rescue Spawny. However, there
are no callbacks to this opening scene or to the girl who created the
SupaMerge. But it did not bother me much as this context provided enough
motivation to go on the adventure.
Characters
While
the humour in the Rabbids games is not for everyone, M+RKB really flexes its
creativity here in the designs and mannerisms of its characters. Throughout the
game you play as Mario, Beep-O and his party of new friends - merged versions
of the characters from the mushroom kingdom, like Rabbid Peach and Rabbid
Luigi! As an example, Rabbid Peach is presented as a hilarious caricature of an
angsty Instagram influencer with a lot of sass. All of the cutscenes never shy
away from the opportunity to showcase its characters reacting to events in the
story and interacting with each other. The game fully excels in visual comedy
because even as you read through dialogue bubbles and exposition, there is
always something funny happening on screen, which means you are never truly
bored. There is not much to say here without getting into spoilers but there
are some cutscenes further into the game that will leave you giggling or in
awe.
Gameplay
Mario
games are well known for perfecting their gameplay and M+RKB is no exception.
With a variety of characters to play as and with each having their own special
abilities and weapons, in each battle you can choose a combination of up to
three characters with Mario as the leader and with at least one Rabbid
character in your party. No two combinations of characters fare the same, so
you can use this as leverage in battle. Often you will need to clear a series
of 2 or even 3 battles before your party is fully healed. Each character also
comes with a skill tree with the same number of points, called power orbs, that
can be equally spent to unlock and enhance their abilities. Between a series of
battles, you win both these power orbs as well as coins - which can be used to
purchase newer and stronger weapons. However, there are only limited coins that
can be earned throughout the story, so I recommend you purchase the next best
unlocked weapon in your campaign as you will definitely not earn enough to
purchase them all. Power orbs, on the other hand, can be reset so you have the
flexibility here to optimize your characters’ abilities as you see fit.
When
it comes to the battles, there are a variety of enemies you go up against,
starting with your basic Ziggies, Hoppers and Bucklers. As you progress through
the campaign, you unlock more enemies and with each of the 4 worlds you travel
through, there are tougher and meaner versions of the same enemy types that
fight you. Each enemy type is uniquely designed, and has its own sets of actions
and abilities, thus knowing how they tick is truly half the battle. In each of
the 4 worlds, you will come across a mid-boss as well as the final boss.
However, not all bosses are created equal and I found a few to be pretty
cliched in their design. Some proved to be such a difficulty spike during my
playthrough that I was put off from beating M+RKB, which is surprising because
it is a kid’s game after all! However, do not fret from looking up walkthroughs
or guides as in a lot of instances, I realised that there was no way I could
have figured it out myself. On the other hand, some bosses are truly memorable
in their presentation and have well-designed mechanics that put you to the
test.
Bonus
There
is another element of exploration in the game that rewards players with
artwork, digital figurines, soundtracks, as well as more power orbs and special
weapons. With each final world boss defeated, Beep-O gets newer abilities to
clear paths to hidden chests, thereby incentivising players to revisit older
worlds from the hub area and even discover secret zones with additional
battles. The exploration is a nice add-on but I often did not truly feel the
need to go back to previous worlds and spend hours trying to find additional
unlockables. However, in this process, you may also play through challenge
stages which are of various difficulties that progressively ramp up in later
worlds. These challenge stages provide an interesting twist on the normal
battles from the campaign and force you to flex your understanding of the
gameplay and I found these to be quite the treat.
If
you dare to push yourself to the limits, once you beat the campaign and with
all of Beep-O’s abilities unlocked, you can also beat 4 different ultimate
challenges. Consider these as a final test of M+RKB, where beating these
finally unlocks the best weapons in the game. Unfortunately for me, this was
not enough incentive to beat them as there is simply no need for these weapons
because, by that point, you have no use for them! If you are still yearning for
more, getting halfway through the first world unlocks the Buddydome in the hub
area, which allows you to play an optional co-op side campaign with a friend.
Although this presents even more challenges to beat, I felt that not having a
coop mode in the main campaign was a missed opportunity.
The
soundtrack by Grant Kirkhope is mostly excellent as well. During boss battles,
the orchestral arrangement is on full blast and adds to the spectacle on
screen.
Conclusion
There
is a lot of depth in the combat here to satisfy any tactical gameplay itch, but
I often found myself cursing at the screen for misclicks and not having enough
flexibility to plan all my movements and actions before executing them. Some
jokes and visual gags landed better than others, and I found most of the
characters cute and charming. Though I wished the exploration was handled
slightly better, the campaign and the additional challenges were an absolute
blast to play through. Do not be put off by the childish humour and art style
as Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle is a lot of fun!
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