by Volt26
When I bought this game, I enjoyed all the bright colors, the awesome monsters, cool powerups and bulky dice.BUT..
After a few games, my interest went down drastically. Especially for 5-6 players games. Something was utterly wrong and I didn't know what to do to fix it.
I came in the forums over here for suggestions and tried many different ideas.
After a few tries, my group and I agreed on the absolute best rules to balance the game when there is more than 3 players AND to make it more fun!
Here we go :
1st) We added a drafting phase at the beginning of the game (much like 7 Wonders). Draw 5 cards, keep 1, give the remaining cards to the player on your left. From the 4 cards you received by the player on your right, keep 1. And so on. The selected cards are not activated but you can buy them later in the game if you can afford them. Add these 5 cards to the 3 already in the middle and NOW there is a decent selection of powerups! This variant avoids the "stucked with bad powerups" we always ended up with in regular rules.
2nd) Powerups can be bought before rolling dice or right after the last roll but not while you roll the dice.
3rd) When you go in Tokyo, forget all about stars. Now you get 1 energy cube each time an opponent begins his turn while you are in Tokyo (also applies if this is the turn of the other monster in Tokyo for 5-6 players games). This simple game rule change is the one that solved it all for us. NOW you get a valid reason to stay 1 more turn in there even if you have only 4hp left! Why? Well.. Imagine you really want to buy that 7 energy card at the beginning of your turn but you have only 5 cubes. Get in tokyo, get hit a few times for the next 2 players' turns and get out when you achieved your objective, knowing you might be near dead but at least you'll be able to buy that super-powerful card you want so much.
4th) I printed a bigger health and fame tracker. No more hard to tell health points or fame stars! My choice may not be the best because I can imagine fancy cardboard trackers (similar to Red Dragon Inn) but mine looks like that :
Results?
People WANT to stay in Tokyo more than ever and we end up getting cutthroats games because life is getting low for the most ambitious monsters. In normal rules, each game repetitive : got in tokyo? No problem, I'll go out as soon as I get a hit...
More powerups are used in the game. Let's face it, this game is all about powerups! In normal games, we used to get 2-3 cheap cards or 1-2 great ones in an average game! Now, all monsters have their chance for the big powerups! The games get tense and we look at each others' powers in fear and jealousy.
Best of all, I am now enjoying this game more than ever! Two months ago, this game was already old.. It was requested only as a cheap filler before dinner or before we called it a night and honestly, the game wasn't exciting! Now it is much more fun for everyone around the table and it shows by the amount of requests I get for the game.