What is “crossover”? It is a work of art, which mixed the characters and worlds of two or more unrelated works. For examples from the gaming industry are not far to seek: Injustice: Gods Among Us, Mario Kart 8, Mortal Kombat X, Super Smash Bros. in all of those games face each other heroes from different universes. But no one even could not imagine that the famous Japanese company Nintendo in cooperation with French publisher Ubisoft will surprise us with a completely unexpected crossover, which will meet the characters of the popular franchise of Mario and Raving Rabbids.
Game: Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Genre: Turn-based Tactics
Release date: 29 Aug 2017
Developer: Ubisoft Paris, Ubisoft Milan
Publisher: Ubisoft
It all began with an idea born in 2014, the head creative Director of the Studio Ubisoft Milan David, Soliani. He thought it would be fun to introduce Mario and his friends with the crazy rabbits that became the hallmark of Ubisoft along with the series of Assassin’s Creed. A prototype game was created in just a few weeks after that David went to Japan, on a visit to the “father Mario” is a famous Japanese game designer, Shigeru Miyamoto. Miyamoto has carefully studied the prototype and, to the surprise of the French, gave them the green light to further develop the game. The company Nintendo has reserved the right to carefully control the level of quality for future games, because for the Japanese it was important that loved by millions of players characters were presented in the right light. So on the light appeared Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle.
The story starts in the apartment of a young inventor who created the amazing “helmet SUPERLINE”, able to transform the original two subject in one. For example, from a flower pot and table lamp this helmet can make a glowing flower. So, when she goes to sleep, in a ridiculous coincidence in her lab arrives delegation of crazy rabbits in their “washing machine” (a reference to past games). Just playing around with scientific equipment, until one of them pulled on his head the helmet I was wearing and didn’t shoot his beam at his friends. Given that the girl is a big fan of games about Mario, the whole laboratory was filled with posters of your favorite characters. The beam hit one of them, and here is where it all began. The time machine was activated, rabbits were abandoned in the Nintendo world, densely populated by carnivorous plants, talking fungi, romantic princesses and plucky mustached plumbers.
During the transition from one reality to another, some rabbits under the influence of the helmet turned into villains, and someone, on the contrary, went to the heroic traits of the main characters of the series Super Mario Bros. So was born the rabbit, Mario, rabbit, Princess Peach, Luigi and rabbit rabbit Yoshi. Characters, of course, scattered around the Mushroom Kingdom, and gather the team together will have to the player. The place of falling of the washing machine time attracted the attention of Mario and his friends. Realizing that the Kingdom was under serious threat, the brave plumber decides to join forces with his newly-eared double and his comrades together to defeat evil. Shoulder to shoulder, the heroes have to go through fire, water and copper pipes, and in a literal sense – it pipes that abound in the game. Mushroom Kingdom is divided into four huge worlds, each of which has 8 levels and two bosses.
As the main genre of the game the French developers chose “tactical strategy”. To understand what was going on, remember the famous game series X-COM, Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy Tactics. The basic mechanics of Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle is reminiscent of these games. A group of three characters (all player will be available to 8 characters) is moved to locations, solving puzzles, collecting gold coins and finding hidden treasure chests. From time to time from the study of the world distract them battle with the evil rabbits and terrible bosses. And that’s when all the fun begins.
The combat system in the game will be familiar to those who at least once faced with the genre of Turn-based tactics. The playing field is divided into cells. Your units are on the one hand, and hostile on the other. Teams take turns all the characters. In one move unit can move a certain number of cells across the field to apply short or long-range attack, use its special ability or just hide behind cover from enemy archers. Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle tries to minimize the complicating gameplay details. At the same time the game offers some pretty interesting mechanic, greatly changing the course of the fight and making the game exciting and the most tactical.
The aim of the battle as the destruction of all without exception of enemies, and killing a certain number of continuously reviving enemies. Particularly active breed enemies in missions where you need to Wade through the battlefield in a safe place. Another type of missions – escorting a friendly character from point “A” to point “B” under heavy fire of the enemy. Unlike your characters, this character can only move a certain number of cells, so it is completely defenseless to enemy attacks. Greatly simplify the task scattered around the level of the pipe to travel long distances. Therefore, at the beginning of the battle take the time to carefully examine the location, noting all of the possibilities and workarounds.
