Review: King of Tokyo:: Remember that 1998 remake of Godzilla? This is worse...

by kaziam

With all the gushing about King of Tokyo and amazing awards heaped upon its oversized latex shoulders, I thought I'd bring a dissenting view to the party because I can't be the only person who just does not get this game. I generally like all kinds of games and really wanted to like this game. I respect Richard Garfield as a designer, and this was going to be my go-to filler/casual/gateway/family/holiday/wedding/funeral game.

Maybe I got my hopes up too much.

Then I played the game, and it was bad. Worse than bad: "I need to hide this until I trade/sell it in case someone sees it and wants to play it again" bad. I haven't had this little fun since playing Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Duel at Mt. Skullzfyre.

"Inconceivable!" you retort. "BGG has spoken! King of Tokyo is the best of the best! Just look how fast the promo cards sold out!"

Yeah, I have those cards. I hope to find them a good home. So without further ado, I will try to rationally categorize the problems with this game that together manage to approximate the experience of sneezing and vomiting at the same time.


1. Yahtzee with monsters

My daughter got Disney Princess Yahtzee for her birthday (so good that it doesn't have a BGG entry yet). This was an eye opener because I had never played Yahtzee before. Roll dice, keep some, roll again. About 1% skill, but I was expecting 0% so no big deal. I would never, ever whip out Disney Princess Yahtzee with my game group...

But then along comes King of TokyoTokyo Princess Yahtzee. Again, you are a slave to the dice. Tactics? Strategy? How are there even discussions about this? I won't go into the rules in detail as this has been done before, but there is very little in terms of decision making here. The most important decision of the game, whether to go into Tokyo, is already decided by the dice. You can try and reroll to avoid it, but if you get a claw on that last reroll and Tokyo is empty or vacated, you're going in.

Other than that you're going for Yahtzees. Energy Yahtzee. VP Yahtzee. Claw Yahtzee. If you get what you want, great. If not, tough.


2. Crazy Power Cards.

Not crazy fun, but crazy as in Crazy Eddie's Used Car Lot, where "You'd have to be craaaaaazzy to pass up this deal!" They really went all out to make some wacky abilities. No need to balance them, because this is a light filler. Roll well and you'll have buckets of energy to spend on powers that generally bend a few rules here and there with a funny name and picture.

But every now and then-- say hello to super-annoying-game-breaking-ability (in this case one of those juicy promo cards).

Case in point: Monster Sidekick.

What an awful card. Instead of getting eliminated you win the game if the player who should have eliminated you wins the game. So your special ability is that you mooch off someone else's win. Ugh.


3. Unpredictable Time Frame

Play time ranges from blink-and-it's-over to OMG-I-can't-believe-it's-been-2-hours-and-we're-still-playing-this-*@#!ing-game. On an average turn you'll get 1 to 3 VP; and you need 20 to win. With 5 players, that's 50 player turns if you play it out to the bitter VP end, or possibly less with player elimination. At 1 minute a turn that's 50 minutes.

Too long for Tokyo Princess Yahtzee. Too long for a game where you can be eliminated by your second turn if you take a few hits in Tokyo, abandon it and then get hit by the guy in Tokyo before you even get a chance to heal.


Final Word

Obviously there are many other people who absolutely love this game. They love the cute cartoony monster art, the nice chunky dice, the glossy thick cardboard, the chest-thumping trash talk when you kick someone out of Tokyo. How can they be wrong? I'm not saying they are.

One reviewer remarked, "I've never met a person who didn't like this game."

"Hi, my name is Adam and I hate Tokyo Princess Yahtzee."