Jelly Troops review

Save for the Pikmin series, real-time strategy games don’t often embrace cuteness. But Kyoto-based Nukenin upends those expectations with Jelly Troops, a vibrant title with a squishy cast of gelatinous units. But the kawaii stylings shouldn’t be too surprising. After all, studio founder Waken had previously helped code Pikmin 3 while working at Nintendo.

What makes Jelly Troops remarkable is how Nukenin fuses its cheerful presentation to meaty RTS mechanics. Everything from resource management, unit assignmentg, and quick decision-making are all accounted for, all while the burden of resource farming has been pleasantly relaxed. Best of all, seeing little blobs wobble around in formulations helps lessen the sting of defeat. For many, the aesthetic might even help to make the genre more approachable, much like titles like Battalion Wars and Goblin Commander did during the early 2000’s. Yeah, I miss that era.

Lessons Help Jelly Players Not Get into a Jam

Jelly Troops eases players in with a tutorial that gradually teaches the game’s core mechanics rather than dumping players right into the action. The opening stages gradually introduce how to collect and order around jellies, build and destroy gates, capture flags, summon spells, and lure roving Guardians to spots around each map. Unsurprisingly, it’s a friendly approach that makes the genre less intimidating for beginners.

From there, Troops’ single-player campaign steadily ramps up the difficulty, with variations that keep you adapting. You’ll eventually learn how to entice those dangerous Guardians into enemy territory, letting them wreak havoc on your opponent. Missions favor both precise planning and on-the-fly decision-making, encouraging stage replays as you earn stars based on your performance. But occasionally, stingy time limits can dampen Jelly Troops’ spirit, compelling retries until you determine the best way to shave seconds from your approach.

At present, the unforgiving completion times are exacerbated by a control scheme that lacks precision. All too often when you’re gathering a group of jellies, it’s far too easy to pull nearby allies from their assigned tasks. While these missteps are minor partially often by auto-targeting, they can occur regularly, squandering precious seconds from your pursuit of stage stars. Know that if one player is using mouse-and-keyboard in a split screen match, a competitor must use a controller.

Although the single-player missions are diverting, it’s a warm-up for competitions against human rivals. Jelly Troops’ two-player mode sends formations of slimes into tense duals, as each side strives to outmaneuver the other, capturing a trio of flags and bringing them back to their home base. Matches are relatively brief, but a tug-of-war of advantage can break out, leading to some nail-biting showdowns. While you can opt for online matchmaking, the servers were pretty vacant one day after the game’s release. Hopefully, that improves. While there’s not a whole lot of variation, there’s enough substance to justify the game’s ten-dollar price tag.

Breaking the (Jello) Mold

Despite a few drawbacks, Jelly Troops delivers real-time strategy constructed with adorable visuals. Importantly, the game maintains the underlying tension of RTS gameplay, ensuring each victory feels the consequence of smart decisions. Troops isn’t going to dethrone the genre’s heavyweights, but a combination of approachability, cheerful presentation, and competitive options make it a standout for strategists looking for some simple, squishy strategy.

Jelly Troops was played on PC with review code provided by the publisher.