What I'm Playing - No. 38
Welcome back to another weekly wrap-up of the games I’ve been playing over the past week!
There are end game spoilers for Mario+Rabbids in this post. I spoil the final boss, so if that’s something you’d rather have kept secret, this one isn’t for you!
Games contained within this post:
- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Switch)
- Mario+Rabbids Kingdom Battle (Switch)
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Switch)
There was a new online tournament that limited the fighter selection to characters from the Mario universe. Piranha Plant was also playable, but I don’t own their DLC so they’re not in my roster. Naturally, I had to give it a try and show off my Mario skills! …I played one match, lost, and gave up! The tournament rules used Time instead of Stock, and I personally don’t care for Time much. It’s much easier for me to gauge how I’m doing in a Stock match, whereas with Time I just always assume I’m losing and even if I’m doing well I never feel like I am.
Mario+Rabbids Kingdom Battle (Switch)
I finished Mario+Rabbids Kingdom Battle this week! Of course there’s lots of content within that I didn’t explore. I might play it more in the future and play more of the Challenges, go for more optional treasure chests, etc.. It really was a surprisingly solid tactics game. The Rabbids premise didn’t draw me in, but I’m really glad I gave it a chance because it was a lot of fun! It’s generally pretty cheap too, so I’d recommend curious Switch owners give it a try sometime if it sounds remotely interesting. I wrote a full review of it if you’re still not convinced!
The week began with my party adventuring through the remainder of the spooky world, graveyard and all. Throughout this world, Beep-O receives emails from an unknown sender. This isn’t unusual, as prior to this in-game you get helpful emails from an anonymous sender. The ones you receive in this world are a little off though but Beep-O doesn’t notice until much later.
At the end of this ghost-filled world, my team fought the singing, operatic ghost boss called Phantom. Pretty on the nose Phantom of the Opera reference there! He had a full song prior to the start of the battle. Once I got over how jarring it was to hear a fully voiced song in a game that previously had no spoken dialogue, it actually had some funny puns and references in it. PatronusLight loved the entire song. I’m still a bit torn on it. Generally, I like musicals, but this song just came out of left field and totally threw me.
Anyway, shortly after that I led Beep-O and crew onward to a lava-filled factory world. It was here that we recruited our final party member, Yoshi. Among other abilities, Yoshi has the ability to ground pound. He does this after doing a Team Jump, and it deals some nice bonus damage. He joins so late in the game though that I haven’t used him much so far. Maybe if I replay earlier Chapters or do some Challenges I’ll use him some more.
On their way to the final boss battle, the crew runs into some familiar looking Rabbids - Bwario and Bwaluigi! These cameos were a pleasant surprise, Waluigi doesn’t seem to show up in many non-sports Mario games. I mean I guess technically he wasn’t in Mario+Rabbids either, but close enough. What’s interesting here is that the bigger of the two Rabbids is dressed as Waluigi…you’d think short and stout Wario would be a big Rabbid, but he’s actually the small one. Anyway, it was cool that these guys were one of the mini-boss battles.
The final boss was none other than Bowser! Well, technically Bowser possessed by the glitchy “bug” entity that was unleashed when the Rabbids arrived in the Mushroom Kingdom. This was a good boss fight. It provided some challenge, and I unashamedly used the “Extra Health” option.
After defeating Bowser, the glitchy bug was destroyed, and the threat to Mushroom Kingdom was no more. The ending cutscene shows Mario and company and their new Rabbid friends at the unveiling of a Rabbid Peach statue.
