King of Tokyo: Power Up! Mini Review

So, a little while ago I reviewed a great little filler game called King of Tokyo.  But... now there's an expansion - so, of course that means it's time to review King of Tokyo: Power Up!

So, first off, let me tell you that I'm going to assume that you're familiar with the basic game of King of Tokyo. If not, that was a link to my review - I'd encourage you to read it before continuing on down this page.

Some evolutions for the King

Now, that I've said that, here's what the expansion adds: the monsters are actually different!!  This, coincidentally, is also the first (only?) pro for the expansion.  Each monster has a deck of "evolutions" that they can use.  Specifically, whenever you end your turn with three hearts, then in addition to healing, you also get to draw a card and get a cool new bonus.  (You can do this even if you're in Tokyo.)  These bonuses are fairly similar to the cards that you would purchase in the base game, but you can actually keep them secret until you plan to use them.  And, as I said before, the cards are different for each monster.  There are actually a few different variations of how to play with the evolution cards - you can simply draw the top card when you evolve, you can draw the top two cards and select one, or, before the game starts, you can draft which evolutions you want (to make a customized deck) and then draw the top card from that deck.  Whichever way you choose to play it (I generally just let you draw the top two and keep one), it's a nice little variation to the game.

See how this doesn't look at all like a panda?

What else was added?  Well, there's a giant panda now.  (I personally find this a little sad, because I had swagged out my copy of King of Tokyo using Monsterpocalypse figures, and I have nothing that even remotely looks like a panda, but that's not really the game designer's fault.)

(This is the part of the review where I scratch my head and think of other things to say about an expansion that really only adds one element to a game, only to come up with nothing...)

That is really all that's different in King of Tokyo: Power Up!  So, if you enjoy the basic game of King of Tokyo, but you wish that the monsters had different abilities (and I'm guessing that if you do like the base game, then you probably have that wish), then this expansion will probably be worth picking up.  Whereas it doesn't add a lot to the game, what it does add is useful.  Or, put another way, now that I have the expansion, I don't ever intend to play the base game without it.

Overall, I give King of Tokyo: Power Up! an 8.0/10.  If you don't like the base game, then this expansion definitely won't change your opinion on the matter.  However, if King of Tokyo is a game that you enjoy, then you probably won't be disappointed by the expansion.

(And, while I'm talking about expansions, you might also check out the Empires: Builder Expansion, Lord of the Rings: LCG Shadows of Mirkwood Expansions, and Nightfall: Martial Law Expansion.)

I would like to thank Iello Games for providing me with a review copy of King of Tokyo: Power Up!

King of Tokyo Review

One game that I've been hearing about for several months now is King of Tokyo.

In King of Tokyo, each player takes on the role of one of several monsters attempting to destroy Tokyo.  But, though Tokyo is fairly defenseless, the other monsters are contesting you, as they want to be the ultimate destroyer of the city!  Each turn, you run six dice.  You can keep any number of them that you want, and you can re-roll the other dice up to two more times.  Based on those dice, you can do a few things - with claws, you attack whichever monster is in Tokyo (or, if you are in Tokyo, you attack everyone else), with hearts, you heal damage (unless you're in Tokyo), if you get three matching numbers, you score that many victory points, and if you roll lightning bolts, you gain energy.  Whenever you attack someone in Tokyo, they must decide if they are staying in Tokyo, or leaving.  If they leave, then you are forced to take over Tokyo - which gives you one point, while making you a target.  But, for each of your turns that you are still in Tokyo, you gain two points.  At the end of each turn, you may also use your accumulated energy to buy upgrades.  The first person to score twenty points wins.  Or, since you're awesome monsters and fighting each other and such, the last monster standing wins!!!  (This is actually how most of my games end.)

The first pro for King of Tokyo is that it's incredibly fun to play.  This is one of those pros that is really hard to quantify or explain, but some games are simply more fun than others.  I think that some of the things contributing to the fun of King of Tokyo are the goofy theme, the awesome upgrades, and breaking all odds with die rolls.  (How can you be angry when someone in Tokyo rolls six claws and wipes out everyone else at the same time?  I have seen this happen at least twice.  No, it was never me being awesome like that.)  Of course, it also helps to talk about your monster in the third person.  One of the guys in my game group always uses Meka Dragon.  And generally, when going into Tokyo uses his best Meka Dragon voice to announce, "Meka Dragon new King of Tokyo!"  This is just a light, enjoyable game that you can play while joking around with your friends.

An upgraded Meka Dragon

The next topic for King of Tokyo is both a pro and a con - the upgrades.  The upgrades really make the game play differently each time.  The upgrades are awesome.  You can heal, deal damage to everyone, deal extra damage every time you attack, gain victory points, take another turn, etc.  Buying upgrades and making your monster even more phenomenal is really fun.  However, the upgrades can also make the game imbalanced - if one person gets amazing upgrades, then they can really run away with a game.  Also, if really expensive upgrades are dealt at the beginning of the game, then they can become a bit of a non-factor, as it will take longer before players are able to actually purchase any of them.  Now, you are allowed to clear out all of the upgrades (at the cost of two energy) to provide yourself with better options.  However, this is not done very often - especially since you may unintentionally set the next player up to be able to purchase an upgrade that you can no longer afford.

My third pro for King of Tokyo is that I appreciate that it is interactive.  There are several dice games that have come out recently (Martian Dice and Zombie Dice come to mind).  But, in those games, it doesn't really matter if you're playing by yourself, or with five friends.  The only real difference is that you have to wait longer between turns.  However, in King of Tokyo, your decisions are heavily influenced by the other players.  Did someone just hit you for five health?  Guess what - you're going to be trying to roll hearts.  Is someone in Tokyo down to two health?  Sounds like the perfect time to try for claws to finish them off!  This really sets King of Tokyo apart from other dice games to me.  This is a game that you can enjoy with friends, and the more the better (up to the six player that it supports).

