Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle
Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle is a turn-based strategy and adventure game, developed by Ubisoft Milan and published by Ubisoft and Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch video game console. The game is a crossover between Nintendo's "Mario" and Ubisoft's "Raving Rabbids" franchise. In "Kingdom Battle", the story follows Mario, his friends, and a group of Rabbids that try to save the Mushroom Kingdom from invading Rabbids that accidentally misused a powerful invention and begin to wreak havoc. "Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle" was conceived in 2014 by Ubisoft Milan creative director Davide  Soliani and Ubisoft brand producer Xavier Manzanares. The design objectives were emphasizing the dissonance of both franchises and creating a strategy game that stood out with unique elements. Therefore, its visual elements and animation were made casual and vibrant, and its music was made by a well known video game composer, Grant Kirkhope. Although the game was met with poor reception when it was leaked, primarily due to the use of the "Rabbids" franchise and weaponry, it was revered when it was officially announced at E3 2017. The game's critical reception was overall positive, with acclaim towards its characters  and turn-based combat. It received mixed reviews for the use of puzzles and the use of making combat level-based. In 2018, an expansion pack of the game titled "Donkey Kong Adventure" was released as downloadable content. A sequel, titled "Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope", is planned for a 2022 release. Gameplay. Gameplay follows Mario and a cast of other "Mario" and "Rabbids" characters of the player's choosing, including Luigi, Princess Peach, and Yoshi, alongside four other Rabbids dressed up as a respective "Mario" character with exaggerated personalities. They are aided by a small robot named "Beep-0 , who guides them on their journey. The campaign story mode is split up into four unique locations, or worlds", and each world has a linear path to completion. Throughout the world are puzzles that are either required to complete to progress, or give weapons and collectibles when completed. When a world is completed, Beep-0 learns a new ability such as pushing or moving objects, which can be used to solve additional puzzles. If the team comes across territory inhabited by enemy Rabbids, a battle will commence. While usually, the goal of each battle is to defeat every enemy on the  field, some levels have a fixed objective, such as escorting a Toad to the end of the stage. The level is completed if all enemies are defeated or the fixed objective is justified, and the player will lose when all characters run out of health or fail to meet their goal. Prior to a battle, the player has the choice to alter their current selection of characters and weaponry; the player can choose what characters will battle, with a selection of eight characters and a limit of three, and choose a selection of weaponry for each character, each one dealing  different amounts of damage or causing certain special effects that hinder the opponent. Battles are turn-based, and each character can perform up to three different options: they can move to a new location, with each character having a set distance they can travel; they can use a weapon, and have two choices of attack that vary per player; or they can use a special effect, with each character having different abilities that vary in functionality. If a player moves to a location where they are obscured to the enemy, the enemy will have a one-hundred, fifty, or zero  percent chance of hitting their target based on the cover's effectiveness. Characters also possess movement abilities, where they can dash into an enemy to deal damage or be boosted by another character to travel a further distance. Some weaponry has special effects; for example, the player can shoot a glob of honey at the enemy to restrict them from moving temporarily, or shoot an ignited bullet that will burn the opponent and send them running around in a random direction in panic. Special effects also vary, such as a healing effect that restores some health to other characters, or  a hypnosis effect that draws enemies towards the character that used it. Levels are divided into chapters, and each chapter usually contains three levels. When a chapter is completed, they receive coins and "Skill Orbs", which can also be found by exploring the overworld, with greater rewards earned clearing battles within a certain number of turns with all characters intact. Skill Orbs can be used on each character's skill tree, granting them new unique abilities or increasing other restrictions such as health or movement distance. The player can also collect coins, which can be used to purchase new weaponry  and items. Plot. A young inventor and avid fan of the "Mario" franchise, with the help of her virtual robot assistant Beep-0, has invented a device known as the "SupaMerge", a headset that can merge any two objects into a single entity. Upon testing it, it successfully merges two items, but has a problem with overheating. While