LOS ANGELES—If you had told me Super Mario would star in a Rayman Rabbids crossover game, I might have guessed it was a party or mini-game compilation. Maybe some zany arcade-sports or rhythm-dance experiment.

But an RPG? And one with turn-based, gun-fueled tactical combat?

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle finally answers the question nobody has ever asked: how an XCOM-styled game would feel with two series' branded characters vying for the lead role. I tried to answer that question during a recent hands-on with the Nintendo Switch exclusive, but honestly, I'm still unsure. Even in its early demo version, this game already struggles to split the difference between tactical games' depth and these mascots' kid-friendly pedigree.

Choker on a toilet

My 20-minute demo (presented above in its entirety) began with Mario joining an adventuring party of costumed Rabbids. Their mission: find Luigi. The demo didn't clarify exactly where I was, nor why I had teamed up with these fluffy things dressed up like my friends Luigi and Peach, but the story has something to do with Rabbids ripping a hole in the space-time continuum and invading the Mushroom Kingdom.

I was also unclear as to why exactly Mario and friends each had Mega Man-styled robo-guns attached to one arm—but that was the least of my demo's huh-wha... moments. Top of that list had to be when my group walked past one maniacally giggling Rabbid in the background. This weirdo was relaxing on top of a massive rubber ducky... which itself was sporting a black, spiked choker necklace and floating on a massive toilet. I lost track of the gun-arms at that point.

Weird conceptual stuff popped up all over my demo, including the fact that I didn't directly control characters in the game. Instead, my joystick moved a little talking hover-droid—a cross between a Roomba and a curling stone—and Mario's party chased it around. This gimmick doubles as the game's "mouse" cursor once you get into battles.

The game's turn-based battles feel a little more like XCOM than like "tactics RPG" games such as Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy Tactics. The biggest difference is movement. Other TRPGs have movement points that deplete based on number of footsteps. M+RKB characters are a little freer; at the start of every round, they can run however many steps they want within a certain amount of space, which can be big or small depending on their stats. And if you toggle a movement-related perk (like a warp pipe or ally assist), that gated amount of space can grow substantially.

As a result, M+RKB players can chain a bunch of actions together for a single "move" command, which you can see in the above video. I routinely commanded a character to walk right up to an enemy, bonk it with a melee attack, then run back to a teammate and bounce off its head to a complete opposite end of the level and get behind cover. All of that, which could also be supplemented by the use of Mario-styled "warp pipes," just counts as one "move" action, and it still leaves your characters free to shoot a single bullet at a nearby foe. (Your guns' accuracy, like in XCOM, will depend on distance and any cover the enemy hides behind.)

Characters can also build up an energy meter for special commands like heals, elemental shields, and a "keep enemy stuck" bomb of honey.

Between each battle, Mario and friends ran around a colorful world that reminds me a lot of the old Super Nintendo game Super Mario RPG, at least in terms of its top-down style and simple puzzle solving. Players can pick up coins and items by figuring out these puzzles, and I stumbled across one puzzle room that looks a lot like Super Mario 3D World, with a timer and some perspective-based trickery.

Also between every battle, the game inserted a very Rabbids-flavored sense of humor into the proceedings. In addition to the weird stuff mentioned above, the Rabbid characters often acted clueless, silly, violent, or completely self-absorbed. Some of it was so bizarre that I couldn't help but love it. Other bits, like a Peach-costumed Rabbid taking constant selfies, wore a little thin.

Too much tutorial?

My demo's battles all felt like tutorials, yet they didn't have declarative text or prompts to walk younger players through the genre's basics. I would say that's just an issue with a pre-release E3 demo, but the final game is out in August.

I had hoped Ubisoft would include a later-game level that emphasizes players' ability to pull off so many movement-related combos and make tough tactical decisions. M+RKB does not include XCOM-styled permadeath, which normally punishes players for letting their dopey troopers run willy-nilly into tactically unsound positions. The demo only had one boss battle, but its minion characters failed to pester us into tougher tactical backup plans.

I'm all for a cartoony, console-friendly spin on the tactical-RPG trope... but I already have that in The Behemoth's Pit People, which is currently being spit-shined as an early access game. But that one doesn't have M+RKB's zany move-combo system, so I'll keep an eye on whether it actually turns out well in the Ubisoft game's August release.