Boss Monster has a little bit of a particular place in my coronary heart. It was one of many earlier critiques I did once I was simply beginning Board Sport Quest, and it additionally has a ton of nostalgic appeal. With its retro-inspired artwork and gaming callbacks, it’s laborious to not smile whereas taking part in it. That’s to not say it didn’t have its flaws (see my assessment right here), however general, I loved it again within the day.
Boss Monster was additionally the sport that launched Brotherwise Video games, which has since gone on to supply a to of various board video games. Nevertheless, this yr they’ve gone again to their roots with Tremendous Boss Monster. And naturally, the packaging now seems like an old style SNES sport as a substitute of an NES sport, which is wonderful.
Gameplay Overview:
Tremendous Boss Monster takes the core gameplay from Boss Monster and ranges it up. While you’re nonetheless making an attempt to construct a dungeon to cease these pesky heroes, now you may have a bit extra to do whilst you construct it out.
Every spherical is comprised of various phases, and the sport performs till both all heroes have been defeated or somebody has claimed 10 extra souls.
Rounds begin within the City Part, the place the city board is restocked with heroes, dungeon rooms, and spells. Every participant, in flip, will draft both the spell card or a room card. Then they place their Minion on one of many areas on the town (employee placement fashion).
Gamers then transfer on to the Construct Part, the place they’ll add a room to their dungeon. Every participant’s dungeon can have as much as 5 rooms in it, however you might be allowed to construct over an previous room if you happen to don’t need it anymore (or wish to construct an improve).
The Minion part could have gamers resolving the actions from the areas their minion went to. It will permit them to lure heroes to their dungeon, draw further room/spell playing cards, or acquire bonuses for the upcoming journey part.
Throughout the Bait Part, heroes on the town will transfer to the dungeon with the best variety of treasure icons that match what the heroes need. As soon as all of the heroes have moved out of city, gamers will run them by means of their dungeon. Every dungeon room will do a couple of factors of harm to the hero, and if the hero is killed, it’s added to the participant’s soul pile. If it makes it all through and continues to be alive, he participant takes a wound, which can damage their remaining rating.
On the finish of the sport, the participant with essentially the most souls (minus wounds) is the king boss monster.
Sport Expertise:
If you happen to’ll harken again to my authentic Boss Monster assessment, I favored the sport, nevertheless it was not with out its points. The chief amongst these, for me, was simply how swingy the sport was. You had been solely drawing one card a flip, so your dungeon buildout was very a lot depending on the luck of the draw. Actually wish to get a thief treasure? Higher hope you draw one, or you might be out of luck. Didn’t get a room that gives spell playing cards? Guess you might be caught with the one you drew initially of the sport.
It seems designers Hayden Dillard and Johnny O’Neal had been receptive to suggestions from their early design, as Tremendous Boss Monster has completed quite a bit to handle the unique sport’s randomness. Now, as a substitute of simply drawing 1 card per flip, you get to draft a room from a handful of playing cards, or move on the room and draw a brand new spell card. And even when these playing cards aren’t to your liking, the minion placement spots can allow you to draw further playing cards. Whereas this alteration did add one other layer of complexity to a lightweight filler sport, it’s made the sport quite a bit higher.
I really feel as if I’ve much more participant company in Tremendous Boss Monster than I ever did in Boss Monster. The Minion placement spots, along with letting you draw further playing cards, even have non permanent treasure icons for every hero kind. So if you happen to actually wish to appeal to that wizard on the town however simply can’t appear to get that yet one more e-book image, now you possibly can lure them to your dungeon together with your minion.
For individuals who are curious how the core gameplay compares to the unique Boss Monster, it’s largely the identical. The sport is stuffed with nostalgic pleasure with its artwork and theme, however it is usually nonetheless a nasty little sport. There are many “take that” spell playing cards the place you might be messing with the opposite gamers. In case your group is non-confrontational or prefers multiplayer solitaire, then this most likely isn’t the sport for you. However if you’re pleased with slightly little bit of again stabbing, Tremendous Boss Monster has some enjoyable gameplay.
The star for me on this sport needs to be constructing your dungeon. The playing cards have the flexibility to combo off one another, permitting you so as to add bonus tokens to rooms in your dungeon. If you get a pleasant set of rooms that mesh properly with one another, it’s extremely satisfying watching it grind up heroes to a pulp.
Lastly, this version additionally now has a solo mode. Over the previous few years, I’ve totally embraced solo gameplay on my tabletop, so I used to be eager to check out this mode. And I’d say it’s…tremendous. It’s a beat your excessive rating fashion of solo play, which I don’t thoughts. The primary draw back for me is that you simply pull out a number of playing cards from the spell and hero deck. So the sport loses a little bit of selection as you run by means of it. Total, it really works, and I’ve performed it a couple of occasions, however I don’t suppose I’ll be reaching for this one when it’s simply me. Solo play simply isn’t the place Tremendous Boss Monster shines, however I’m glad it’s there as an possibility for gamers.
Remaining Ideas:
Tremendous Boss Monster is a transparent improve over the unique Boss Monster. The designers fastened a number of my points with the unique sport and made one thing that simply works significantly better. Now it will probably nonetheless be a bit swingy, and it’s chock filled with “take that” playing cards nonetheless, however so long as you might be pleased with that, there’s a number of enjoyable available right here. And the retro online game artwork continues to be high notch and an enormous draw for the sport.
Remaining Rating: 4 Stars – A sport of nostalgic dungeon creation ranges up for a brand new period of players.
Hits:
• Much more participant company
• Identical nice artwork and theme
• Methods to mitigate the swingyness
• Solo mode…
Misses:
• …is simply OK
• Wants the group to love Take That mechanics