the inventor is out of the room, a group of Rabbids arrive in their and begin playing with her belongings, annoying Beep-0. One of them puts on the SupaMerge and starts causing chaos, merging some of the Rabbids with various items in the  room: one with a Princess Peach wig and a cell phone into Rabbid Peach, a second with a balloon into a Rabbid balloon, a third with a Mario hat into Rabbid Mario, and a fourth with some sunglasses and a toy sunflower into a living sunflower. While having fun with the SupaMerge, its beam accidentally hits the Time Washing Machine and causes it to malfunction, sucking everything in the room into an interdimensional vortex along with a "Mario" poster. At that time, another vortex appears above the Mushroom Kingdom during the unveiling of a large statue of Princess Peach and  sucks up everyone, including Mario and his friends. Both Mario's friends and the Rabbids are thrown across the Mushroom Kingdom along with the now-gigantic objects from the room. Beep-0, now a physical entity with Rabbid ears and teeth and has gained the ability to speak, discovers that the SupaMerge has fused itself with the Rabbid wearing it, who starts causing more chaos by accidentally merging some of the Rabbids with more objects. Beep-0 is nearly hit by the now-giant Time Washing Machine, but Mario saves him as it crash-lands near Peach's castle. While most of  the merged Rabbids become hostile (due to the SupaMerge's power now being corrupted), Mario and Beep-0 encounter two Rabbids who aren't: Rabbid Luigi and Rabbid Peach. Aided by a mysterious email contact known only as F.B., who provides them with weapons, the four decide to team up to put a stop to the chaos. As Mario's team travels across the Mushroom Kingdom, defeating the corrupted Rabbids while also encountering allies consisting of Princess Peach, Luigi, Rabbid Mario, Yoshi, and Rabbid Yoshi, Bowser Jr. comes across the Rabbid fused to the SupaMerge, which he nicknames Spawny, and takes  him under his wing to cause more chaos. Resolving to recover Spawny so they can undo the damage he has caused, the team eventually learns that an entity known as the Megabug is behind the mysterious vortex–presumably created by the SupaMerge–which grows more powerful as they defeat more of the corrupted Rabbids. The gang eventually recover Spawny from Bowser Jr., only for him to get kidnapped by the Megabug. The Megabug merges with Bowser to create "MechaDragonBowser" and battle the heroes. Mario and his team soon defeat the Megabug, saving both Bowser and Spawny. As peace returns to  the Mushroom Kingdom and all the Rabbids are restored to normal, the group celebrates by replacing the new statue of Princess Peach (which had been destroyed by the vortex) with Rabbid Peach instead. Meanwhile, Beep-0 comes to the realization that F.B. is actually his future self—F.B. standing for Future Beep-0—and uses the Time Washing Machine to help his comrades in the past by sending the same emails and weapons that his future self sent to him to his past self. Section::::"Donkey Kong Adventure". When Rabbid Kong, one of the merged Rabbids, fiddles with the Time Washing Machine, Rabbid  Peach and Beep-0 are inadvertently transported to another dimension after getting close to the machine. They are marooned on Donkey Kong Island, where the machine is severely damaged. To get back to the Mushroom Kingdom, the two must find the machine's missing parts and reassemble it. After being attacked by the native islanders, they are saved by Donkey Kong and Rabbid Cranky, who were both also transported to the island by the machine and agree to help. Rabbid Kong, who was also sent to the island, crash-lands in a temple and ends up becoming corrupted by a "Bad  Banana", a banana contaminated with the Megabug's energy oozing from one of the Time Washing Machine's parts, becoming more powerful. Seeking revenge against Rabbid Peach for his previous defeat, he starts a banana racketeering operation on the island to create more Bad Bananas. The group fights a pair of powerful corrupted Rabbids working for Rabbid Kong, to obtain the keys to Rabbid Kong's lair. Shortly after arriving, the trio defeat Rabbid Kong in a final battle, draining his powers. Rabbid Peach and Rabbid Kong make amends and the latter helps them rebuild the Time Washing Machine, sending  it, Rabbid Peach, and Beep-0 back to the Mushroom Kingdom. In the post-credits scene, the inventor from the prologue returns and discovers Rabbid Peach's photos of the island, which somehow ended up in her room. Development and release. As a child, the game's creative director Davide Soliani had always enjoyed playing "Mario" games. Soliani had met Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of the "Mario" franchise a handful of times in the past; on one occasion, when Soliani first met Miyamoto at E3 2014, he requested him to sign a copy of "The Jungle Book", a game Soliani made for  the Game Boy Advance in 2003. After a long run of "Rabbids" video games developed by Ubisoft meanwhile, Xavier Manzanares, a Ubisoft brand producer, began to think ahead about the future of the "Rabbids" series in 2013. Ubisoft began to talk with Nintendo about ideas for future "Rabbids" video games, but only really brought the concept of party games like the ones they made prior. Toward the end of the year, Manzanares began to conceptualize games that weren't the typical genre they were familiar with. He teamed up with three others to plan a game, including Davide Soliani, the  future creative director of "Kingdom Battle". Without any clear idea, their main goal was to combine the "Rabbids" and "Mario" franchises in some way. When Soliani presented thirteen ideas to Manzanares, he dropped the ideology of focusing on combining the brands and shifted attention towards the game itself. Because the two franchises were very different from each other, they decided upon the turn-based strategy genre because neither franchises have done anything in the field. Manzanares's ultimate goal was to design something surprising, even for Nintendo. According to Soliani, when presenting the idea to Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of  the "Mario" franchise, they put as much effort into a prototype to present as possible. They refrained from simply a discussion or visuals and concepts because he "really wanted to show stuff instead of just talking." When presented to Miyamoto, his only major concern was giving "Mario" characters weaponry; he considered Ubisoft "understands Mario as a character", and put trust in the company when details were fleshed out. The development team were equally apprehensive about featuring firearms in a "Mario" game. To alleviate this, they took inspiration from films with exaggerated weaponry such as the 1997 science fiction film "The  Fifth Element", which featured plasma-firing arm cannons. Nintendo appreciated their reverence and gave permission to let "Mario" characters use the guns. Early development of the game was tricky for Ubisoft, as they had to juggle using a new game engine, Snowdrop, and a genre and concept they haven't officially defined. Nintendo carefully managed, making sure to view all progress and test every idea and prototype. On multiple occasions, Nintendo directly asked Ubisoft to put more emphasis on the weirdness of the Rabbids; Miyamoto found the Rabbids to be a unique source of humor unexplored in the "Mario" franchise . In other instances, Ubisoft requested an idea that seemed like the answer would be no, but received laughter and approval from Nintendo. Nintendo's ultimate goal was to be surprised in what ways the Rabbids could bring gameplay elements that weren't typical in regular "Mario" games, so they repeatedly asked Ubisoft to surprise them. Design. Nintendo was always keen on making sure their games were innovative and stood out. Knowing this, Ubisoft began production by brainstorming unique ideas to set it apart from other strategy games. Considering that many games of the genre were dull in color and slower -paced to emphasize strategy, Ubisoft conceptualized a colorful and fast-paced game. Because of this, their main point of reference was Nintendo's "Mario Kart" series, a colorful kart racing series directed towards casual play. The action was focused on moving around the battlefield instead of hiding for cover often, said Soliani. To make sure they balanced casual gameplay with the strategy genre, Ubisoft ran a lot of playtesting. They made sure the game was accessible and taught the player throughout their playtime. When it came to the level of difficulty, Soliani was surprised to see nine-year-old children  pulling off stunts he believed would not work with a younger audience. An underlying goal of Ubisoft was to combine the two franchises in a way that both were equally represented. Emphasizing a crossover, they put the effort into the amount of contrast between the two. Nintendo wanted a game that was built around the intellectual property (IP) of the "Mario" universe, while also emphasizing the anarchy of the Rabbids which Nintendo set as a goal from the beginning. For example, Ubisoft wanted Rabbid Peach to not simply be a Rabbid in a Princess Peach costume, but rather to give  her a personality that was similar in some ways yet stereotypically contrasting the original character. Rabbid Peach was in the base prototype and Nintendo found it to be a funny concept. While Nintendo gave Ubisoft a lot of open freedom, they made sure that they were getting their IP precise. Ubisoft would receive multiple notes about changes in animations and looks in the "Mario" characters. In total, there were about 1,500 animations to fit. Music. For the game's music Soliani contracted Grant Kirkhope, a composer who had written the music for numerous critically acclaimed games such as "Banjo-Kazooie  and Donkey Kong 64". Similar to Miyamoto, Soliani was a big fan of his works as he grew up with a Nintendo 64, which contained multiple games with music by him. Kirkhope got an email from Gian Marco, a producer at Ubisoft, in late 2014. The email simply mentioned a game he could be interested in composing music for, so he signed a non-disclosure agreement and met with Soliani in Paris, France. Kirkhope believed he was simply working on a new "Rabbids" video game, as the tentative title at the time was "Rabbids Kingdom Battle". When he was taken  somewhere disclosed with