Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle is one of those delightful experiments that seem to happen most often at the beginning of a console’s lifecycle. The pitch of “Mario with guns in an Xcom-lite game” was so insane that it seemed hard to believe when it was announced. Here was Ubisoft, which had already transitioned into its “open world factory” phase and was well on the way towards its “everything is a live service you have to pay for constantly” final(?) form, making a contained, level based, tactics game unlike basically anything else in their contemporary catalog, using Nintendo characters in a way they not only weren’t often used but seemed like they shouldn’t be allowed to be used. It called back to the CD-I Mario and Zelda games, except this was for Nintendo’s own system and, as it turned out, was quite good.

The early days of the Switch were not quite a software desert, but were pretty sparse before the Eshop floodgates fully opened and everyone started porting everything to the handheld. After the Wii U nobody was quite sure how well the Switch would perform, so while Zelda was a massive, industry defining, hit and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Splatoon 2 added some depth (along with smaller games like Snipperclips and Fast RMX) some of the early whiffs like 1-2 Switch and Arms left room for other games to get some attention. Kingdom Battle was one such game that slotted comfortably into the gap, providing a tactics experience unlike anything on the console (and in some ways unique for all of gaming) with an appealing aesthetic and some nice visual humor. It was a modest hit, and I was one of the people who bought it. I really enjoyed playing through the first few worlds, culminating in the incredible spectacle of the third world boss fight, but lost steam in the fourth world, where I was too much in a groove to change my team but not really enjoying grinding through the fights or solving the overworld puzzles that started to repeat. I put the game down and didn’t pick it back up, thinking I might eventually finish it but not overly concerned since I’d gotten about 15 hours and had other stuff to play. Some games are neat for awhile but wear out their welcome and that’s better than being a bummer to begin with.

I did pick up the game a couple times over the years, playing a chapter or two before falling off, but slowly moved it to the “permanently retired” bench and moved on. That was until a sequel was unexpectedly announced.

Sparks of Hope came out in October 2022, five years after the first game, and earned a solid 85 in Metacritic. I instantly put it on my wishlist to pick up when it dropped to a lower price, and I think a lot of other people did the same. Five years in the Switch had more games than anyone could play, and a fun but slight little tactics game just wasn’t a priority. The first game stood out because it was a unique premise nobody had seen before and was released on a console still finding its footing and lacking a strong library beyond the heaviest hitters. The second game had neither going for it, and it bombed.

One nice thing about Sparks of Hope not being Nintendo developed, though, is that Ubisoft games do eventually get cheap. I snagged the second game with all the dlc for $20, which is about the price I was looking for, and that reminded me of the unfinished business I had with the first one. To my memory I wasn’t that far from the end and even in a series with only the most basic of stories my preference is always to finish a game before playing its sequel. So I decided to pick up the old game and see how long it would take me to roll credits, and I instantly remembered why I’d put it down.

Kingdom Battle has some serious quality of life issues that get worse towards the back end of the game. The game is divided into chapters and there are multiple battles per chapter. This is fine, but for some insane reason if you leave in the middle of a chapter it resets things (you can save and shut the game down you just can’t leave.) In a 2017 game it just seems deranged for it not to keep your progress. I quit out of a battle I couldn’t win in the wrong way and had to refight one I’d already cleared, and solve a puzzle I’d already done years earlier (and one I’d done upon booting the game up.) Good times. There are also multi-phase battles where you defeat one wave of enemies and then have to face another wave without healing and on the same battlefield with some cover destroyed. This is…fine in theory, if tedious, but it turns out there’s no checkpoint in between the sub battles so when I tried to reset after botching an opening I was back to the front of the line again. Friends, I had to walk away for a bit and do something else.

