When a veteran warrior finally falls on some distant bloodied battlefield, think his soul wings its way to an eternal rest? Nope. For the ambitious General Akamato and his loyal troops, the promised afterlife offers only fresh lands to conquer and an impostor to dethrone.

Skulls of the Shogun is anything but a typical turn-based strategy game, and not just because of its colorful cartoon style and silly sense of humor. The most common units are certainly familiar cannon fodder — infantry, archers, and cavalry — but how they move about and function together changes the feel of combat completely. Put away the graph paper, professor: instead of hopping between hexes or squares, every unit moves about freely within a set radius.

That might seem a subtle distinction, but it yields unusual consequences. For example, a horseman might gallop quite a ways around an impassable ravine so long as the far edge of that obstacle falls within his effective radius. Because movement limits vary based on the size of circles instead of straight lines or counted steps, Skulls presents absorbing new tactical wrinkles without tossing accessibility out the window.

Salamander Monks’ fireballs inflict fearsome damage.

Occasionally a mission will require you to make it to the other side of a dangerous area, but usually the victory conditions are even simpler: vanquish the leader of the opposition, and protect your own general at all costs. To get the necessary resources, tell your forces to “haunt” (read: occupy) rice paddies to farm what passes for currency, then spend it on fresh soldiers to swell your numbers.

And boy, will those units ever come in handy, thanks to thoughtful grouping effects. Isolated units get knocked back when they take damage, which might send them flailing off cliff edges or stumbling out of protective bamboo hiding spots. But if you group nearby units to form “Spirit Walls,” those clustered forces are more likely to hold fast against an enemy onslaught. Perhaps more importantly, archers who fire from behind a defensive line of infantry can rain pain on distant ranged units without fear of immediate retaliation.

In practice, this all means that while charging around like a lunatic is sure to leave you frustrated and angry, shrewd planning and skillful troop placement can make even the pitilessly difficult later levels of the campaign amply rewarding. Skulls even does its best to teach you some patience: the longer you allow your general to snooze undisturbed during the opening rounds of a match, the more durable he’ll be when you finally send him on a sword-swinging rampage.

Some areas feature environmental hazards, like these rolling snowballs.

Mind you, you have plenty of powerful alternatives to explore before you wake sleeping beauty. You’ll find a handful of specialty shrines in your travels, often tucked into troublingly hard-to-defend locations. Cleansing Shrines will zap any enemies within range at the start of each turn, but the real muscle comes from three different recruitable Monks. Fox Monks can heal friendly units, Salamander Monks hurl deadly balls of fire, and Crow Monks use wind to blow units all over the place.

Best of all, every foe you butcher leaves behind a skull, and any unit can spend a turn crunching on that grisly meal. For common units, skulls heal damage and increase maximum health, and gorging on three skulls turns gluttons into masked demons who can perform an extra task each turn. Monks do them one better: with each cannibalistic treat, a Monk learns a powerful new spell. Salamanders summon unpredictable purple demons, Crows trigger typhoons, and Foxes can eventually resurrect dead friends. It’s a blast figuring out how to make the most of all the opportunities these varied powers afford.

Charging into multiplayer combat on six tricky maps only amplifies that enjoyment. In these bouts, up to four generals and their minions gang up on each other and squabble over resources, brutal choke points, and valuable shrines. Some players will dislike having to wait while their opponents move, while others will relish the opportunity to discern which foes are fumbling toward disaster and which know precisely what they’re doing.

And through it all, the game’s disparate mechanics ensure that early mistakes guarantee a loss only if you’re playing against someone with the experience of a god. Oftentimes you’ll think you’ve got a rival dead to rights, only to bear witness as some inspired and unexpected gambit turns the tide. Whichever way the hammer falls in the end, the only way you won’t enjoy yourself is if you can’t stomach strategy gaming in the first place.

When three sides face one another, two are bound to gang up on the third.

PUBLISHER: Microsoft Studios  •  DEVELOPER: 17-BIT  •  ESRB: Teen  •  MULTIPLAYER: 4 on same screen, Xbox Live, System Link, or via asynchronous messages  •  ACHIEVEMENTS: Strenuous  •  COST: 1,200 Microsoft Points ($15)  •  RELEASE DATE: January 30, 2013

On Xbox Live Arcade

+ Unique radius-based movement; tricky formation-based defense; bold art style; lots of goofy humor.

+ Diverse units; skull-gobbling; varied shrines and obstacles make maps unpredictable.

– Campaign difficulty may scare off genre noobs; waiting for opponents to move in multiplayer.

? Is it so wrong to call it “cute”?

8.5