These abilities are all so great, until they start using them on you as well. The more advanced weapons can also either push enemies out of their hidey-hole, bounce them off the stage for more damage or stick them into place with honey. There are lasers, remote sentries, hammers and other special abilities as well. Mario + Rabbids has a range of different weapons to help you in your bid of removing the evil Rabbids from the Mushroom Kingdom and not all of them are guns.

There are warp pipes on most maps as well, which adds some more strategy you never want to just go head-first into a fight, and it always helps to have the higher ground. This’ll get you into higher places, or allow you to get out of the way if you’re taking damage or your cover is destroyed. Each turn has you moving around the map a limited amount of tiles, but you can extend your reach by spring-boarding off other players. That’s where the simple nature of the game ends and everything else is a little more complicated. Enemies can, of course, flank you and come around, but for the most part if you’re hiding behind something, you’re going to last a lot longer than not. The combat in Mario + Rabbids is fairly simple on the surface - like XCOM you’ll want to take cover to avoid getting obliterated quickly, and there are barriers littered around the play fields that will either protect you all of the time or just half of it.

Beep-O, the game’s robot vacuum-looking guide, will take Mario and friends through the Kingdom to stop the rogue Rabbids who caused all this trouble. The Rabbids arrive in their washing time machine, take the visor, and end up in the Mushroom Kingdom - but not before combining everything in the room including Mario, Luigi, Peach and anyone else you can think of from the Mushroom Kingdom. The game begins in the basement of an inventor who is a big fan of Nintendo this fan has created a VR-like headset device which can combine two items into one, and it mostly works. The Rabbids are by far the weirdest crossover Mario has even been a part of, but it just works.

The idea of such a prestigious franchise such as Super Mario mingling in with Rabbids, how dare they! Luckily for everyone, Nintendo didn’t shoot down the idea, and today we have a brilliant melding of Super Mario, Rabbids, XCOM, and there’s some Rareware in there too. When everyone first heard of a potential Mario and Rabbids crossover game, there wasn’t a single eyebrow that wasn’t raised.

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