After more attempts than it should have taken (including one where I lost due to terrible luck on a series of 50-50 chances that went bad four in a row) I defeated the sub boss through shameless cheesing (I have little shame when I just want to move forward) and found out that I was actually one puzzle away from the final battle. I’d been even closer than I thought. The final boss battle was mechanically pretty sound but annoyed me with too many minions added and the old “boss heals itself” trick. I beat it my first try, but wasn’t able to fully enjoy it despite the decent mechanics because of how annoyed I was with the sequence beforehand (which might have been less frustrating if I’d known it was the final sequence before the last boss and so the hardest in the game.)

Overall I think that Mario+Rabbids Kingdom Battle is a good, though flawed, game. I actually think the overworld puzzles add a lot to it, some of the world themes are a lot of fun, the tactics are deep but approachable, and it’s charming and well made. One of those 8 out of 10 experiences that won’t blow your mind but is still a solid and polished experience. As an early Switch game you can see why it was a hit, and I can also see why nobody was really clamoring for a direct sequel, even a good one. In Jeff's review of the first game he said it wore out its welcome by the end, and in Dan's more positive review of the second he also thought the first game became "rote" before it was over. I understand why I stopped playing before I hit the credits.

But I’m also glad that I finally beat it. Not because the ending was good (it was…okay) or because I had some deep need to complete it (I did not) but because I no longer have to look at the icon on my Switch and remember I have unfinished business and all my curiosity about how much longer the game is and what, exactly, the final boss is like has been sated. It also made me reflect on the Switch and gaming and my own life over these past seven years. A lot of people have talked about that experience of finding an old cartridge in a dusty box and plugging it in to finally beat it, and while this was not some childhood white whale there’s some of the same satisfaction.

I still haven’t played the Donkey Kong DLC for Mario+Rabbids: Kingdom Battle, so I’m not quite done with the game yet (though I plan to take a break) but just knowing I’ve rolled the credits gives a nice little feeling of satisfaction. It also enables me to think about where it fits in the overall Switch library (somewhere between 10-20 of the games I’ve played) and in the history of the two companies it belongs to. For Nintendo it represents a willingness to license out its characters and experiment that was not realized as much as I’d have liked during the Switch’s lifetime but did lead to some other interesting projects like Cadence of Hyrule and Star Fox showing up in Starlink: Battle for Atlas (remember that one?). For Ubisoft it represented one of the last examples of a game outside their formulaic wheelhouse, though Sparks of Hope and the Prince of Persia Metroidvania show that they haven’t fully given up on games that aren’t just Tom Clancy’s Assassin’s Farcry. Ultimately Kingdom Battle represents the kind of game that I wish there were more of today. An interesting experiment with a lot of love and polish intended for broad appeal and mass popularity, without microtransaction or live service mechanics. A dying breed I sorely miss. That’s another reason I’m glad I finally finished it. It deserves respect for taking the kind of risk I wish we saw more of. Eventually I’ll check out the (somewhat unnecessary) sequel too. But first that DLC.

I beat this game a couple years back. Like you, I dropped off the game and came back to it around the time the sequel was released. I had the sequel on my wishlist and despite it going on sale numerous times, I never pulled the trigger to buy it. What ended up happening was last year my kids went out with my wife and got the game for my birthday at full price. (NOOOO!)

I guess I should probably focus on playing that now that I'm done with FFVII: Remake huh?

Edit: I should probably write about my impressions. I really liked the first game, the colors, the sounds, the energy, all of it worked despite never really liking the Rabbids characters. My kids watched the Rabbids cartoon on Netflix and that was the extent of my exposure to their brand of chaos. I'm not much of an X-Com type strategy type of player. The concept of permanently losing a squad member always keeps me from really moving forward in those types of games. Thankfully, I don't have to worry about Mario dying permanently and having to recruit his brother Giuseppe to replace him.

What got me to stop the first time was the distractions from the overworld. If I'm spending a lot of time looking for secrets and hidden routes I eventually get so disconnected from the game that I just move on to something else. I did finish it all on my second playthrough from beginning to end.

I'm holding out hope that more collaborative games get made with Nintendo IP but it seems games like this and Cadence of Hyrule are just a result of planets aligning around the beginning of the Switch's lifespan. But I want to hope.

