King of Tokyo: Power Up Review

King of Tokyo: Power Up

• Designer: Richard Garfield
• Publisher: IELLO
• Players: 2-6
• Age: 8+
• Time to Play: 30 Minutes

Hey folks! Back again with the chaos of monsters taking over Tokyo. We’re reviewing King of Tokyo: Power Up. This is an expansion for King of Tokyo that adds another monster to fight with, and evolution cards for previous monsters.

King of Tokyo: Power Up box comes with 72 Evolution cards, 8 tokens, 1 Pandakai monster board, 1 Pandakai monster figure, and the rules.

To set up the expansion, you simple just find the evolution cards for the monster you chose for the game. Each monster will have their own set of evolution cards mixed of permanent and temporary evolution cards. Shuffle the cards, draw two of them, and pick and keep one of those cards. The other gets shuffled back into the evolution deck.

During the game, you keep the evolution cards in your hand until you decide to use them. Like I previously mentioned, there are two types of evolution cards. Permanent and Temporary. It’s pretty simple. Temporary evolution cards are discarded after you use them. Permanent evolution cards are played face up in front of you and will last as long as they remain there.

When it’s your turn, and you roll three or more hearts to resolve, you get to draw from your evolution deck. Draw two evolution cards, pick one, and discard the other. If for any reason, your evolution deck is depleted, you simple shuffle the discard pile and make a new deck. You still resolve the hearts you rolled, but the drawing from the evolution deck is a bonus action. You can play evolution cards at anytime, even during another player’s turn. You can even gain the evolution cards while in Tokyo. You just don’t heal in Tokyo. You never heal in Tokyo.

So, what are my thoughts on King of Tokyo: Power Up? I really like this expansion. It adds another monster, and I like variety. What it adds is even more variety to the game with evolution cards. Each monster gets 8 evolution cards. One of my favorite things in the base game is buying the power up cards and changing how my monster plays. With this expansion, it adds another way to do that.

I like that you also get a benefit for healing. There are times while I try to press my luck, and stay in Tokyo as long as I can. When that happens, I need hearts stat. So I feel like my turn isn’t completely wasted if I try going for all hearts. Components are on par with the base game. I like that it added a martial arts panda that you can play. I also like that each monster feels different. They could have easily made the same evolution cards, but each monster has it’s own personality with these cards. It’s also easy enough to teach and add into the base game which is a plus. I’ve found some expansions that add to the game, but also make explaining the game a little harder. With this, you can just play with the expansion without worrying about overwhelming new players. If you’re a fan of King of Tokyo, I highly recommend this as a must buy.