Iello | King of Monster Island | Board Game | Ages 10+ | 1 to 5 Players | 45-60 mins Minutes Playing Time

Product Information

However, in spite of not liking King of Tokyo, I did like King of Monster Island. I liked it partly because it’s a co-op (there is some cooperation), there’s much more strategy than King of Tokyo, and the production is great. But be careful: King of Monster Island is a step-up in complexity from King of Tokyo. In fact, Andrew was thinking it’s more than just a step-up, it’s maybe 1.5 to 2 steps up! So, if you liked the silly simplicity of dice rolling in King of Tokyo, be aware that there is a lot more going on here! King of Monster Island is NOT just a “ co-op King of Tokyo“: it’s a much more complicated co-op in the world of King of Tokyo.

I liked King of Monster Island and my friends liked it. We’d probably give it a 7/10 overall. The production is pretty great, the gameplay is pretty fun, and it flows fairly well. It works best at 1-3 players. I did like the rulebook for King of Monster Island, but it did fail in one major way. In fact, it caused me to create a new category of rulebook criteria! The core loop of the game is very much the standard approach to cooperative play. You’re facing multiple threats – your monsters’ health; pylons; minions – while battling against a timer of the boss increasing in power each turn. It’s a standard template for a good reason: it provides a fun game experience that slowly cranks up the tension – although, as ever, it’s susceptible to an experienced player bossing everyone around rather than fostering true cooperation. Gameplay alternates Boss/Player/Boss/Player, etc goes until the Monsters beat the Boss (cooperatively), the Boss defeats any Monster, 3 pylons are built, or there are no Minions in the bag! Solo Play King of Monster Island has a weird-sized box: see above with a Coke Canfor scale (this weird shape may be why it fails The Chair Test?)So how what is this new beast? And how does it work? Well for starters, King Of Monster Island is a co-op game for 2-5 players and this time you’re all working together to battle a single huge boss monster that is intent on opening a portal on an island for its own nefarious purposes. Straight out of the gate, you can see the production values of this new iteration. Not only is the island board bigger than Tokyo by a significant margin, but there is now a 3D volcano dice tower in the centre! It’s this tower that is the most spectacular aspect of Monster Island, but also epitomises one of it’s biggest problems: randomness. Before I go further on that, let me explain how the game works. Monster Island was filmed in Cape Town, South Africa; Los Angeles, California; and New Zealand. [3] [4] Release [ edit ] King of Tokyo has always been a series where size matters. Whether it’s the original King of Tokyo or its spin-off title King of New York, bigger is always going to be better in a board game themed around Kaiju fighting one another in various major cities. King of Monster Island is easily the largest iteration the series has seen yet.

To win, the players must cooperatively take out the main Boss: see above for the Boss powers and the Boss Hit Points/Fame Counter. In the end, the production of King of Monster Island is great, the game looks good, and it is fun overall. If you like the world of King of Tokyo, you may very well like King of Monster Island! Just be aware that this is NOT just a “ co-op King of Tokyo“: it’s a lot more complicated than you might first expect. That’s not bad, just be aware King of Monster Island isn’t the simple game that King of Tokyo is. Appendix As good as the King of Monster Island rulebook was, it failed The Chair Test. Caveat Emptor! Unboxing King of Monster Island squarely lives in the King of Tokyo universe. The production, the dice, the graphic design, the characters, all make that clear. See King of Tokyo above and below. They are NOT compatible … just so you know. I am not sure why, but it took me three times to play this game to get the rules right. The first time I played solo, I thought that all Minions did their thing on the Boss’s turn: Nope! Just the Minion IN THE ZONE with the Boss! It even says that at the start of step 4 (see below).Three Survivors Crustaceous Rex, the Giant Bat, and King Cobra were rounded up and imprisoned on the island. The island utilized massive force fields to keep King Cobra and Crustaceous Rex from fighting the Giant Bat was allowed to roam freely but prevented from using its sonic shrieks by a special collar and kept from leaving the island by lasers. Each player’s turn seems fairly solitary. There really wasn’t a lot of cooperation. Each player would really get into their turn and making their decisions (which is good!), but would tend to focus on the dice rolls to the exclusion of others. There was a little talk, but not much. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing (some people like having their own turn and agency), but could with item #2 below, this was really a detractor. Because is a greater menace is lurking. Something big enough to threaten every monster and make them fight together against the same enemy… Although King of Monster Island can play 1-5 players, I can’t imagine playing this with 4 or 5 players. The game seemed to be great solo, and flowed pretty well at 2, and slightly less better at 3. The problem was that there’s not a lot of to do when it’s not your turn! At 4 and 5 players: the downtime between turns is much more pronounced and not fun. Granted, players can talk and offer a little bit of advice (since it’s a co-op), but generally each player is very focused on the dice and ignoring everything else.

These monsters lived in Monster Island but only in Ichiro Miki's dream, meaning they never truly existed on the island.}}]] Whilst previous entries in the beginner board game series pit monsters against one another for control of territory to terrorise, King of Monster Island has the kaiju working together to defeat an even bigger and badder monster threatening to destroy the entire planet. Imagine Suicide Squad, but with robots, crab abominations and giant aliens. Meehan, Lolies and Wheels play the Dark Edition of King of Tokyo.Monster Island appears once again in this film, and serves as a home for Godzilla, Anguirus and several other monsters. Godzilla and Anguirus break out of the Island's containment systems after they learn of Gigan and King Ghidorah's arrival on Earth. So, my first game was pretty bad: I lost horribly as every single Minion activated!! I realized I played wrong, so then I tried again: this time, I got the rule wrong that you only activate dice in the Boss’ Zone and THEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF AND REROLL them at the start of the next turn!