Review: King of Tokyo
Shopping Product ReviewsRichard Garfield is the famous designer of the most popular collectible card game (CCG) of all time, “Magic the Gathering”. Apart from that, he has been successful in designing games like “Android: Netrunner”, “The Great Dalmuti” and “Roborally”. In 2011, he came up with the idea for a fun dice game called “King of Tokyo”. I have tested it and found it truly remarkable for its category. Read on to find out why!
Do board games fit into categories? Goal, of course! There are games for the whole family to enjoy called “Family Games”, games with a strong strategic element called “Strategy Games” and many more (see our catalog on the home page for a list of available categories and for Of course, most of the games belong to more than one category “King of Tokyo” could well be described as a family game, but also a party game, a theme game, and a dice game.
In “King of Tokyo” you take on the role of ferocious giant monsters who are out to destroy Tokyo, or rather, to be the only kings of Tokyo. It reminds you of the B movies of the 50’s where giant monsters were all the rage and I’m not just referring to King.
Kong or Godzilla but all the other movies with amazing titles like “Attack of the Crab Monsters” or “He Came Out from Under the Sea”. There are six different monsters to choose from, each with their own cardboard miniature. Other than appearance, all monsters behave the same, there are no special abilities for each (however, this fact is changed through an expansion). The monsters have funny and intimidating names like Gigazaur, Kraken, The King, MekaDragon, CyberBunny. Kids are sure to love these and pick a favorite by looks or name!
All monsters have a corresponding monster board that is mainly used to record the monster’s life points and victory points. All monsters start with a life total of 10 and zero Victory Points. The object of the game is to score 20 victory points or be the last monster standing. Hit points are very important because when you hit zero, guess what! You are dead! Yes, there is player elimination in this game, but you know how it works…winner takes all and that makes sense in the game in particular! You can’t pretend to be a ferocious monster and leave your rivals alive. Tokyo can only have one king.
Now for the story: these giant monsters appeared out of… out of nowhere! and he decided out of the blue to attack Tokyo. Don’t ask me why, I guess they found it quite exotic (the Fukushima nuclear disaster hasn’t happened yet or maybe these monsters caused it, through their battles). So, Tokyo is. The monsters are on a rampage and are destroying everything in their path.
The game has a small orthogonal board, which represents the city of Tokyo divided into two different places: “Tokyo City” and Tokyo Bay”. “Tokyo Bay” is used only in a game with 5 or 6 players. In general, monsters are in or outside of Tokyo (Tokyo City or Tokyo Bay). Only one monster can be in Tokyo. The others are outside of Tokyo. When a monster is outside of Tokyo, it can heal itself, attack the monster in Tokyo, gain energy or gain victory points. Each of these can be achieved by rolling the correct combination of dice. Once in Tokyo, monsters cannot be healed, but get 2 free victory points at the start of their round. Still they can gain energy.
Energy is used to buy special cards that help you in various ways, for example gaining victory points, healing or damaging opponents.
At the beginning of the game, each player chooses a monster and takes his figure and monster board, setting life points to 10 and victory points to 0. At the beginning, there is no one in Tokyo. The cards are shuffled and placed face down in a pile. The top three cards of the deck are revealed and placed near the tableau. These can be purchased by all players and cost in energy cubes.
Each player on his turn rolls the 6 game dice that have the following effects:
- when a triple 1, 2 or 3 is thrown, the player gets that many victory points, that is, with a triple 2 he gets 2 points. Each additional roll of the same number awards an extra VP.
- when a “thunder” is cast, the player gains an energy cube for each
- when a “leg” is thrown, the player deals damage to other players based on their location. Damage means loss of life points. A player outside of Tokyo, rolling the dice, deals damage to the monster in Tokyo. If his is in Tokyo, he deals damage to each player outside of Tokyo. At the start of the game, when no one is in Tokyo, the first player to roll a paw moves into Tokyo. When a player in Tokyo takes damage, they can choose to leave Tokyo (usually to heal) and the player who dealt damage takes their place.
- when a “heart” is cast, players are healed for that many health points (max 10)
When rolling the dice, players can choose to keep as many dice as they want and re-roll the rest two more times. Dice saved on the first roll can be rerolled later or saved again. After rolling the dice and resolving their effects, the player whose turn it is may choose to buy one of the three cards shown or pay two energy cubes to discard these cards and discover three new ones that they can buy in the same turn. That’s a typical round of the game. In a 5 or 6 player game, “Tokyo Bay” is also used. Whenever a player outside of Tokyo deals damage, he must take control of “Tokyo City” or “Tokyo Bay” if either is unoccupied. Players outside of Tokyo deal damage to players in “Tokyo City” and “Tokyo Bay” and vice versa. “Tokyo Bay” has the same advantages and disadvantages as “Tokyo City”. But enough of rules! Let’s get to the actual review:
Components:
Board: It is relatively small made of thin cardboard and represents an imaginary Tokyo under attack. It appears to adequately serve its purpose, although it would feel a bit better if it was made of a sturdier material.