security, he was confused about why a "Rabbids" game was being kept secret. When he discovered the game was a crossover with the "Mario" franchise, he was left in shock. Fearing this, Kirkhope had a blank expression during the meeting, which Soliani believed to be a sign of disinterest. Eventually, he agreed to work on the game and built a strong connection with Soliani. It was difficult for Soliani to work with Kirkhope at first due to him having to give feedback to someone he admired. One of Kirkhope's biggest challenges was the quantity, having to  compose about two and a half hours of music in all. Additionally, he and Soliani were located in Los Angeles and Milan respectively; Soliani would sometimes accidentally call Kirkhope in the middle of the night asking for feedback. Release, promotion, and additional content. Information on a crossover between the "Mario" and "Raving Rabbids" franchises was leaked as early as November 2016, although the title "Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle" was first leaked in May 2017, prior to its official announcement during Ubisoft's press conference at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2017. The game was released in North America and PAL  territories for the Nintendo Switch on 29 August 2017. It was later released in Japan and other East Asian territories on 18 January 2018, where Nintendo published and distributed the title for Ubisoft. A collector's edition was also released, which came with a soundtrack CD, cards, and a Rabbid Mario figurine. Ubisoft released post-launch downloadable content through a season pass, which includes new weapons, solo challenges, cooperative maps, and story-based content. On 26 June 2018, an expansion known as "Donkey Kong Adventure" was released. It includes a new story featuring Rabbid Peach and Beep-0 teaming up with  Donkey Kong and Rabbid Cranky to defeat Rabbid Kong, one of the bosses in the game's main storyline. "Kingdom Battle" was intended to be revealed at the E3 2017 event, but some info was accidentally leaked prior. What was leaked was a singular image of Mario and Rabbid Peach posing with weaponry. When the concept was met with negative reception, the development team got discouraged and lost morale, which caused Soliani to further emphasize a unique experience because of it. Soliani was in a constant state of panic before its full reveal and urged his development team to not  get their hopes up. When major details about the game were revealed at E3 2017, however, Shigeru Miyamoto came and helped Soliani pitch the game to the audience. Fans, upon seeing the game in full, showed immense curiosity and excitement in the game. When Soliani saw the praise, he teared up on stage with excitement and relief. His reaction to the praise became an internet meme. After the conference, Soliani was in a long state of shock, being consistently praised on the street and recognized for his efforts. He received 37 awards for the performance. When he returned to work , the company's morale was greatly boosted. Ubisoft began to work on the "Donkey Kong Adventure" downloadable content (DLC) shortly after the games' reveal at E3 2017. According to Soliani, the initial plan was to release about 1–2 hours of additional content. After the praise of the game after its reveal, Soliani decided to add as much content as possible, with cutscenes, worlds, and gameplay totaling about half of the base game in all. After the revamp, the DLC was 10 hours in length. Kirkhope had to write an additional 45 minutes of music and the programmers had to completely  re-do the gameplay as Soliani wanted the new content to be completely offset from the original game. To advertise the game, the Ubisoft Instagram account was temporarily changed to appear as if it were Rabbid Peach's personal account, with posts and images being made as if they were coming from her perspective. Reception. Critical reviews. "Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle" received "generally favorable" reviews according to review aggregator Metacritic. The game debuted at number two on the UK physical video game sales charts. It was the best-selling physical video game in Australia in the week ending 3  September. It sold 66,692 copies within its first week on sale in Japan, which placed it at number one on the all format sales chart. By September 2017, "Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle" became the best-selling game on the Nintendo Switch to have not been wholly published by Nintendo. Most critical reviews opened by reaffirming the ludicrousness of the game's concept; "Giant Bomb" considered the idea a "bad, late-night message board conversation", and most critics have mixed to negative opinions of the "Rabbids" franchise as a whole, especially in comparison to the "Mario" franchise. When the game  was released, reviewers were quick to reconsider how in-depth the game actually was, despite their preconceived notions that the game would be gimmicky or reliant on "Rabbids"-style humor. Some believed that the game's tone and writing mixed well with the "Mario" franchise; "Wired"s Julie Muncy observed that Mario often acts as a straight man to the