Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle is a turn-based strategy game developed by Ubisoft Milan and published by Ubisoft for the Nintendo Switch. It is a crossover game between the Mario and Rayman Raving Rabbids franchises.

A DLC expansion named Donkey Kong Adventure was released on June 2018, which is based on the Donkey Kong Country series, as well as a special edition re-release of the game that had both the base game, and the expansion included.

The sequel, titled Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope, was announced on June 12, 2021 during Ubisoft's June 2021 Ubisoft Forward event and is scheduled for release in 2022.

Kingdom Battle
A young genius girl who's a massive Super Mario Bros. fan invented the "SupaMerge", a VR headset like device that fuses two objects together and is assisted by Beep-O, an AI assistant. One night, the Rabbids' time traveling washing machine appears on the girl's room, from which dozens of Rabbids emerge and start causing trouble.

One of the Rabbids puts on the SupaMerge and messes around with it, merging his brethren Rabbids with objects in the room. In particular, two rabbids are fused into Rabbid Mario and Rabbid Peach. Soon, the Rabbid wearing the SUpamerge accidentally fires a beam at the time washing machine, absorbing all the Rabbids back in and teleporting them away, opening up a wormhole to the Mushroom Kingdom.

Meanwhile, Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Toad, and Princess Peach are inaugurating a new Princess Peach statue. Suddenly, a vortex is formed and sucks everyone in, forcing Mario and go into the vortex.

In midair over the Ancient Gardens, Beep-0 gains rabbit ears and the outline of two rabbit's teeth on the front. The Rabbid with the SupaMerge fuses with the headset, causing it to be stuck to him. Mario later saves Beep-0 from being crushed by the Time Washing Machine. Upon landing, they soon encounter Rabbid Peach and Rabbid Luigi, Together, they must find their friends and find the Rabbid who got fused with the Supamerge.

Donkey Kong Adventure
Donkey Kong Adventure takes place in between Chapters 1 and 2 of the main story. After his initial defeat, Rabbid Kong makes it to Peach's Castle where he runs into Spawny, Spawny panics and fires a merge beam into a banana and the Rabbids' time travel washing machine, causing the machine to go haywire. Rabbid Peach carelessly walks to the washing machine to charge her smartphone, causing her and Beep-O to get sucked into the machine along with Rabbid Kong and his follower Rabbids.

Rabbid Peach and Beep-O find themselves in an island where they are attacked by Rabbids, when suddenly Donkey Kong and Rabbid Cranky appear and fend of the enemy Rabbids. DK and Rabbid Cranky agree to help Rabbid Peach and Beep-O fix the washing machine and send them back to their world, but they soon run into Rabbid Kong, who is now much more powerful than before, forcing the four to retreat for the moment. Rabbid Kong is still angry at Rabbid Peach and wants revenge.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) Despite how ridiculous it may seem, Mario and the Rabbids work very well together and compliment each other. The Rabbids add a lot of humor into the typical Mario universe, while Mario's world gives the typically one-dimensional Rabbids more personality and charm while also toning down their usual annoying insanity.
 * 2) The Rabbids cosplay as Mario characters!
 * 3) The character models for the Mario Bros. characters were made by Ubisoft themselves from scratch without any assistance from Nintendo, something that Shigeru Miyamoto himself was particularly impressed by.
 * 4) The core battle mechanics are easy to learn and accessible while still having enough depth to be engaging and challenging. The battles have a strong focus on movement around the map, characters can dash on enemies, use pipes to travel large distances, and perform "Team Jumps" by jumping over another team mates to reach further areas.
 * 5) There are 8 different characters you can use in your team:
 * 6) * Mario: Balanced Class - He focuses on mid-range combat and powering up his team mates. He can also land on enemies after team jumping on to deal extra damage and do an additional jump.
 * 7) * Rabbid Mario: Brawler Class - Specializes in close-range combat and damaging multiple enemies at once, but he's prone to dealing friendly-fire damage to team mates.
 * 8) * Luigi: Range Class - Excellent for long range attacks and mobility, but has lackluster HP.
 * 9) * Rabbid Luigi: Defense Class - He can inflict a Vamp status effect on any enemy he dashes into, can weaken the enemies' attack power, and has higher chance to get critical hits.
 * 10) * Peach: Tank Class - She has the most amount HP, can heal herself and other team mates after a team jump, and can absorb damage other team mates would take.
 * 11) * Rabbid Peach: Support Class - She's a healer and can bring up shields, but has weak attack power.
 * 12) * Yoshi: Balanced Class - He does a ground pound that damages everything within range after landing a team jump and can guarantee attacks will deal critical damage.
 * 13) * Rabbid Yoshi: Range Class - He can do the most amount of dash attacks per turn and has the best shield ability.
 * 14) Great local co-op mode where you and a friend play special missions or against each other.
 * 15) If you're having trouble with a fight, you can activate "Easy Mode" which gives you additional health for the duration of that fight. This is completely optional so players who don't want to use it can ignore it.
 * 16) Decent replay value.
 * 17) The game works well both for pick-up and play and long doses, perfect for the Nintendo Switch.
 * 18) Colorful Mario visuals and ridiculous Rabbids aesthetics.
 * 19) Stunningly beautiful cartoony graphics by Nintendo Switch standards. Since it is a fun mix of Fire Emblem: Three Houses (after it was released 2 years ago) and Super Mario 3D World.
 * 20) Your characters have skill trees that allow for lots of customization in their playstyles. You can reset and reorganize skill trees whenever you want without penalty.
 * 21) Creative boss battles, an example, the Phantom of the Bwahpera is a very hilarious moment and it marks the first time a Rabbid speaks fluently with words, excluding the first three Rabbids Games where the Rabbids sang famous songs in English with their high-pitched voices.
 * 22) * Speaking of which, the Phantom of the Bwahpera is voiced by an authentic Opera singer.
 * 23) Good soundtrack composed by Grant Kirkhope.
 * 24) After you complete a chapter, you unlock 10 challenge missions you can play by revisiting that chapter and four special extremely hard challenges after beating the game.
 * 25) A special expansion DLC called Donkey Kong Adventures was released, which includes a mini-campaign in addition to the main game.
 * 26) In the intro, Mario tries to save Luigi first instead of Peach. It's Brotherly love at it's finest.
 * 27) Beep-0 is a very hilarious character, even thought he's a robot, he talks and acts like a human being.
 * 28) Bowser didn't have anything to do with the Rabbids invading the Mushroom Kingdom because he was on vacation. Unfortunately, he got caught in the crossfire when he decided to come home early.
 * 29) Luigi does Cam Newton's dab in the game when using a certain weapon.
 * 30) Like Super Princess Peach, this is one of the games where Peach doesn't get captured. She rescues her friends from the Icicle Golem and is playable.

