Rabbid Peach

RABBID PEACH

Right at the start of the game, Mario teams up with a pair of Rabbids combined with objects belonging to his friends.

The first of these is Rabbid Peach, who is clearly a favorite of the developers, as she is the only character to recur in both games and all DLC packs throughout the years, and even features in most of their marketing. She is vain and flighty, often taking selfies and falling in love with various characters. Basically a "valley girl" stereotype.

As a fighter, her stats will be similar in nature to those in the Mario + Rabbids series, her moves pulling from the moves she has there.

Likelihood rating: Could happen?

Rabbid Mario

A pleasant surprise in the spring of 2017 was the release of a collaboration between Nintendo’s Mario series and Ubisoft’s Rabbids franchise, a combination that probably shouldn’t have worked, but turned out to be one of the better games of the year. In it, the Rabbids encounter a multidimensional warping device and accidentally set it off, sending them to the Mario world and creating a bunch of Rabbids fused with elements of the Mario world.

In order to put a stop to all this chaos, Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, and Yoshi team up with Rabbids fused with posters of them, becoming Rabbid Mario, Rabbid Luigi, Rabbid Peach, and Rabbid Yoshi each coming with an exaggerated and cartoonish version of their own personalities. Along with these new friends, the game came with its own unique style of combat incorporating laser guns and hiding behind cover and moving your team around strategically.

As playable fighters, the four Rabbids will take up the first four color swaps, each with a different variation for the other four. Their moves will pull from the unique gameplay of the crossover, making use of their guns and cover and their various weapons. Their assistant character Beep-0 will also play heavily into their moveset.

Likelihood rating: Probably not

Character Sheet: Rabbid Mario

RABBID MARIO

More games than I've ever covered, and only five new characters offered up. At least they're all fun characters. Here are those added in by the assortment of random Mario games that couldn't fit into a neat group. They are:

1. Builder Mario

2. Foreman Spike

3. Rabbid Mario

4. Ziggy

5. Rabbid Kong

Today, let's cover Rabbid Mario, or rather, let's cover Rabbid Mario, Rabbid Luigi, Rabbid Peach, and Rabbid Yoshi all with a color swap each. As the four characters more or less played the same, just with some variance, they will just act as color swaps of each other. Beep-O will also act as a support character with the moveset.

As far as moves go, we have a few different types to work with. Obviously, we have the team jump which is an easy Up B. Then we have projectile moves using the guns that make up the core of the gameplay, melee attacks using hammers and such, grenades, area attacks, sentries that can be sent out to explode, healing blasts for allies, and shields to protect from attack. We also have Spawny, the timid rabbid with a penchant for fusing things.

Here's the moveset I came up with:

Standard B: Beam Blast

This will be the standard beam charge shot used throughout the game. You can charge and hold it, causing it to come out in different forms, including a single shot, multi-shot, and heal charge. These will be aesthetically different for each of the four, but not too different in practice.

Side B: Sentry

The character will send out a sentry that can be controlled remotely by the player. After it travels a certain amount of time, it will stop and explode.

Up B: Team Up

I'm tempted to say the Rabbid will just use Beep-O as the trampoline and launch off of him, but we could also have one of the unused Rabbid skins pop out and act as the trampoline. (Not sure what to do about 8-player smash if we did).

Down B: Shield

The character will surround themselves in a shield bubble that will protect them from projectile attacks.

Final Smash: Spawny

Spawny will appear onstage, look around fearfully for a second before being startled and firing off a bunch of merging blasts in every direction. If we wanted to really get ambitious, the beams could combine the current stage with a random other stage and merge the fighters together (giving both players control of the resulting chimera) for a few seconds, but I imagine that would be insane to program, and it would probably be easier to just have the blasts do a lot of damage.

Entrance: The washing machine will crash-land and the Rabbid will pop out.

Taunts: So many options. Up, do Rabbid Peach's trademark selfie. Side, charge the gun for a second too long, resulting in a small explosion before the Rabbid laughs it off. Down, the Rabbid will chase Spawny around for a second.

