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

Product Information

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! 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.

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. As good as the King of Monster Island rulebook was, it failed The Chair Test. Caveat Emptor! Unboxing 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. 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. 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. 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. Most games have no problem with The Chair Test: see the rulebook for Agents Of SMERSH: Epic Edition on the chair above. ( We reviewed this game a few weeks ago). It’s easy to read, it sits open on the chair, and it allows me to just glance at it without any effort. Of course, one of the best bits about these games is the monsters that you get. The boss monsters in particular are pretty special here, especially the biggest one, Lavalord. Of the player monsters, I do love Megamoth and Pagurah (huge cyborg moth and massive crab thing), while H.A.D.E.S is different enough to make playing it fun. That said, I’ll probably start rotating in Tokyo favourites like Gigasaur and Cyber Kitty before long.

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.

A Review of the Cooperative Lord of The Rings: Adventure to Mount Doom Board Game (Solo review only, we’ll seewhy…) September 9, 2023 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!