Donkey Kong Adventures

 * 1) It introduces Rabbid Cranky, and Donkey Kong as playable characters:
 * 2) * Donkey Kong: Brawler Class - He can pick up and throw heavy objects and characters, has a strong melee attack, and a boomerang Banana attack that can hit multiple enemies at once.
 * 3) * Rabbid Cranky: Range Class - He relies on long range attacks and can make enemies fall asleep.
 * 4) For a $15 DLC, there's a large amount of content, with four whole mini-chapters, optional bonus challenges, and several collectibles to find.
 * 5) Tons and tons of references to the Donkey Kong Country franchise, even using the exact same sound effects as in those games.
 * 6) Grant Kirkhope's fantastic soundtrack, featuring many remixes from the Donkey Kong games, some of which Kirkhope composed for previously.
 * 7) New enemy types are introduced, many of which are variations of previous enemies with new mechanics.
 * 8) Lots of funny cutscenes and interactions between the characters, especially Rabbid Cranky.
 * 9) Rabbid Kong returns as the main antagonist.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The story mode requires you to have Mario and at least one Rabbid in your team at all times, which limits your freedom with team selection.
 * 2) There are a few difficulty spikes here and there, most notably the Ultimate Challenges.
 * 3) Rather limited choice of maps for local multiplayer.
 * 4) Sometimes, the enemy keeps on getting healed, which is annoying and makes the fight longer.
 * 5) Donkey Kong is overpowered in the Donkey Kong Adventures DLC.
 * 6) Phantom's boss fight, while creative, is pretty unfair.
 * 7) Unsurprisingly, the game can be annoying or sub-par for some people, this is because Rabbids they are insanely funny and to make matters worse, many people hated the Rabbids because they were just plain annoying and unbearable.
 * 8) *To rub more salt on the wound, ridiculous rabbids aesthetics can be more frustrating than funny, and you won't like the idea easily (or displeasure for some) if you've hated Rabbits for how insanely funny they are, which may not be worth playing (as mentioned by the Rabbits).

Reception
When the game was initially leaked, most were skeptical about the very concept of Mario doing a crossover with Rabbids, and thought it wouldn't work at all. Concerns were also raised due to the Rabbids franchise declining in popularity in recent years and those early leaks spoiling the involvement of Mario in the game, which Ubisoft was planning to reveal as a surprise. However, when the game was officially announced at E3 2017 were very well received. Upon launch, the game was praised both from critics and gamers for it's battle mechanics that are easy to learn while still very strategic, excellent presentation, and surprisingly good use of both franchises to make the Rabbids humorous without coming off as annoying.

The game won several awards including Best Strategy Game of 2017, and it is currently the best selling Nintendo Switch game not developed by Nintendo.

Trivia

 * Prior to its official announcement, the game was codenamed "Rabbids Kingdom Battle" to hide the fact that the Super Mario Bros. franchise was part of the game.
 * Because of this, the game's composer Grant Kirkhope was completely unaware that he would be composing for a Mario AND a RABBIDS game until after he accepted the contract and was shown a prototype of the game.
 * When Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle was officially announced, Ubisoft was made aware that there is a Youtuber named Rabbidluigi who by complete coincidence shares his name with the game's character Rabbid Luigi. In response, Ubisoft sent him merchandise of the game and a review copy.

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