Enemies in the game are very different. From conventional shooters to the fans to throw grenades, rabbits with springs on the feet, the shield and even rabbits-ghosts, which are capable of moving great distances, teleporting. As I wrote above, an important role in the battle played by the design of levels, including their interactive component. It is expressed in different weather conditions, when you can easily carry the tornado in the opposite side of the arena, or from the heavens directly on the heads of the heroes will fall fiery chunks of lava from the nearby volcano. Hills allow characters to inflict extra damage to enemies, so to occupy a favorable position relative to the enemy – a vital moment.
As weapons each character uses what he likes. For example, Mario uses the impressive size of the gun, Luigi prefers a sniper rifle in the form of a vacuum cleaner (a reference to the series Luigi’s Mansion), and dragon Yoshi carries enemies into smithereens with a grenade launcher. Apart from the main weapon used at long range, each character has a melee weapon or some kind of auxiliary tool. If the rabbit Mario is a giant hammer, then the rabbit Peach in the Arsenal is a self-guided four-wheel drone bombers, filled with explosives. Each weapon has many versions, differing in power and a number of useful features. More powerful guns tend to be more effective against certain types of enemies.
Some weapons have very special effects that affect enemy. For example, the effect of honey sticks the opponent to the ground and allows you to run and hide from your future shots. The effect of “dropping” flings the opponent on a few cells, but if he falls into the pit, takes additional health. Effect “vampirism” literally sucks the life out of a wounded enemy with each new move. The effect of “ink” does not allow the character to use a gun. And the effect of “petrification” deprives him of the opportunity to perform any action. New, more powerful weapons you can buy for gold coins in tactical combat center, which was opened at the castle of Princess Peach. But first you will need to find the drawings of guns in the vast Mushroom Kingdom.
You can also cause damage to enemies in motion. Your characters are able to roll under enemies, knocking them down. Another useful skill is “group jump”, when one character hands throws a second in the air, thanks to which he overcomes much more distance than walking, and can even fly over the abyss. Landing after this jump including on the head unsuspecting enemy (with appropriate skill) than you are. With the help of leveling in the special menu you can improve the range of movement, power attack move or jump. Don’t worry if distributed experience wrong. At any time you can reset the entire pumping and direct experiments on completely different skills. The benefit of the developers do not prohibit it.
Each character has two unique abilities. Mario, for example, is the ability to increase the attack of nearby teammates, and make additional automatic shots on moving targets during the course of the enemy team. Rabbit Peach knows how to create a protective energy barrier and restore themselves and their comrades health. Each new character in your party radically changes the whole tactics and approach to warfare. But to feel the mechanics just does not work. Have a couple of times to step on a rake, to make many mistakes before understanding of what is happening on the battlefield. The effectiveness of special abilities is also pumped to a special menu. Gaming experience is required for pumping, it turns out for victory in battle, and can also be found in treasure chests or obtained for solving puzzles.
The puzzles in the game, by the way, quite interesting and varied. If in the beginning of the game you need to click the red button to open the red gate, behind which lie treasures closer to the final tasks will be compounded many times. Will have to get out of the labyrinth with a pop-up in front of the nose walls, to roll the stone blocks on the ice surface, to configure a complex system of mirrors that reflect light in the desired direction, and so on. Often the player will have to move from one place to another with the help of special cannons and the famous pipes. If your way gets dark blue gun immediately jump into it, because it is a direct path to the bonus puzzle for the solution of which you will be awarded a valuable prize. And if you see a bright red ring means you’ll have to collect 8 gold coins, just like in the games of Mario. For victory, of course, you’ll also get a treasure.
Study the four realms means that in the future you will them to come back. This is facilitated by the regular appearance of your team new skills that allow you to interact with the scenery: move the blocks to destroy stone buildings, to dig up something from the ground, transferred to the hands of gravity and so on. With these manipulations, the player will be able to discover new parts of already completed levels, new puzzles to completely new weapons and earn extra mountain experience. Results of the battle are considered the surviving characters of your team, as well as the amount spent on fighting moves. Depending on this you will get a bronze, silver or gold Cup. The game is constantly urged on you re not entirely successful fights for gold. I think that for many players it will be an additional incentive to return to a familiar location. By the way, if you feel that you cannot cope with opponents – you can always activate “easy mode”, when your characters will receive extra health points.
