When comparing Santorini vs King of Tokyo, the Slant community recommends Santorini for most people. In the question“What are the best board games for beginners?” Santorini is ranked 7th while King of Tokyo is ranked 8th. The most important reason people chose Santorini is:
The basic premise of Santorini is simple; players use their workers to move around the map, build towers, and attempt to be the first to ascend to the 3rd level of one of these towers. However, much like its more serious counterpart, Chess, Santorini has an astounding amount of depth as players move to block and trap one another all while positioning for that one winning move. Adding in the God Powers further opens up the options for interesting gameplay and in-depth strategy as players make use of one of these unique cards to give their workers special powers like building twice, moving opponents, or even removing buildings.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Easy to understand yet deep gameplay
The basic premise of Santorini is simple; players use their workers to move around the map, build towers, and attempt to be the first to ascend to the 3rd level of one of these towers. However, much like its more serious counterpart, Chess, Santorini has an astounding amount of depth as players move to block and trap one another all while positioning for that one winning move. Adding in the God Powers further opens up the options for interesting gameplay and in-depth strategy as players make use of one of these unique cards to give their workers special powers like building twice, moving opponents, or even removing buildings.
Pro A ton of replayability
The base game of Santorini will almost always play out differently as players try different techniques and strategies for besting their opponent - different starting points, different routes, trying to build up yourself or trying to disturb the opponent. However, the game gets really interesting with the introduction of God Power cards.
Adding in the 30 God Powers from the base set adds a whole new layer of variable conditions for each game and allow for a huge variety of potential combinations. Each God Card adds some sort of different rule to the game, and you must follow this instruction for the whole game. Otherwise, you lose. Some God Cards give you specialized win conditions, some allow the removing of opposing workers, and others make you specifically alternate your movement patterns. For example, the Apollo card allows a player to swap positions with the opponent.
If that isn't enough, the Golden Fleece expansion adds another 15 God Cards, 10 Hero Cards, and an entirely new variant to the game.
Pro Excellent component quality
From the raised, three-dimensional board to the high quality building blocks, all of the components in Santorini are top-notch. The tarot sized cards are beautifully illustrated and contain easy to recognize iconography, the main game board is made up of 3 parts that raise it up off the table and give it an excellent sense of scale, and the building pieces are fantastically modeled so that they stack together easily and look great as the city is built from the ground up!
Pro Good for parties
The game’s whacky theme of different monsters battling it out in the city of Tokyo gives the game a silly and light-hearted feel that the players easily take over. There’s constant engagement between the players, be it trash talk, begging for mercy while in Tokyo, anger or delight for dice rolls, or persuading others to gang up on someone.
Pro Great artwork
King of Tokyo features some unique monster-y artwork, sort of parodying the movie cliché of huge beasts destroying urban environments. Everything is very colorful, cartoony, and highly detailed, from the box itself to the cardboard cutout monsters, the ability cards, and the gameboard with a burning Tokyo in the background.
Pro Very nice monster boards
The base game includes six different playable monsters and their matching cardboard cutouts and player boards. These monster boards are of great quality, feature the same wonderful artwork as the whole game, and are nicely designed. There are two spinable parts that show the monster’s health and victory points, so it’s a very easy way to keep track of what is happening.
Pro Simple rules
King of Tokyo is highly accessible to people of all ages because it’s very easy to learn but it still provides enough room for strategy because of the “being in Tokyo” part. The whole game revolves around rolling dice and trying to either reach 20 victory points or destroy everyone and everything.
On your turn you roll six dice. With the dice you can receive 1, 2, or 3 victory points (if you roll three of the same number), attack other monsters by rolling the attack icon, receive energy for ability card purchases, or heal yourself. After you’ve rolled you can re-roll any amount of dice two more times.
Rolling an attack icon lets you attack the monster that is currently inside Tokyo, or, if you are inside Tokyo, all monsters outside. The monster inside has the choice to retreat before the attack hits, forcing the attacking monster inside Tokyo. Why is being in Tokyo good? You receive 2 victory points if you’re inside at the start of your turn.
Cons
Con Component design
Apart from the wonderful monster boards, the rest of the components have quite a few drawbacks. The special dice are large, so it’s very uncomfortable to throw six of them, especially if you have smaller hands. The energy tokens are small, dark green cubes that can easily be displaced with a small shake of the playing surface or lost if they drop down on the ground. The cardboard monsters and ability cards show wear quite quickly.
Lastly, the only purpose the gameboard serves is to have two spaces that represent being in Tokyo. This function could just as easily be replaced by just putting a monster in the middle of the table, making the gameboard purely aesthetic and otherwise useless.
Con Player elimination
As soon as a monster reaches 0 health it’s out, so you’re going to have to sit and watch the remainder of the game if that happens to you.
Con First edition is pricey
The first edition of King of Tokyo costs $62, which is two times more than the newer edition, though the only differences between them are in the artwork and in one very minimal rule change about entering Tokyo – you don’t need to roll a claw, you enter straightaway. A lot of people prefer the first edition’s artwork.
Con Some very powerful card combinations
King of Tokyo has a few quite overpowered ability cards. If a player pulls off a specific combination, then they might be unstoppable and create a long, drawn-out and frustrating game until they finally win. For example, the wings card lets you cancel all damage if you have more than two energy. This basically means that you can keep evading hits and just stack up on victory points. Some players recommend removing a few cards from the game for a better experience.
Con Highly random
Since King of Tokyo is a dice rolling game, it should be no surprise that pretty much all of it revolves around getting lucky with your rolls, so if you’re not a fan of that then this isn’t the game for you. The game tries mitigating the randomness a little bit by having the re-roll mechanic and ability cards in play, but there are still plenty of opportunities to come back from crushing defeats or drop down from being in the lead.