It feels like cute characters plus strategy game is a go-to approach for a lot of mobile developers these days, perhaps in the hopes of catching some of the run-off from Clash of Clans and its brethren. Battlesky Brigade is another such attempt, but apart from its frankly adorable character designs, it doesn’t seem to have a lot of the necessary hooks to stand out. I had a chance to play a little of the game at the Tokyo Game Show, and while it’s fun enough, I wonder if it can compete in a very difficult genre.

Battlesky Brigade is a free-to-play real-time strategy game where you need to place your units on a grid to battle and hack their way to the goal. It mixes in some typical elements from the social RPG genre, and if nothing else, it looks and sounds great. The game includes multiplayer features, with players being able to form guilds that can battle against other guilds. You can set up your base as you like, with defenses and counter-offense to try and slow down the other player. Well, you know the words to this song.

Again, the game is pretty fun in a vacuum, but this genre is about as far as you can get from a vacuum on mobile. It’s good to see smaller developers trying to challenge the big dogs in the yard, but I can’t help but wonder if it’s going to work out for them. I suppose we’ll see how Battlesky Brigade fares when it launches next year.