@chamurai: Sucks to be you buddy, with a wife and kids who love you and support your hobby in a less than fiscally optimal way. After seeing some of your imperfect game guesses nobody deserves the shame and humiliation of a family that loves you but does not obsessively check the Wario64 Twitter feed more than you. You're going to have to live with that horror forever!

Mario permanently dying would be METAL AS HELL!

I like tactics games but also am not a fan of the super hardcore stuff. I enjoyed Xcom as a kid (obviously I'm talking about the OLD ones) but could never get too far because of how punishing those games are. It's great to have some games that allow for similar play but without the punishing aspect, though I do wish that the difficulty curve for Kingdom Battle was a little different (I wish it started more difficult and maybe ended not easier, but with fewer multi-phase encounters.)

Did you ever try Marvel's Midnight Suns? That's a game by the actual Xcom guys that's much less Xcommy than Kingdom Battle but also not very punishing, and IMO is a heck of a lot of fun. There you can be distracted by Blade running a book club instead of block puzzles! That game took me like 60 hours and it could have been leaner with better stuff off the battlefield, but the tactics aspects were great and I feel like it's undervalued.

I think Nintendo will continue to do some of this IP sharing stuff (Hyrule Warriors is perhaps the biggest example, and they brought back the OG IP share with Mario RPG) from time to time but I also wish there was more of it. I think it's win/win because Switch players tend to mostly support Nintendo IP games, but Nintendo is limited in how much it can put out. If you look at this year, it's mostly a desert out there as Nintendo prepares for the launch of Switch 2. A couple games like Kingdom Battle could have filled in that schedule some more while providing some additional variety.

In terms of whether you should play Sparks of Hope next, I'm not your dad. If I was I'd be buying you games on your "wait for sale" list at over retail price, apparently. I do think that you have to be in the right mood for a tactics game, though, so I'd say don't force it. The game will still be there in 3 months if you're more into it then. But if you're itching for tactics, Dan thought it was better than Kingdom Battle, which you and I both thought was good.

Aww hell, I feel like a real heel. Just to clarify, I only internally reacted about the price.

@chamurai: I wasn't trying to make you feel bad. I think we've all had that "you bought me something I wanted but not in the way I wanted" moment where you're grateful for the thought and the gift but you wish things had gone a bit differently. It's one of the reasons economists don't like gifts!

I'm sure you were very gracious in the moment. And I'm sure you've bought things for your wife that she was like "I appreciate the thought but I COULD HAVE DONE IT BETTER" while smiling on the outside.

Kids can't get their own stuff so it's different, and once they can there's often a period where they'll straight up tell you "dad, this is the wrong thing, why don't you go back to playing Guess the Game and not Guess the Cool Shirt because at least in the former you have a chance."

Thanks, I really should get over my anxieties of posting things on the internet and stop assuming everyone will think I'm a monster for whatever I write.

I just put it in my wishlist and will check it out whenver it goes on sale.

@chamurai: You don't come off as a monster at all. Except when you outperform me at Guess the Game. Then, of course, you are evil incarnate. But the next day when we tie or I do better than you that fades. A real Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde situation.

I tend to use somewhat dry humor and the tone doesn't always translate to text so I apologize for making you feel judged. I just thought it was funny because it was a relatable situation of getting something you want but not in the way you want it. We've all been there. Not like this. NOT LIKE THIS!

If you're really into tactics another one I enjoyed was The DioField Chronicle. That one is real time (though you can pause to issue commands so it works fine on console) and probably a notch or two below Kingdom Battle and Midnight Suns. It also gets REALLY old by the end because you stop evolving about 70% through the game and it's pretty long, but it's a unique take on the tactical formula and it has some interesting story moments and fun classes and systems. It's Squenix, though, so it doesn't get those GOOD discounts, like Midnight Suns sometimes does.

Worth at least pondering, though. Pondering is free!