Rabbids' childish behavior. The cast of new characters introduced in "Kingdom Battle" has received a generally positive response. Rabbid Peach in particular emerged as a popular character with critics and players following an initially divisive reception prior to the game's release . Chris Bratt from "Eurogamer" found that the game's characters are an effective representation of its setting and humour; he singled out Rabbid Peach as having given him an initially crass impression from the game's leak, but grew to enjoy her antics when more of the game was shown, a sentiment fellow "Eurogamer" contributor Jeffrey Matulef shared. Gabe Gurwin of "Digital Trends" regarded her as the standout of "Kingdom Battle"s cast, praising her for her humor and entertaining personality and suggesting that she should appear in the crossover video game series "Super Smash Bros". Paul Tamburro of "Game Revolution  stated that she steals the show" in "Kingdom Battles", crediting her with giving the Rabbids mascot a personality. Critics were divided over Ubisoft's decision to center the game's promotional efforts on social media around Rabid Peach; Kotaku's Gita Jackson found the change creepy due to its attempts to personify brands, and felt that the account mocked women on Instagram. Despite this, she still found the character cute. Writer Laura Kate Dale was more positive, and commented that Rabbid Peach "stole the show" in "Kingdom Battle", particularly citing her love for taking selfies on her mobile phone as  a contributing factor. The game's simplified combat system and structure were revered throughout reviews. "Polygon" reviewer Russ Frushstick commented that although the game wasn't too bold in appealing to older audiences, it successfully made the tactical roleplaying genre appealing to unfamiliar audiences with its simplistic approach. "PCMag" considered this to be due to the lack of complex statistics and probability, and rather favored simplistic "coin-flip" chances. "The Verge" also praised its simplicity, and claimed that it blended well with the Nintendo Switch and its portable functionality due to the structured format. Various sites positively compared gameplay to  the "XCOM" franchise. Puzzles in between the level-formatted combat received mixed opinions in comparison. Writing for "Destructoid", Chris Carter found the space in between levels to be filler rather than a unique exploration feature, only used to hide collectible items. In addition, Jeff Marchiafava of "Game Informer" found certain collectibles, such as music and concept art, to be lackluster and not worth going out of the way to achieve, although the combat phases more than made up for it. Conversely, "GameSpot" enjoyed how it helped interconnect the environment to make it "seamless", and although some puzzles could be tedious  it helped give a brief distraction once in a while. Accolades. "Kingdom Battle" received numerous awards, generally in strategy game categories, alongside several other nominations. The game won "Best Strategy Game" at the Game Critics Awards, Gamescom, and The Game Awards 2017, as well as the D.I.C.E. Awards the following year. Additionally, the game won "Best Original Game" at the Game Critics Awards, as well as the "Animation" and "Visual Design" categories at the 2018 Develop Awards. It was also nominated for several other miscellaneous categories, such as best casual game, best family game, and best of show; the game  was surpassed only by other first-party games developed solely by Nintendo, being under shadowed by "Super Mario Odyssey" and "". "Eurogamer" ranked the game fifth on their list of the "Top 50 Games of 2017"; "GamesRadar+" ranked it 13th on their list of the 25 best games of 2017; "EGMNow" ranked it 14th on their list of the 25 Best Games of 2017; "Polygon" ranked it 33rd on their list of the 50 best games of 2017. The game won the award for "Best Strategy Game" in "IGN"s Best of 2017 Awards, whereas its other nominations were for "Best Switch  Game" and "Best Original Music". Legacy. In the 2018 fighting game "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate", three of the Rabbids appear as collectable Spirits using their artwork from this title: Rabbid Mario, Rabbid Peach, and Rabbid Kong. Rabbid Peach appears in "Just Dance 2018", serving as the alternative playable mascot for Beyoncé's song "Naughty Girl". Connections forged from "Kingdom Battle" extend beyond Rabbids references. In January 2019 the game's composer, Grant Kirkhope, was contacted by creative director Davide Soliani asking for his contact information on behalf of Nintendo, saying Nintendo loved what Kirkhope had done for the "Mario +  Rabbids" soundtrack and requested his help on an unspecified piece of music. Kirkhope was initially skeptical on the purpose of this offer but accepted the opportunity anyway. Upon realizing that he was actually being asked to arrange music for Banjo and Kazooie's appearance in "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate", he was incredibly excited for the return of the characters. A sequel, "Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope", was announced at E3 2021 and is set for a 2022 release on the Nintendo Switch.