Potential Kings of Tokyo

So, whereas I don't have any more "cons" for King of Tokyo, there is one thing that I will mention.  (I considered leaving it out, since I consider it fairly obvious.)  There is a lot of luck involved in this game.  It is a game about rolling dice.  Yes, there are upgrades, and yes, you get to make some decisions about what you keep and what you re-roll.  With that said, rolling what you need is a better strategy than planning ahead.  If you don't like luck based games, or you're not in the mood for a game with a high luck factor, then don't play King of Tokyo!  (Until later, when you are in the right mood.)

Overall, I give King of Tokyo an 8.5/10.  The game is a blast to play.  Whereas it won't be for absolutely everyone, I would encourage everyone to try it at least once if you have the opportunity!

As a final note - I was at a gaming event recently and saw someone that had taken some figures from Monsterpocalypse and was using them for King of Tokyo.  This was amazing!  I may need to find some of these for my own copy.  After all - beautiful plastic figures are better than cardboard figures.

If King of Tokyo sounds fun, you might also check out Liar's Dice, Dixit, and Martian Dice. And, since everyone has their own opinion (which doesn't quite match mine), you might also want to check out Play Board Games' King of Tokyo Review, or this other review of King of Tokyo by Games With Two.

I would like to thank Iello Games for providing me with a review copy of King of Tokyo.

Biblios Review

When asking for games with depth that can be played in 30-45 minutes, someone recommended that I check out Biblios. So.... I did.

In Biblios, the goal is to get the most victory points by having the highest score in (enough of) the five different categories.  To start the game, each category is worth three points.  On a player's turn, he will draw a number of cards equal to the number of players plus one.  After looking at each card, he must decide if he will keep it (one per turn), put it in the auction pile (one per turn), or put it face up in the middle (all the others).  After he has gone through all of his cards, the other players get to take the cards that he placed in the middle - thus each player gains a card every turn.  Any time one of the players gets a "church" card, they immediately adjust the value on one or two of the dice (and thus a category's value).  After the deck has been exhausted, the auction phase begins.  One at a time, all of the cards that were placed in the auction pile are auctioned off to players - who use cards to buy gold cards, and use gold cards to buy everything else.  After the last auction, players compare scores in each category and the highest total in each gets the scoring die.  Whoever has the most points from scoring dice is the winner!

Very ironically, I received my copy of Biblios at approximately the same time as I received a copy of Pax - and both games seem to have a similar core mechanic of "draw X cards, one at a time, and put them in different places."  I listed this as a pro in Pax, and it is also a pro for Biblios - this mechanic forces the players to make meaningful, simple, and yet difficult decisions.  If you make a mistake in the first round and accidentally give your opponents a powerful card, you're not going to instantly lose - but if you regularly give your opponents better cards than you keep, then you don't really stand a good chance of winning.  And, with more players, these choices get tougher.  You get to look at more cards with more players, and so you will have a much harder time deciding what to do with a mid-value card that you draw early.  Should you take the safe bet and keep it?  What if something better is drawn?  But, you also don't want your opponent to have it!

Scoring dice - what each category is worth

The next pro that I have for Biblios is that I think the auction works well.  I have played this game with two and three players, and the auction works well with both (and I would imagine works at least as well with four).  It's tough to find a two-player auction game that actually works, but for some reason this one does.  I think that there are a couple of factors with this - first, you know that any card you don't win counts directly against you.  With three and four players, you might be able to spread out cards in a category so that you can still ultimately have the highest score, even if you don't have a majority.  With two players, every card that you don't take goes to the same opponent.  Also, the game is built where you must buy things in the auction to win.  You put as many cards in the auction pile as you put in your own pile at the beginning of the game, so the chances of you winning any category without auctioning are very slim - the odds of you winning several categories without the auction are basically zero.

The third aspect of Biblios that I like is that not all of the cards are in the deck in each game (the number of random cards pulled out is different based on number of players).  Because of the rule that you have to have the most points in a category to score, you are often trying to get the majority in that area (at least I was).  The inner cover tells you the card breakdown, and so you can know when you have the majority.  But!  Not all of the cards are in the deck - and so you might have a majority without knowing it.  And, a player that is better at figuring out when they have "enough" cards, without wasting extra card draws and money on getting a guaranteed majority will probably win over a player that always guarantees their majority.

Church cards adjust scoring dice

The final pro that I will mention is that I like the church cards.  Now, with that said, I don't like being the one to get stuck with the church cards - I would rather increase my score in one of the categories.  However, the church cards are a good way to mitigate the fact that you know an opponent is going to beat you in certain categories.  They are also useful for improving the value of your majorities.  But, there is a touch of a bluffing element here, because if you are always increasing the value of the same category, your opponents will realize that you have a lot of points there, and they will focus on lowering it.  But, at least in the auction phase, you can prevent them from doing so, by buying all of the church cards - but that will get expensive really, really quickly.

I don't really have any "cons" for Biblios.  I found the game to be very fun, and I could play it repeatedly.  I think that it is a great filler game or lunch game, but I don't know that I would go to a gaming session explicitly to play Biblios (though I'd consider it), which is the only thing that keeps it's score out of the upper echelon.  And, with that said....

Overall, I give Biblios an 8.5/10.  I think that it is a brilliant, light game, that can be enjoyed by gamers and non-gamers alike.  If you have the opportunity to play it - do so!

If you are looking for games that can be played over lunch, you might also check out 1955: The War of Espionage, China, and Ra.