A Review of the Cooperative Lord of The Rings: Adventure to Mount Doom Board Game (Solo review only, we’ll seewhy…) September 9, 2023 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 In this film, a variant of Monster Island appears within the imagination of the main protagonist, Ichiro Miki. Many more monsters live on Monster Island, including Mothra, Manda, Gorosaurus and Baragon, as well as two new monsters that have origins in Ichiro's real-life experiences, Gabara and the Maneaters. In his dreams, Ichiro journeys alongside Minilla as they both learn to fend off Gabara, with Godzilla coming along to help. So finally, on my third time through, I got the rules right and played through a game. Please take my mistakes to heart when you play the game! Only activate minions in the Boss Zone and Always remove Boss dice after activating them (so they can be re-rolled!)

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.As good as the King of Monster Island rulebook was, it failed The Chair Test. Caveat Emptor! Unboxing We have detected irregular movement on the Monster Island. The volcano is erupting like never before. Monsters from all around the world are gathering on the Island, what is happening? They don’t even fight each other anymore! Frequently, I will keep rulebooks on the chair next to me when learning a game. It keeps the rulebook out of the main game flow, but in a place where I can glance/reach/read easily. I call this The Chair Test: Can I put a rulebook fully open on a chair next to me for easy reading?

To win, the players must cooperatively take out the main Boss: see above for the Boss powers and the Boss Hit Points/Fame Counter. 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! 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?)In Godzilla: Unleashed, the island is the first location to be bombarded with the crystals. The resulting chaos lets the Earth Defenders successfully deactivate the forcefield barriers and escape. In Godzilla Unleashed: Double Smash, the monsters are released as in Unleashed, but end up returning there for the final battle against Destoroyah and SpaceGodzilla. Their goal: allow their minions to set up the pylons needed to construct the portal. To win, the players must defeat the Boss before they manage to activate the portal or defeat even a single Monster. A team of geologists collaborate with the New Zealand Coast Guard in fighting against two kaiju in battle with one another: a giant starfish dubbed Tengu that spawns dragon-like offspring, and the golem-like Walking Mountain.

We have to wait a long time for each other’s turns. Although each player seems to really get into their own turn (having their own thoughts and re-rolls without consulting the others too much), the others are waiting for their turn without really participating too much. It’s one of the problems I had with King of Tokyo: you just have to wait too long for your turn.There are lot of punch outs: minions (left), crystals (upper right) , and Support tiles (lower right). Those of you paying attention might remember that we should have loved Shadow of the Bat ( see review here) because of the Batman theme, but the “roll dice for actions” really took it down a notch so that we just liked the game. That said, there’s definitely more to think about when it comes to what you’re aiming for with each roll, and how you apply the results you eventually get. At its core: King of Monster Island is a dice game with a Yahtzee re-roll mechanic. You roll once, keep what you want, then re-roll again keeping what you want, then one final re-roll. Just like King of Tokyo. Or Yahtzee. Or many other games with dice. It’s what the dice do that is interesting! These red dice activate the “bad news” parts of the game: they summon minions, give the Boss fame, and build crystals.

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. In the end, you’ll notice I ended up playing with the rulebook up on the table (see above) taking up tons of space! I’m not sure why I had so many problem my first few plays: it’s not like I haven’t played lots of co-ops or read tons of rulebooks! I think I just expected a much simpler game? I expected a simple “ co-op King of Tokyo” and got a much more complicated game!

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. King of Monster Island fails The Chair Test! It droops over the side of the chair, and it’s way too big to see everything! It’s a pain to look stuff up: I can’t usually just glance at it! After the upkeep’s dealt with, it’s the turn of one player to take their actions. This is based on the familiar Yahtzee-style dice rolling that was the core of King of Tokyo. You get three rolls, and can keep any dice faces you like each time. King of Monster Island seems best at 1-3 players. At 4- 5 players, the game has way too much downtime between turns.I would say the game would work better at higher player counts if the cooperation were more pronounced, but the cooperation seems pretty limited. That’s not a bad thing per se: players do have a lot of agency on their turn—It’s just that turns feel very solitary, so you don’t want too many players waiting for you. Dice for Actions Monster Island has appeared in Atari's Godzilla games. In Godzilla: Save the Earth, it is a playable arena that has a sub-arena, Monster Island Bay. The island has a mud pit, a waterfall, and even a volcanic section. Some of the challenges like Vorillium Basketball and Monster Bowling appear to take place on Monster Island, but its never actually said whether they do or not.