The first Mario + Rabbids was something of a surprise attack. We’d heard rumblings of the coming offensive, but Miyamoto charging the stage at Ubisoft’s E3 2017 conference, weapon held high, was another matter entirely. But the biggest surprise, of course, was how well it all worked. A company crossover between two sets of characters right at opposite ends of the ‘beloved videogame icon’ spectrum? An attempt to bring the tactical complexities of XCOM: Enemy Unknown to players of all ages? Mario, entrusted to a developer other than Nintendo, and they give him guns? It should have been a disaster. And yet.
Kingdom Battle was a triumph: a robust, streamlined take on a tricky genre that managed to leave us feeling more warmly towards the Rabbids themselves. The very nature of surprise attacks, though, is that they only really work once. We’ve spent the past 18 months anticipating Sparks Of Hope – we put it on the cover of after all. So by the time it’s finally loading up on our Switch, we’ve well and truly seen it coming.