Cards: Very well designed with a cartoonish feel and complete structure. Nothing more to be desired.
Counters: Made of cardboard, nothing special about them.
Energy cubes: Nice transparent green cubes.
Dice: Original dice made especially for this game. I liked its size and weight, as well as the futuristic black and green design. Their weight makes rolling them a very pleasant experience. Thumbs up!
Monster Boards: Nice and practical, they represent the player’s monster in action and have life and VP counters.
Monsters: intimidating, creepy or just plain funny, each character is unique. The miniatures are made of cardboard and that seems fine. However, after seeing Krosmaster Arena, I started wishing for more realistic 3D miniatures for every game that uses them. In King of Tokyo, the monsters are somewhat static, meaning they don’t really move except when entering or exiting Tokyo, so while plastic-painted monsters would look better, they would have no practical use and would increase the cost of the game significantly. This type of game has to be kept at a familiar price, otherwise you will lose your main target group.
In general, all components of King of Tokyo are satisfactory. There’s nothing grandiose about them, but there’s no particular flow either. 7/10
How to Play:
I had a great time playing King of Tokyo, although I’m not a big fan of dice games. As in all dice games, luck plays an important role, which is also true in this game. However, there are some factors that reduce the amount of luck in the game, such as the opportunity to re-roll the dice, keep the dice you want, and the ability to buy cards that affect the game in various ways. Additionally, you can choose to leave Tokyo each time you take damage, so there is some decision-making and control over gameplay that mitigates the sense of randomness. Choosing which dice to keep and which to reroll is of crucial importance. You must know when it is time to heal or when to attack, where you should put your focus in each particular situation.
The presence of cards in the game makes it much more interesting, although the actual impact of the cards on the game is not that great. Let’s just say they add flavor to the game, giving it some twists which are of course welcome and give the game that little bit of strategy which adds to the overall feel and makes the game richer.
Something that usually annoys people is the elimination of players because it is a bit ugly that someone is kicked out of the game and stays around to see the rest. In this particular game, elimination isn’t that annoying because games don’t last long so eliminated players get bored. Also, the elimination seems tied to the theme of the game. We are talking about giant monsters fighting each other, so they should show no mercy about it! I haven’t played with 5-6 players yet, but it seems that the game becomes even more interesting with the “Tokyo Bay” area activated.
Monster characters should have special abilities that differentiate them from each other and further link the theme of the game with the gameplay. This is fixed through the “King of Tokyo: Power Up!” expansion, but I think it should be included in the base game from the beginning.
In conclusion, I think that King of Tokyo is a well-balanced game with quite simple but very satisfying gameplay. 8/10
Learning curve:
The rules of the game are not super simple, nor are they complicated. There is an ideal balance in the game between simplicity and depth. New players will get acquainted by playing their first game and after that everything about the rules will be clear. 8/10
Theme:
King of Tokyo is a very thematic game. You’re supposed to take on the role of monsters, and you really see the monsters. You are also supposed to fight them and that is represented through a loss of life points. If I were to be more realistic, maybe monsters could be gradually destroyed by losing, say, a leg or a hand. Such an approach would make the fights more realistic, but the designer here went the traditional way. You also see Tokyo on the board, though you don’t really feel like it’s being destroyed. 7/10
Replayability:
One of King of Tokyo’s strongest assets is replayability. No two games can be the same and that is guaranteed by the presence of dice and the cards that are shuffled and appear in a random order. I never get bored of playing a game of King of Tokyo, and in fact, I could play many games in a row, fighting to win and testing my dice. 9/10
Fun:
This game is a lot of fun, even if you are not very fond of dice games. You can taunt your friends through it, beat their asses, curse your bad luck with the dice, and of course get a chance to become the one and only King of Tokyo! Kids are guaranteed to have fun with it, especially kids who will embrace the theme and enjoy the look of the monsters, maybe even make up distinctive voices for each monster when they attack and thus add to the theme like kids do. Big kids can do that too! 9/10
Advantage:
- Great fun for all ages
- easy rules
Cons:
- elimination of players
Recommended for: casual gamers