From Lemmings to Pikmin, watching a huge number of tiny creatures cascade across your screen is always so satisfying. Mushroom Wars 2 is the latest entry in the ever-evolving genre of moving tiny things from point A to point B. Luckily its plentiful content and mechanics make it much more noticeable than its tiny protagonists.

At its core, Mushroom Wars 2 is a real-time strategy game with elements of a tower defense game. Unlike your typical RTS, in which you’d have direct control over groups of units, Mushroom Wars 2 puts you in control of unit distribution. The map for each level is littered with buildings. Some of these buildings spawn units, others may serve as defensive turrets, while still others can boost your stats. By sending superior number of units from one or more of your own buildings to an opponent's, you can gain control and reap the benefits of that particular installation. You can also sacrifice your own to change a building to a different type, or upgrade it to increase its attributes.

I did notice that Mushroom Wars 2 seems to suffer from the same problem that Sonic Mania had upon its initial release, in that pressing the home button doesn’t always work. In fact on a few instances neither did the Power button. At one point even when I did manage to put the system to sleep, the game seemed to keep running in the background. This meant that when I booted my Switch back up I had lost the mission I thought I had suspended. I assume theses issues are all related and that there is some sort of issue when it comes to suspending the game.

The controls are simple, and easy to get the hang of. Moving a cursor over a building and holding down the right trigger allows you to chose another building to send units to. Pressing a face button determines the number of units (in increments of 25%) to send to the target. While new abilities become available as you progress through the lengthy campaigns (Yes there are multiple) the core gameplay is fast paced and very simple.

The only thing hampering the gameplay is the pacing of progression. Mushroom Wars teaches you each mechanic individually via separated tutorials. These tutorials pull you away from the main missions to teach you a concept that could just as easily be explained in a single sentence at the beginning of the first applicable mission. Instead you’re treated to a loading screen just so that you can see a very simple explanation before being asked to use the mechanic in question to clear a mini level. You’ll then load back onto the map where the actual missions can resume. It sounds like a small complaint, but especially during your first sit-down with the game you’ll feel like you’re constantly loading in and out of tutorials.

Mushroom Wars is a fun take on the real-time strategy genre that would be perfect for portable play if it weren’t for some technical issues. Pacing can be a real annoyance, especially early on, but gradually fades as you progress further into the game. On the bright side, it is simple to learn, and its bite-sized levels are very addicting once you get going.