Thanks for reading! Next up, let's cover the enemies appearing in Mario + Rabbids!

Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle

MARIO + RABBIDS: KINGDOM BATTLE

Today, let's cover one of the surprise hits of the Switch's library, an unlikely crossover between the Mario series and Ubisoft's Rabbids that surprisingly worked really well. I find myself in a bit of a tricky spot with this one, as, unlike other crossovers where the playstyle either didn't matter to any character involved, or was basically just that other series's playstyle, this game has its own playstyle and mechanics completely unique to both parties, one that I'd very much like to see represented. Let's see what we can do.

We have eight playable characters here: Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Yoshi, alongside Rabbids that got merged with a Mario fan's posters of the characters to become Rabbid Mario, Rabbid Luigi, Rabbid Peach, and Rabbid Yoshi (basically they're just dressed up in costumes of the characters). We also have Beep-O, a small Roomba-like device that acts as the controller during non-action parts of the game. During action segments, these characters work as a team, with more or less the same moveset (just kinda personalized to each). Mario has a projectile gun and a hammer, Peach has a projectile and grenade, Luigi has a projectile (the Poltergust) and a sentry he can send out, Yoshi has a projectile and an area attack, Rabbid Mario has a projectile and hammer like Mario, Rabbid Peach has a projectile and shield and also acts as the healer, Rabbid Luigi has a projectile that causes random side effects and an area attack, and Rabbid Yoshi also has a projectile and a grenade. All of these characters can also perform the team jump to bounce off of each other and get to higher places, and can use warp points to move around as well.

Outside of that, Toad and Toadette play supporting roles, and Spawny, a rabbid combined with the device that did all the combining in the first place, plays the role of damsel in distress. A talking sunflower spits up treasure chests, and random rabbids play around in the background. Finally, we have an unnamed inventor appearing at the beginning of the story, whose room gets wrecked and her life's work shot off to another dimension (and we never see it fixed, by the way).

On the enemy side, we mostly see a number of enemies made up of corrupted rabbids. There are different types, but mainly sorted in specific groups that then just have variation across the different levels. These include: Ziggies, the basic gunner enemies; Hoppers with springs on their legs; Smashers that carry around big blocks to smash you with; Supporters that heal and throw bombs; Bucklers that carry shields; Peek-a-Boos that can teleport; and Valkyries that can fire multiple rounds and ground pound.

Each level also has a boss and a midboss. The midbosses include a Piranha Plant-rabbid hybrid, a pair of sand and ice-themed rabbids, a Day of the Dead-themed rabbid named Calavera, a Wario and Waluigi rabbid, and Bowser Jr. piloting a hammer-swinging mech. The full bosses included Rabbid Kong, a temperamental monkey that doesn't do much in this boss fight, but who we'll come back to; an Icicle Golem that freezes you and wields a shield; a glorious opera-singing Phantom that throws energy balls and becomes invincible for a short time; a Lava Queen that mostly attacks with lava; and then a fusion between a lava dragon and Bowser that flies, breathes fire, butt bashes, spits meteors, and uses a shield.

We only have four main stages here, those being: Ancient Gardens, a standard Mario level that steadily changes into a towering precipice of junk; Sherbet Desert, a fusion between a desert and a snow level; Spooky Trails, a haunted level; and Lava Pit, your standard Bowser level.

Now, we have one more thing to talk about. The game received an expanded story DLC, entirely revolving around Rabbid Kong causing trouble out of jealousy and transporting himself, Rabbid Peach, and Beep-O to Donkey Kong's world, where Rabbid Peach then teams up with Donkey Kong and a Rabbid form of Cranky. Donkey and Rabbid Cranky take up the other party members' roles, and we get a new level called Tropical Island. Rabbid Kong gets an expanded boss role, making shockwaves, punching, using a banana axe by spinning it, throwing the banana as a boomerang, and spinning it like a helicopter.

