Mushroom Wars, the latest project from Creat Studios, debuted last Thursday on the Playstation Network Store. In anticipation of the game’s release, the official Playstation Blog summarized: “Mushroom Wars is a fast-paced and accessible RTS, with a quaint, anime-inspired visual style where you send your cute armies into battle, upgrade your mushroom bases, improve your weaponry and fight skirmishes in close-quarter maps.” After spending some time with the game, I can say that while everything in the summary is true – it doesn’t necessarily make Mushroom Wars a complete package.

Previous to its release, there wasn’t a lot of information available for Mushroom Wars. The first characteristic that potential gamers locked onto was its visual style, calling the game "a PixelJunk Monsters clone" - a patently unfair comparison since Mushroom Wars is a real-time strategy game, an entirely different genre. There are certainly similarities in the “quaint” style of both games, but any gamer expecting the tower defense gameplay of Monsters will be in for a surprise, unless you purchase your games primarily on their visual aesthetic (but maybe you purchase your books by their cover as well?). In the end, the comparison should be counted as a credit to Mushroom Wars - the game has a great visual style. It's simple, but it neatly fits the tone of the gameplay.

The gameplay is typical of many RTS games, electronic hybrid-versions of Risk with fast-paced, immersive matches where you strive to achieve different goals: capture all enemy territories, secure control points, etc. until your army prevails. Each map has different fixtures: villages where soldier populations replenish at a speed that would make bunnies jealous, towers that zap enemy soldiers that pass within their attack radius, and barracks that boost moral, and subsequently the attack power, of your army. The fixtures can be upgraded, adding weapon upgrades and greater storage capacity, among other buffs, to improve your army’s standing on the battlefield.

The controls are simple enough: move the curser over a fixture, then hold L1 to pop open the available upgrades menu or R1 to open a navigation arrow that allows you to direct your troops, with a different number of soldiers attributed to each of the four main PS3 buttons. The on-the-fly menu options makes fast decisions easy; however, with enemy soldiers on the march I discovered, while attempting to make a quick move, that I would often incorrectly direct my army to the wrong area – a critical mistake in the heat of battle. It’s not a problem with the controls so much as it is a reflection of the tension the game creates: you must act quickly but carefully.

What the gameplay makes up for in pace it looses in depth. While the game offers various upgrades to the fixtures within each match, there are no upgrades to your soldiers. A “reward” system is in place depending on whether you are able to complete certain criteria on the battlefield. In the final battle summary, each reward unlocks one of nine different cartoon warriors – a grim reaper, evil king, gladiator, etc; though these characters are closer to badges - none are playable. Ultimately, the “rewards” come only in the way of points, and eventually a few trophies, and they do not affect the gameplay at all.

There are three basic modes of gameplay. The tutorial/campaign can be cleared in under 60 minutes for a trophy, though it will actually take most players a couple hours. There are three different levels of difficulty for each area in the campaign, which should help less experienced players cut their teeth in the RTS genre. Skirmish is another mode of solo play where you take on multiple armies simultaneously or play especially thought-provoking maps. Lastly, the game offers multiplayer, though only locally. There is no online multiplayer functionality, which destroys a ton of the value this game could have. The fast pace of each battle would lend itself extremely well to online play, and the absence is a critical oversight. I refuse to believe that Creat Studios wouldn’t have looked into including online play and can only assume it was due to time constraints that the feature wasn’t included. RTS games do not lend themselves to the pick-up-and-play mentality of the Nintendo Wii party-gameplay, and it’s difficult to imagine many Mushroom Wars players actually getting to use the local multiplayer feature with many of their friends, at least not to the point where the matches would be competitive enough to be interesting. Though, if you do have a friend familiar with the RTS genre, then you’ll surely get a lot of enjoyment out of the local battles, because the fast pace really does lend itself well to competitive play.

Another major oversight is the inclusion of a proper instruction manual. This sounds ridiculous, but it really hampers the potentially deeper levels to the game. Obviously Mushroom Wars is DLC, but while trying to achieve some of the larger challenges the game has to offer it would have been helpful to have been provided with a little more information/gameplay strategies than just explaining what everything is/does in the tutorial as well as in the “How to Play” section of the main menu. For a “quaint” and “accessible” game, it’s difficult to imagine younger gamers or people new to the RTS market being able to jump in and understand the larger movements of the game. The RTS genre in general has a large opportunity for better educating potential gamers about strategy gameplay. The responsibility here, however, is on the developers - to find a way to help new gamers appreciate the RTS market for all it has to offer. Mushroom Wars is certainly quaint, and it may be “accessible” when compared to other RTS games, but that’s like saying it’s a warm day in Antarctica.

The Good

Pixeljunky: The game looks great and the visual aesthetic suits the gameplay tone. No matter what your experience with RTS genre might be, Mushroom Wars is charming.

Controller Envy: The controls are terrific, a characteristic other RTS games should be looking at with extreme envy. The RTS genre is intricate, but Mushroom Wars proves the controls don’t have to be.

The Bad

Tease: A reward system that not only doesn’t reward you with tangible rewards – it teases you with cool character medals that are really just the equivalent of digital stickers.

Classist: The fact that Mushroom Wars withholds proper rewards is nothing compared to the lack of customizability when it comes to your army. For a game with such a great visual aesthetic, offering a single character class was another missed-opportunity. Every time I march my John Doe soldiers across the battlefield to their fates, I couldn’t help but wish they were carrying scythes... scythes that I unlocked through the fictional rewards section.

The Ugly

Local Multiplayer Only: The omission of online multiplayer really takes the air out of the game. It has all the groundwork for a terrific online experience, without the online experience. Online leader boards are available for each of the levels, which only further points to the absence of the online play functionality.

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Playthrough Details: Completed campaign mode in two hours on Medium difficulty.

Disclosure: Mushroom Wars provided for review by the publisher.

Recommendation: Mushroom Wars is a nice game. It delivers on its promises, though I can’t help but think it could have been significantly better. The lack of customizable classes leaves the gameplay a bit thin, and without online multiplayer it’s already difficult to imagine much replay value in the game. $9.99 isn’t a particularly steep entry point, but for anyone but RTS fans, Mushroom Wars likely won’t clear the bar.