REVIEW | Mushroom Wars 2

LifeisXbox’s Mushroom Wars 2 review | Released a while back on PC and Nintendo Switch, I’m glad that Xbox finally has Mushroom Wars 2. I feel that the real-time strategy genre is lacking on Xbox, so the charming rapid-growing mushroom characters are more than welcome. This is Zillion Whales first game for the platform, they are more known as a mobile developer but don’t let that scare you away. There’s quality to be found in this release!

Most Memorable Moment

Easily the adorable mushroom characters are the most memorable, they are so cute that I would instantly buy the plushies. That said when you just won an incredible tight online battle that’s pretty awesome too. Kinda like being behind in Fifa with 0-2 but still being able to win with 3-2 in the dying minutes of the game. There is simply not a better feeling than being a champignon.

ℹ️ Reviewed on Xbox Series X | Review code provided by PR/publisher, this review is the personal opinion from the writer.

What we Liked!

• Easy to control | Something that scares a lot of people away from this genre is the complex controls and hard to understand mechanics. None of that is found in Mushroom Wars 2! Controls are learned by playing the campaign mode with some hand-holding lessons. Even without playing them, a player will quickly understand how to play and overcome enemies. Commanding your army of mushrooms is done easily with the analogue stick and pressing the YBAX-buttons decides how many of the forces you want to move from house to house. There’s no direct control possible but it doesn’t require that. Upgrading or changing houses is done with a single button press and so are hero skills. These special move skills replenish when your armies get killed and can change the tide of battle. It can make your army faster, you can fortify your houses or boost the morale system (more on that later). It might show its birth in the mobile scene with easy controls but that’s absolutely not a negative thing.
  
• Fantastic online multiplayer | Competitive players are in for a treat with this game! The fast battles with lots of tactical quick-thinking and responding to other player actions is perfect for nail-biting fights. Ranked matches, spectator tools, replay options, in-game leagues and a wealth of 80 maps and characters with different special moves.. yeah, the content package is huge and I’m confident that Mushroom Wars 2 will have a strong player base on Xbox. On a side note, weird that this isn’t on Xbox Game Pass…. would have been a perfect fit for the service. 
  
• Fast gameplay | Speed matters and very often it is the key to winning matches. The faster you take over or upgrade houses and win battles the higher the army morale will be. High morale means better attack stats and I don’t need to explain the benefit of that. A battle doesn’t take much longer than ten minutes, so you’ll be quickly jumping from online battle to online battle. This also counts for the campaign fights! 
  
• Catchy music | Oooooh, I’m blinded by the lights. At first, you think that Blinding Lights from The Weeknd is playing but the main theme song from Mushroom Wars 2 is only similar. Overall all the music is pretty catchy and fitting of the gameplay, I didn’t need to eat a mushroom to be happy, as the music is good enough to give you a satisfying feeling.

Mixed Feelings

• There is a lot of campaign content | There are two chapters in the story that both feature a lot of different stages, which can be completed at different difficulty modes. The point of the campaign is to earn stars, the easy and normal battles are perfectly doable but higher difficulties will test your patience and skill. At some moments still images are used to tell a completely forgettable story, so don’t expect deep storytelling here. Something I regret as the unique and cute characters have a lot of personalities, they just don’t do anything with it. They try to change things up with different game modes and boss fights but the repetitive nature shows fairly quick. Mushroom Wars 2 strength lies in the multiplayer.
  
• Nice presentation but misses dynamic touches | All levels are designed to be a single screen, giving players an instant view over the battlefield. There’s a lot of visual variation and seeing the hundreds of little cap mushrooms move around is pretty impressive. I found the stages to be flat though, it misses some moveable things to make it more alive. Path obstacles like rivers and bridges are plenty to be found but a bit more unique setpieces would have been welcome, not only for the eyes but also from a gameplay standpoint.

What we Disliked

• Nothing | I don’t have anything bad to say about the game. So I’m just using this space to write that my girlfriend doesn’t like to eat mushrooms. I’m a person who adores all kinds of mushrooms so you can imagine the problem. I still love her though! (Would be 2% more if she would at least eat portobello and shiitakes.)

How long to beat the story | 6 hours
How long to achieve 1000G | Over 40 hours (getting all campaign stars is a massive undertaking)