Mushroom Wars 2 review for Nintendo Switch

Platform: Nintendo Switch
Also On: PC
Publisher: Zillion Whales
Developer: Zillion Whales
Medium: Digital
Players: 1-4
Online: Yes
ESRB: E

Iโ€™ll say this for Mushroom Wars 2: thereโ€™s certainly a lot of it. I mean, I wouldnโ€™t say that I particularly enjoy it, and I think that somewhere around the 70th or 80th mission (out of 100 in total) it started feeling like real-time strategy overkill, but I donโ€™t think thereโ€™s any question that if you want real-time strategy on your Switch, Mushroom Wars 2 almost certainly offers more of that than any of its competition.

I should immediately clarify, of course, that just because I donโ€™t like it, itโ€™s not inconceivable that anyone else could. It has some charms. The graphics, particularly in the cutscenes, are fairly cute, as you might expect from a game where sentient mushrooms are doing battle over toadstool-looking habitations. In fact, given that youโ€™re mainly fighting over terrains that remain largely unchanged apart from the positioning of those toadstools, you could even say that the graphics are much better than they need to be โ€” but Iโ€™m not going to complain.

Further, the controls are fairly easy to master. Even if youโ€™re not that familiar with RTS games, Mushroom Wars 2 borrows enough from tower defense that it should seem pretty straightforward. It also doesnโ€™t hurt that, especially early on, the game doesnโ€™t skimp on tutorial levels.

Unfortunately, as I said up top, Mushroom Wars 2โ€™s big drawback is that it also doesnโ€™t skimp on content. That may sound like a bizarre thing to complain about, but thereโ€™s really not a lot of variety from level to level. On top of that, this game demands that players be patient, since you have to spend a lot of time waiting for those toadstools to generate enough mushroom army men for you to launch assaults on the opposing โ€” which means that you also spend a lot of time looking at those maps that, again, donโ€™t look all that different from each other.

Of course, if youโ€™re an RTS diehard, that may just be the appeal of the game. If that is, then youโ€™ll probably want to investigate this game, because thereโ€™s ample amounts of both strategizing and waiting. If, however, you want something that moves a little faster than paint drying, youโ€™ll want to look elsewhere, because youโ€™re not going to find it in Mushroom Wars 2.

Zillion Whales provided us with a Mushroom Wars 2 code for review purposes.

Grade: C
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