Mushroom Men

Mushroom Men is a new video game series, from Red Fly Interactive. The games (there's currently two of them: One for Wii, and one for the Nintendo DS) tell the story of the titular Mushroom Men, as well as various other Funny Plants and Fungi. One evening, a strange meteor from space crash-lands on Earth, blanketing the planet in strange green spores. Scientists warn the easily-frightened Earthlings that there's nothing to worry about--the spores have been researched, and they're not dangerous to humans. Plants, however, are a different matter... And soon, many various plants and fungi of the earth have sprung to life, gaining intelligence and actually-mobile bodies.

For many years, the titular mushroom men live in peace... Until, one day, war breaks out. Villages are ransacked, and only one small sporeling, Pax, sent from a village by the elders, manages to escape. He wanders, confused and alone, until he manages to find his way to another friendly village. There, he discovers that he has the power to absorb pieces of the original meteorite that hit Earth. He accidentally does this to the village's sacred trophy, and vows to help them find a replacement. However, when he sets out on his adventure, he may find that he is more than he seems...


 * Bland-Name Product: Like "Schnuckers" jelly and "Lenzoil" motor oil.
 * Don't forget "Jello Kitty" with the Morbidly obese Hello Kitty, and the "Smell-o pages" books, and then there are the Soda cans that simply say "High fructose Corn syrup (Now with 60% more Syrup!)"
 * Bullfight Boss: The Jackalope.
 * Chasing Your Tail: The turtle boss.
 * Concept Art Gallery
 * Big Bad:The biggest example would be Pester.
 * Die, Chair, Die!
 * Doomy Dooms of Doom: One of the Bland Name Products in Shiitake Town is of "Doom Noodles." No, it doesn't make any sense in context, either.
 * Fertile Feet: Pax has them... but only in the Gallery menu, for some reason.
 * Gory Discretion Shot: The various deaths that befall the rabbits. Ouch.
 * But subverted with the first boss, the star-nosed mole. At first, you see a Gory Discretion Shot, and we expect that to be that... But then you have to climb, and you get a face-on view of the oozing green carnage, showing off a rather Family-Unfriendly Death.
 * Green Rocks
 * Hailfire Peaks: "Showdown in Shiitake Town" is not only the game's Wutai, but is also part... water level. Groan.
 * the Down the drain part isn't that bad so it's a very small area.
 * Hair-Raising Hare: The Rabbit enemies, and the Jackalope...
 * Heroic Sacrifice:
 * Hidden Elf Village: The Shiitake have purposefully hidden themselves away because they don't like getting involved, but they'll help you out if you beat them.
 * Hurricane of Puns: They start off small, but the jokes in this game quickly mushroom into something more. *groan*
 * Item Crafting
 * Lethal Lava Land: "Giants of the Inner Sanctum" has lava, but only in one room. How exactly it got there is never explained, especially since that level is built over an ordinary graveyard.
 * Kid Hero
 * Killer Rabbit: Literally. Seriously, the bunnies will kick your ass. Luckily, they can be beaten in other ways.
 * MacGyvering: Most of the weapons are made out of some pretty unlikely things--like the flamethrower made out of a match, aspirator, bobblehead, and whistle.
 * Man Behind the Man:
 * Minecart Madness: The first proper level, which has mine carts made out of old tin cans.
 * Mini Boss: Instead of a big boss, "Showdown in Shiitake Town" forces you to fight a number of smaller Shiitake warriors. Some of them are harder than the real bosses.
 * Mini Game: In addition to several mini-games in the main game, the Gallery includes a number of extra mini-games just for the fun of it.
 * Mouse World: The mushroom and plant-people live peacefully around humans, although they do borrow their things frequently.
 * Psychic Powers: Pax has telekinesis, but it only works on objects that have been "infected" by space-spores.
 * Sequel Hook: In the ending, it is mentioned that more meteors containing green dust have crash-landed on Earth.
 * Shout-Out
 * Speaking Simlish
 * As Long as It Sounds Foreign: The Shiitake have vaguely Japanese-sounding Simlish, occasionally sprinkled with mushroom names.
 * Take That: The description of the "Paperclip" item is a pretty obvious Take That at Clippet, the extremely disliked "assistant" from Microsoft Office.
 * There's No B in Movie: The game's boxart and intro are an Affectionate Parody of B-movie style.
 * Variable Mix
 * Wasted Song: "Buzz Buzz" plays only at the very beginning of an early level, when fighting a specific enemy. Which is a shame, because it's really cool.
 * Wutai: "Showdown in Shiitake Town," which not only features the ninja-esque Shiitake tribe, but is made up of things like sushi restaurant menus, chopsticks, and, at one point, an enormous lucky cat.