King of Tokyo Power Up! Review - Evolve Your Original Monster!

The King of Tokyo Power Up! expansion requires King of Tokyo to play. Check out our King of Tokyo review if you want to know more. If you already have King of Tokyo, read on.

The King of Tokyo Power Up! expansion adds a new monster, Pandakai to your King Of Tokyo games. It also adds a missing component from the core game by adding a unique feel to each playable monster. In the core King of Tokyo game, the monsters are only differentiated by their looks in the cardboard figure you use to represent your monster in-game. Power Up! adds a set of eight evolution cards for each monster from the King of Tokyo 2nd edition, as well as the 2 monsters from King of Tokyo 1st edition. The evolution cards give each monster a unique evolution ability that can be played at any time, unless specified by the card. You gain one card at the start of the game and more if you roll three hearts during your turn. This makes each monster feel and play slightly differently, which has a huge impact on selecting your monster and also encourages you to play different monsters to try out their evolution abilities.

After introducing new players to the game, introducing the evolution cards is very straightforward. They don't have a huge impact, but they do make playing each monster different and feel unique, which has a great effect on the thematic feel for the game. Once you've played a game with them, you won't want to play future games without them.

Some of our favorite evolution cards are Cyber Kitty's' "Nine Lives," which lets you discard all of you cards and Victory Points and return to 9 life, which is great if you're pushing for taking all of your opponents out through force. We also love the new monster Pandakai's "Panda Express" which gives your 2 Victory Points and another go if you roll 1 of each dice type in your turn. We also really like the King's "Chest Thumping" which is incredibly thematic and forces your opponents monster to yield Tokyo if you damage them (it's usually their choice to yield or not).

King of Tokyo Power Up!, unlike King of New York Power Up!, doesn't contains the Evolution cards for the Tokyo monsters to be played in King of New York, which is disappointing, as it would have been great to have been able to play the monsters in both games. It does contain the cards for 1st and 2nd edition King of Tokyo Monsters, so if you only have 1st edition, you won't need to upgrade to 2nd to make full use of this.

The Bottom Line:

King of Tokyo Power Up! is an essential purchase to make the monsters feel unique and adds great depth and theme to them. The new monster Pandakai is an interesting addition, but the reason for your purchase of Power Up should be for the evolution cards which will take your King of Tokyo experience to the next level. It doesn't impact the complexity of the game after you've learned the rules, as the requirements are printed on the cards you draw, but does improve an already incredible game. Its very disappoint not to have the evolution cards for the Tokyo monsters to be used in New York.

Get this game if:

You love King of Tokyo.

You want the extra depth and theme for each monster.

You want to play Pandakai in King of Tokyo.

Avoid this game if:

You don't own King of Tokyo.

You don't like playing games with people.

You don't like fun.

This copy of King of Tokyo Power Up! used for this review was provided by CoiledSpring Games.