I think that's about it! Here's what we've got:

Characters:

Mario: hammer, bombs, drop drum, golden hammer, pink (enemy), blue (block), yellow (metal plate), green (brick), Kanbank, throw Koopa shells, chisel, pinball, dance

Builder Mario: item blocks, arrow signs, brick blocks, rotating blocks, bridges, burners, cannons, cloud blocks, coins, conveyor belts, donut blocks, fire bars, grinders, hidden blocks, ice blocks, lifts, mushroom platforms, note blocks, one-way walls, P switches, pipes, POW blocks, spike traps, tracks, trampolines, vines, warp doors, 1-Up Mushrooms, Fire Flowers, Super Leaves, Cape Feathers, Propeller Mushrooms, Super Mushrooms, Weird Mushrooms, Super Stars, Clown Car, Buzzy Beetle and Spiny Shells, Big Mushrooms, Mystery Mushrooms, Master Sword, Superball Flowers, Super Bell, Super Hammer, SMB2 Mushroom, Frog Suit, Super Acorn, Boomerang Flower, Rotten Mushroom, Cannon Box, Propeller Box, Goomba Mask, Bullet Bill Mask, reset rocket, companion characters

Luigi: same, dance

Princess Peach

Bowser, dance

Beep-O/Rabbid Mario/Luigi/Peach/Yoshi: team jump, projectile, melee, grenaduck, area attack, sentry, heal, shield

Foreman Spike: push, best option for a gimmick character, see all above

Wario: chisel, dance

Toad

Yoshi

Donkey Kong

Daisy

Waluigi: dance, steal music keys

Birdo

Diddy Kong

Toadette

Toadsworth

Bowser Jr.

Petey Piranha

Rabbid Kong: shockwave, punch, spin Banana club, throw banana boomerang, helicopter spin

Koopa Troopa

Goomba

Shy Guy

Boo

Cheep Cheep

Bob-Omb

Lakitu

Pokey

Chain Chomp

Monty Mole

Ukiki

Ziggy/Rabbid Enemies: gun, springs, machine gun, block, shield, teleport, heal, bombs, ground pound

Eggplant Man: run around

Gotchawrench: run around

Slime

Platypunk

Bianca

Angelo

Jessica

Alena

Kiryl

Carver

Pudding/Princessa

Yangus

Dragonlord

Stella

Patty

Onigiri

Onnanoko

Oyazi

Dogu

Tutankoopa: float, spell

Stages:

Wrecking Crew

High Rise Building

Mario Paint

Clash House Tower

Fun Fair

Frosty Frontier

Grassy Greens

Shifting Sands

Fiery Stage

Truffle Towers

SS Brass

Corkscrew Hotel

Wario Carnival

Snowy Peak

Bowser's Castle

Yoshi's Island

Bowser's Castle

Mario Stadium

Mario Circuit

Peach's Castle

Delfino Plaza

Mushroom Kingdom

Castle Trodain

Mt. Magmageddon

Colossus

Ghost Ship

Slimenia

Alefgard

Robbin' Hood Ruins

Starship Mario

Good Egg Galaxy

Observatory

Alltrades Abbey

Mario Maker (I like the way Smash did it)

Mario Maker 2

Puzzles & Dragons

Super Mario Run

Ancient Gardens

Sherbet Desert

Spooky Trails

Lava Pit

Tropical Island

Items:

Hammers

Bombs

Drums

Blocks

Shells

Mahjong Tiles

Pinball Machine

Music Keys

1-Up Mushrooms

Fire Flowers

Super Leaves

Cape Feathers

Propeller Mushrooms

Super Mushrooms

Weird Mushrooms

Super Stars

Clown Car

Buzzy Beetle and Spiny Shells

Big Mushrooms

Mystery Mushrooms

Master Sword

Superball Flowers

Super Bell

Super Hammer

SMB2 Mushroom

Frog Suit

Super Acorn

Boomerang Flower

Rotten Mushroom

Cannon Box

Propeller Box

Goomba Mask

Bullet Bill Mask

Thanks for reading! Next up, let's finish this hodge-podge with Super Mario Bros. 35!