Quick Look: Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle

The Rabbids actually make me smile and laugh... Feels bad man.

I'm curious what the opinion of this among the rest of the GB crew will be. Jeff clearly seemed to enjoy it, but didn't seem as high on it as the general critical consensus from other publications at this point. Based on the QL, I would think it would have a good chance in the "best surprise" category of GotY deliberations, if other staff enjoy it. Glad to see this kind of out-of-left-field mashup of ideas and properties not turning out to be total garbage.

The fact that his lock screen is a kissy faced Princess Peach is a little, um, "odd."

@dixavd: thanks man I may just do that although 60 bucks is really high I try to get most games around 40 although I'm super tempted after seeing this and the colors are just such a nice change of pace.

Yesterday ign posted a video of assassin's Creed origins high level combat (showcasing a level 1 attack a level 40 fortress and then trying it with a level 39 character afterwards) and man ... ubisoft is really turning a corner it feels. Origins combat looks more kingdoms of amalur or even dark souls in terms of waiting for openings, dodging, finishing moves. I can't wait for origins which was initially not even interested because I don't like the character since I really liked playing as evie in syndicate but that has changed now. Ubisoft had a great e3 and is surprising us when we had no idea some thing like rabbids could make a good theme for a game.

Oh right!

Well, not too odd. I mean, I could possibly be having Ellen Page on my lock-screen right now, but then again I don't go kidnapping her every other week.

The fact that Jeff encountered two bugs that required resetting the game to fix within the space of half an hour doesn't fill me with confidence, especially with Ubisoft's track record...

This might be successful simply for the reason that there's still not enough games out for the switch.

People (including me) would buy anything that's looks half way decent at this moment...

I played this game for about 3 hours yesterday. It's fun as hell. Haven't ran into any of the bugs that they experienced. I should mention that there was a day-one patch, and these quicklooks generally get made several days before launch.

Well this just looks delightful. Will add to my queue once I get a switch

Ahahaha... great minds!

@darkbeatdk said:

It's a fantastic game! Also, this is one of my proudest achievements in recent week.

Haven't finished world 1 yet, but so far I'm having fun with this one and it does seem like it gets much deeper after world 1, so I'm looking forward to that.

Also, the music is amazing.

@darkbeatdk: To be fair, Mario Party 3 had a phone you could use to call Toad/Bowser Jr.

We get the French channels as well in suisse romande, and we always saw it on France 3, which is a popular channel. They're all part of the same network, so maybe they switched to France 4 at some point. Looking at my current listing I see them airing on Nickelodeon twice today at 10am and 4pm. Okay, yeah, they're also on France 4 now. I just saw that. So it's on two channels, twice a day here.

At any rate, do you not see all the bande dessinée whenever you go into the market or book stores? FNAC has shelves of them next to the latest Titeuf. Someone is buying this stuff.

I understand Jeff's criticisms of this not being complex in that the shots could have been just like XCOM where you can take your chances and hope for something like a 31% shot to land. However, I think its smart on the developers to make that simplified since this game is intended for a younger audience. Though Jeff's right, Rabbid Peach should heal you after battle. Otherwise this game looks rad.

Also dumb question, but isn't the kid in the intro cutscene a girl?

I got this game and I think it's super cool; simplified XCom is definitely something there's room for, I think! I like the light puzzles between battles to get collectibles and new weapons, too, it's a really cool way to break up the action!

@mocbucket62: I don't agree with the heal thing. It's part of the game balance to not heal you up after combat. There are mushrooms in the world that you can find through puzzles that will heal you, and skill points in the skill tree that increase the amount those heal. You can also switch characters out (other than Mario who must be in the party) if they get low. After completing a chapter (which is generally only 2 battles) you get healed to full.

Game seems to have some bugs that need to be smoothed out. Somehow managed to get stuck in the first world...

Game looks alright. The characters and world look colourful and the music is good. That said, i rather had a 'hard option instead of an easy option since the game seems to help you out quite a bit already. Like that Tornado wiped 3 enemies off their socks and pulled them away from their hiding spot. At that point, an even easier mode is meaningless.

That said,that encounter was probably meant to be a mechanic explanation more than an actual close battle, but as the game is marketed to kids and has simplified Xcom mechanics, i bet a lot of people will breeze through this without too much trouble. Imagine if Jeff had to bring all 3 characters to the safe zone. Suddenly it requires planning so that most characters can take the shortcut up the ledge.

@viking_funeral: I can't say I did, Titeuf yes, Lapins crétins no. It's usually Disney stuffs (Frozen and Toys Story mostly) and Titeuf but maybe I'm out of touch, I'm not really in this target demographic anymore.

I'm on world 3 and didn't notice anyone saying "Hell" in this game. When does that happen?

WOW, 2:33 that is literally the Portal Knights theme music! That is copyright busting right there. I know its not a popular game, but i played it enough to look up when i heard that....

Can see Ryan with a giant grin on his face. Seems like the perfect game for him. Miss you Ryan.

I really want to like this game but it's just not doing it for me. I love XCOM and SRPGs but everything about this feels slightly off. The combat is just okay. It's almost like a puzzle game in how you rely on combos, instead of dice rolls and loadouts. There's plenty of interesting enemy and level design but none of it I find all that fun. It looks great but the Grant Kirkhope is very bland. I thought he did some good stuff with Yooka-Laylee but he feels like he's on auto-pilot here. I eventually turned the sound off and listened to my own music. I only beat World 1 so hopefully it changes but right now it's merely okay. I don't regret my purchase but I certainly expected better things.

@yorkin: One of Mario's weapons is called "Hell in a Shell." Dunno if there's any other profanity in the game (I just got to the tornado level shown in this QL).

I hope that on next week's bombcast Jeff realises Rabbid Peach isn't that great, and Rabbid Luigi is absolutely savage, with the ability to keep everybody in the party topped up on health when his vampire effect gets applied to enemies. (it almost always gets applied)

Man, I hope there's more to this game than what was show as it seems a bit lacking to me. Really close to getting a Switch and I thought this might be one of my initial purchase list, but I'm double-thinking that now.