Review: SPY X FAMILY: MISSION FOR PEANUTS is a fun “ooting” of a card game

KessCo and Crunchyroll are launching SPY x FAMILY: Mission for Peanuts and you should be able to pick up a copy by the end of October. If you know me, you know I LOVE it SPY x FAMILY. When the manga premiered three years ago I fell in love and then when the anime came out I was in heaven and was able to indoctrinate my wife in the joys that are the Forger Family. When I heard there was a card game coming out, I immediately requested a copy without even looking at what type of game it was. Thankfully, KessCo was kind enough to provide me with a copy and you can find my honest thoughts and opinions below. If you want your own copy of the game, you should start seeing them soon at Barnes & Noble and on Amazon by mid-October for $15!

SPY x FAMILY: Mission for Peanuts is an exciting game of deduction and deception designed for 3-5 players. Take on different roles within the game, using your strategic prowess to defeat your opponents and build the best 2-card team for each mission.

If a player successfully reunites the Forger family, they immediately win the round! However, be careful, as getting caught with the spy card will result in elimination. With lightning-fast spins and a deck of just 24 cards, every decision counts.

Mission for Peanuts is a fun and casual deductive card game. It reminds me of a lot of games like Coup d’etat AND Love letter which are some great fast-paced card games. In Mission for Peanuts, you have a card in front of you as a Role and a card in your hand. On your turn you draw a card and then play one of the two cards in your hand. The card you play can be Deployed as a new Role or discarded for its Assist action. You will have to cleverly find ways to combine roles and assist actions as you try to win.

By the way, there are technically four ways to win. First, if at any time you have all three Forgers, you automatically win. Secondly, if all other players have been eliminated (typically by Yor aka Assassin), then you win. Third, at the end of the game (the draw deck is exhausted) all remaining players compare pairs and use the table in the rulebook or on the reference card to determine the winner. Finally, if no players have any matches, you count the number of notches on your Role and on the card in your hand. The player with the fewest notches wins. In my experience, the latter scenario has never occurred, but I could see how it could happen.

I’ve been able to play with a couple of different sized groups, and I’m happy to report that it works well with any sized group, even with as few as two players, despite the game being rated for a minimum of three. I think it works best with multiple players, but during a test game with just my wife and me, we had no problems with just the two of us.

The things I like Mission for Peanuts include the artwork and theme. Everyone’s abilities make sense based on the character. It’s not just a reimagining of other popular games, but it feels like someone knows who the characters are and uses that information to determine their abilities. This is much appreciated. Within the rulebook there are other elements that reference the characters, such as a note talking about how “Anya thinks this game is more fun if everyone plays honestly.” It’s a small touch in the rulebook, but it feels very in keeping with the character.

What is not working? Honestly, Mission for Peanuts it works fine as is. That said, I feel like the abilities feel more passive than in similar games, making it feel a little slower. To eliminate someone, you must use the Secret Police (Yuri) and find someone with the Spy (Loid) or carefully manipulate the cards so that a player ends up with the Assassin (Yor) without drawing it. Again, this fits the theme of the franchise very well and gives it a different feel as it’s less of a witch hunt. The biggest disappointment in my opinion, though, is that the deployment abilities for Seer (Bond) and Informant (Franky) seem extremely similar. They are different (Franky places the top card while Bond places the 1-2 cards at the bottom), but at first reading they seem almost identical.

Mission for Peanuts is a fun card game to play with friends and family. The theme is impeccable and I recommend it to fans of SPY x FAMILY. The more passive gameplay makes it feel slower than some of its competitors, but it fits well in a franchise focused on people trying to keep their true selves hidden from others. I’d give the game a solid 7.5, but I’ll round up to 8.