Another incentive for those who like to run games on 100%, would be a Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle of the huge amount of collectibles. Going to have figurines of characters and enemies, the arts of the game from Ubisoft artists, Tarot cards with images of crazy rabbits, as well as music written specifically for the game by famous composer Grant Kirkhope. The latter put his hand to such hits Nintendo as GoldenEye 007, Banjo-Kazooie, Perfect Dark, Donkey Kong 64 and many others. The music in the game is really very cool. Worth at least a Remix of the famous theme from the game Donkey Kong or a gorgeous Aria one of the bosses, in which he mocks Mario. At such moments, I received a standing ovation.
Graphically, the game looks bright and very attractive. Working all this beauty on the Snowdrop engine, which was used in the blockbuster Tom Clancy’s The Division. The truth here is in the television mode Switch Nintendo is still not up to 1080p and outputs only 900p. But it kompensiruet great antialiasing. Ubisoft artists tried to glory: the game perfectly captures the spirit of the universe, for decades, painstakingly created by the Japanese developers of Nintendo. Each level of the game imbued with the deepest respect to the source. The scenery filled with life and charm, and from time to time the player will come across scenes from the life silly rabbits, oshibalsya in a completely new world for them.
With humor in the Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle order. The absurd antics of rabbits and their childlike just can not umilyat. The names of the weapons and locations in the game contain numerous funny references. Take at least the level of the “Gorge of the pants” where the rabbits are trying to dry his underwear in the wind, or the gun called “Gambol” (a clear reference to the handheld console Game Boy). The game is incredibly good, as well as many other projects involving Nintendo characters. Even in defeat you in battle rabbits do not die and just come to life and run away to the castle of Princess Peach, where they begin a new life and build a variety of structures infrastructure, which are then able to visit the player.
The game supports Amiibo collectible figurines. 100% compatible figures Mario, Princess Peach, Luigi and Yoshi in their different variants. Attach one of the figures to Nintendo console Switch, the player can get an exclusive for these characters weapons. Unfortunately, as I tried to activate in the game other Amiibo from his collection, I did not. If you prefer to play together with your friends, the game supports local cooperative mode for two players. Everyone picks up the controller Joy-Con and forms his own team of two characters. Players together can get additional campaign of 18 trials. A great way of being together with friends.
Now on to the disadvantages of the game. There are not very many and most are associated with minor technical defects. Games camera being in automatic mode, often falls into opaque objects that for some time deprives you of the opportunity to see what is happening on the battlefield events. Once I came across an impassable bug associated with the solution of the puzzle. Initially I thought I misunderstood something, but, looking on YouTube, I realized that with that faced by many other users. Had to restart the level from the last save. Once, during a battle for some unknown reason, stuck to the sound of collecting coins. It was repeated again and again and again until I rebooted the game. The game boasts high-quality translation into the Russian language, but a couple of times I noticed that the localization text does not fit in the place reserved for him.
Pros:
- The characters of the two popular franchises for the first time appeared in one game.
- Low threshold of entry, but plenty of room for tactics.
- A huge number of weapons and special skills of the characters.
- Bright, eye pleasing graphics and great animation.
- Memorable music, including a gorgeous Opera Aria about Mario.
- Just the huge amount of collectibles.
- Fascinating puzzles using different approaches for the solution.
- Enough quality text translation to Russian language.
- Great local campaign for two players.
Cons:
- Games camera sometimes behaves not absolutely adequately.
- In the puzzles there are sometimes impenetrable bugs.
- Other minor technical flaws.
Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle – a risky experiment on the combination of two completely different game worlds, which, no doubt, can be considered successful. I’ll be honest: the game series Raving Rabbids in recent years, which has seen the best of times. Therefore, the introduction of rabbits with Mario and his friends clearly went eared good. The game offers us a deep tactical component and an elaborate combat system with a huge number of nuances. Great good humor, haunting music, brilliant cartoon graphics and charming characters of the two world-famous franchises – that’s what you’ll love this game. Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle will appeal to fans of turn-based tactics fans of co-op, as well as fans of Nintendo characters. Despite some minor technical flaws, the game Ubisoft is just great, so I give it a 9 out of 10.
Review game Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle
Sergey Grey