Slime vs Mushroom 2: The free alternative game to Plants vs Zombies!
The WestRiver developers have added another game to their shroom series with this Slime versus Mushroom sequel. Yet another freemium game which is an improved version of their previous tower defense game. More importantly, this is a Plants vs Zombies alternative which many people have been looking for!
Gameplay: This is a tower defense where you’re the leader of the slime tribe and your mission is to command your minions to defend the village from the onslaught of evil mushrooms. The enemy will march across the screen from left to right and you need to stop them with slimes. Each of your slimes have different abilities and you need to strategically place them on the grid field in order to obliterate the oncoming force. The classic defenses are provided first: standard shooters and slow towers. Then there are the basic Plants vs Zombies towers: money generators, delay towers and micro bombs. As you progress through the game you collect diamonds which allow you to acquire new and interesting defenses. Obviously as you advance and improve your shroom opponent will get better units too!
Freemium Core: Since I’ve mentioned diamonds I should elaborate here… this is the currency system which the developers have used to make money. You need these sparkly things to purchase upgrades and new towers. This means you can either play several more rounds to collect diamonds, or you can buy them with real money to speed through the game faster.
Graphics: Cute! All the little units are simple and pretty. The clean bright colours make the game attractive to kids and adults. It’s definitely a marked improvement upon the SvM1 and Mushroom War images. Perhaps the animations could be marginally better, but as you get to the frantic mid game you see past these issues.
Music and Sound Effects: Fun upbeat menu tunes play out to you and generally there’s happy music which shout out to brainwash you into playing more! It seems like all the attacks and hits have unique sound effects, but more importantly everything is easy on the ears. I think the music is starting to form an iconic and distinctive tune… much like how Plants vs Zombies music is easily recognisable.
Slime love & Fun factor: This is a very addictive game! Also, I think it’s interesting that a lot of people probably wouldn’t call this a tower defense because the look and feel masks this (like PvZ). The game is a great blend of many things… there’s strategy, action and frantic fun all rolled up together. Towards the end of each round you can calmly rest and watch your slimes blast the mushrooms to hell.
Any negatives? Comparing to SvM1, it has better graphics, more slimes, more content and it’s easier to get diamonds… so SvM2 is definitely a much better game. Unfortunately it’s also very similar to Plants vs Zombies, so we must compare… it doesn’t quite have that sparkle in terms of looks and feel. Most likely this is because the animations are slightly more basic and the control interface is not as perfect as PvZ. In terms of the gameplay, SvM2 seems to have gone through less play testing. It’s slightly more raw and unrefined, so an average player should find that the difficulty of the game would appear to jump (unlike PvZ where the game progression is very clear and iterative)… so in other words, SvM2 is more difficult than PvZ. Personally I found PvZ too easy so I like SvM2 because it has this unexpected difficulty and challenge factor to it.
Rating: 4.5/5 Slimes vs Mushrooms 2 is a superb alternative to Plants vs Zombies… and it’s free! Overall, SvM2 is a cuter and more challenging game which is good for light hearted fun and it’s also suitable for seasoned tower defense masters.
[Ed: Sorry to the Starcraft players who may instinctively see PvZ and interpret it as Protoss vs Zerg… in this case it’s Plants vs Zombies!]
Slime vs Mushroom 2 Tips from Android Games Review
- Even if you don’t play the game every day, always go back to collect the free diamonds daily.
- In Plants vs Zombies you can play in such a way that your plants almost don’t get hurt or damaged for many stages. This isn’t the same here – you need to get used to taking some hits relatively early on.
- It’s acceptable for your slimes to take some damage. There’s no special reward for not losing slimes or surviving with no loss of health. So that means at the start of games you can expose your Mother slimes and put them in front of attack slimes. That way your attack slimes have more time to defend the base.
- You don’t have to tap on all the mother slimes to collect the babies. You can swipe across them instead and it’s much faster.
- Money is always the key at the beginning so make sure you’re placing down those mother slimes as soon as they’re available.
- With a strong economy you’ll be able to throw down any towers you want regardless of their price.
- Remember that this isn’t Plants vs Zombies where there’s a mower which will clear away your enemy if they reach the end. So if any shrooms break your line of attacking defense, be prepared to sacrifice mother slimes and replace them with attack slimes to clear away the enemy.
- This game is difficult for OCD players who like to put down neat symmetrical formations of units. Why? Because the cool down time of the units is quite long. So in the mid game you’ll find that you place all the towers you have available to you in order to hold off the incoming enemy. (You can clean up the setup later in the game).
- Try to saturate the field with as many mother slimes as you can possibly fit in. Although it seems like a waste (because you’d have more money than you can spend), they are advantageous because they increase the chances of diamonds popping up. Diamonds are the most important thing, and can still be collected even if you lose in that round.
Slime vs Mushroom 2 QR Code
(Click on the image below or scan the barcode with your Android phone to goto Google Play)
Developers: WestRiver
