Tokyo Sidekick Tokyo Sidekick | Japainme Games | 1-4 Players | 40-60 minutes
Big Box! Tokyo Sidekick from Japanime games is a super cooperative superhero deck-building game. The fate of the cities in Japan is ever-increasing against villains, supervillain, and then the big baddies. The missions are time-sensitive due to incidents unresolved that can turn critical, unleashing mayhem. This night can go two ways; save the day by taking down two Villains and two Supervillains to get the Menace’s attention and defeat it or die by depleting the Damage Deck, and Destruction Gauge at fifteen. If it is the latter, players can regroup, adjust missteps, and start over. That is what the Japanime Games has done.
Undertaking the journeying across Tokyo with sidekicks collecting power and teaming up is expedient, and we found the only road to success ultimately. The rule book is dense with essential tips and tricks on pairing heroes and sidekicks. Initially, we brazenly picked characters that we liked or found amusing for our first game and failed miserably. This is when we dove into the backstories and chose wisely.
Gameplay
Choose a superhero, and a choose a sidekick. Every character has a starting home location on the map. They have ability cards that are inactive and markers for experience used to upgrade the attacks and upgrade abilities. Create a starter deck of resources. The game has preset incidents scattered around Tokyo, and the incident deck placed on the map. In turn, spend the resources that you have trying to travel around the city, resolving incidents beating up bad guys, or dealing them damage for experience points.
The energy cards used for movement, attacking, and abilities are in sets single, double, and triple (Power, Speed, and Concentration.)
In any order, turns are; move, charge up, brush-up, resolve, attack, assemble, or power-up.
At the end of a turn, players discard the cards they used and bring their hands back to five. Some abilities allow the character to have more cards. End of rounds- Map out incidents, move the Crisis marker to the left, place that incident on the map, and Damage any enemies left on the board. Redraw the hand. If there are any Yellow or Red Incidents left on the map, the city takes damage. New enemies show up once you go through a full turn order.
When Villains defense and health are depleted, they are sent to Adachi Asylum!!
Banish two Villains, two Super Villains to the asylum the Big Baddie appears. Destroy the Menace’s Defense and Health before they complete their objective, the Superhero have saved the day!!
Time to calculate how heroic the teams are with the scoring system, Hero Nerd to Godly!!
Mechanics that Worked for Us
Researching the in-depth character backstories and choosing teams that cover all bases.
We had one character that focused on the incidents, and that character is proficient with speed.
It seems fairly obvious; however, it took us a few games to open the special abilities on the hero card. *Our focus on deckbuilding left us unable to beat the big baddies.
We had a character that could replenish the Damage cards, and that alleviated some of the time constraints.
Synergy with attack support and handling incidents was our game changer.
Our favorite combo was Gray Rabbit and James Kiritani whose car could pick up other characters and drive them to Villains.
Bits and Bobs
One Large Game Board
Four Player Boards
One Power Up Board
203 Small Cards
42 Oversized Cards
42 Cardboard Character Standees
16 Character Stands
Rulebook
A Manga!!!!
Last Words
The Manga of original content contained lore, and the characters’ personal connections gave the game a compelling and exciting level for play. We definitely embodied our characters’ personalities.
The art and game pieces are extraordinary and striking.
It took several games for us to banish the villains and become Hero Nerdz.
The game is fast-moving and unpredictable. Being a novice at the RPG, but reasonably good at strategy, felt that I could benefit the team.
Tokyo Sidekick is a rare creation that we found had the perfect balance between depth, style, substance, fun and challenge.
Tokyo Sidekick
Japainme Games
1-4 Players | 40-60 minutes | Ages 12+ | Cooperative
Let’s be honest; there is still a bit of drama when we play.
Sit Down -Grab a Drink – Join the Game
Suzzanne
