Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle

• Movement in this game is based on a radius from the character's starting position, not squares traveled. As long as you don't leave the circle, you can move as many squares as you want to do dash attacks or run around obstacles. It's worth taking some time to internalize, as a character that intuitively should barely reach you (and end up exposed if they tried) suddenly travels 4x that distance by going around a pit, punching mario in the face, then doubling back into cover at a spot even further away from you than they started. The good news is you can do the same thing back to the CPU once you get the hang of it.

• The point about movement being radius based also applies to traveling through pipes. A character with 3 movement on leaving a pipe will have those 3 squares regardless if they moved 1 square or 8 getting there. Sometimes this means it's better to avoid taking a pipe even if it means going the long way around. This also makes them a pseudo movement reset so hopping out of one pipe into the next can be chained endlessly so long as there's a new pipe close enough to hop into. The game plays with both dynamics, forcing you to make due with poor movement by taking a pipe up to favorable terrain or by making pipe daisy chains that let characters cross an entire map in a single turn.

• When selecting a spot to move to, the game will show a % for enemies, including ones off the edge of the screen. This is the chance to hit from that square and it's always worth checking before committing to a move since it's not always clear whether an enemy is considered in cover or out of sight/range at a given spot.

• Skill points can always be reset and reassigned, but coins spent on weapons are lost forever. The game unlocks upgraded weapon tiers after each boss and mini-boss, so you'll usually want to avoid buying anything you won't use right away. Mostly I would always upgrade Mario's blaster and Rabbid Peach's weapons since both get a lot of use. If you want to use a specialist for a particular level, you can just buy their weapon at the pre-mission prep screen.

• Starting team notes:
  • Mario's the only one that can land on an enemy after a team jump.
  • Rabbid Luigi's vamp dash effect lingers afterward, so other characters can regain health by shooting a target after he dashes through it.
  • Rabbid Peach's sentry can draw away fire and will explode if an enemy runs by it, so tossing one out isn't a bad idea even if it's out of range.

• Smashers, the big melee dudes that get a free move when hit by weapons, were my first real roadblock.
  • Dash attacks don't trigger their special ability. Their health is such that you'll want to bait them in with weapons one at a time, then wear them down with dash attacks before finishing them off. Trying to take them down from range with weapons only early on will usually end with one in your face ready to one-shot somebody.
  • Mario's hero sight ability can be triggered at the start of his turn and triggers off of any enemy movement, not just on their turn. This means he can double tap a smasher when it moves after getting shot or even a regular enemy hit by a bounce effect. This is super risky early on and I'd generally avoid using hero sight around smashers at all starting out, but it can work in a pinch and gets really useful once you have Luigi and the skill's been upgraded a couple times.