The original King of Tokyo game was already popular since it was released in 2011. This is about Kaiju monsters fighting each other. For some people, it looks like a game for kids and they might refuse to play. Even the art looks like cartoon for kids. Some others hate it for the randomness of the dice roll. So, I didn’t pay much attention when I got into this hobby.
But now the publisher released a new version with the Godzilla IP which is perfect for what the game is. They even use different art with the style matching the original theme. A lot of people now seem to be interested just because of the theme. Well, especially after the successful movies in recent years. At least I did.
Will Godzilla or the other Monsters become the next King of Tokyo?
Title: King of Tokyo Godzilla
Year Released: 2026
Designer: Richard Garfield
Publisher: IELLO
Artist: Markus Erdt
Genre: Godzilla, Fighting, Push Your Luck, Dice Rolling, Rerolling and Locking, King of the Hill, Player Elimination, Take That, Race, Competitive, 2-6 players
:strip_icc()/pic9784874.jpg)
Overview
Basically, this is the same game as King of Tokyo but with monsters from Godzilla series. Each player pick one of the monsters and they will be fighting each other. They deal damage to the other monster while gaining VP through other means. Whoever score 20 VP first wins the game or if they are the last monster standing while the rest are eliminated.
Players take turns doing 5 steps: Roll Dice, Resolve Dice, Enter Tokyo, Buy Power Cards or Gain Energy, End of turn phase.
At the start of each turn, the active player rolls 6 brown dice. From the initial roll, they can choose to keep some and reroll the rest. After that, they may do it again one last time, keeping some dice and reroll the rest. Or they can choose to roll all of them total 3 times.
If the player has dice tokens they got previously, they may discard up to 2 tokens to roll equal number of extra dice before they start rolling. So, you can never roll more than 8 each turn. You can choose to keep or reroll the black dice like the brown.
After you are done with the rolling, you have to resolve the icons in any order. All dice have the same set of icons: the heart, the claw, the energy, and the number 1, 2 and 3.
If your dice have the Energy, you gain one energy token and keep it for various things later like buying power cards. The 3 numbers are to gain VP. You gain VP equal to that number for the first 3 of the same number plus 1 of the same number after that. So, if you roll 4 1s, you gain 2 points and you adjust the dial on your Monster Board.
The heart lets you heal your monster but only if the monster is not in Tokyo. So, if the Monster is in Tokyo, that icon is useless. Unless you have purchased a Power card to use it in other ways.
The claw or SMASH is to deal 1 damage to other monster or other multiple monsters. If your monster is in Tokyo City or Tokyo Bay, your claw deal damage to all other monsters outside Tokyo. But every other Monster not in either Tokyo, only deal damage to the Monster All Monsters in Tokyo.
If the Monster in Tokyo takes damage from the dice by other players, they can choose to Yield during this phase. This means, your monster leaves Tokyo. Usually, you want to do that to heal or avoid taking damage further from the next Monsters until your turn.
If Tokyo City or Bay is empty because the previous one chose to yield, the Monster of the active player must enter Tokyo as the 3rd phase of their turn. This means, they will start dealing damage to all other Monsters while taking more damage from them. There is always a Monster in Tokyo except for the first turn.
Entering Tokyo also gives you 1 VP. If you manage to start your turn while still in Tokyo, you gain 2 VP. While this helps you to reach 20 VP first but remember that you cannot heal while in Tokyo and you also take more damage from more Monsters. The other players might eliminate you first before you reach 20 VP.
The next phase of your turn is to Buy Power Cards. You can buy one card or more by spending the energy tokens you have collected. Each card has different cost. Some cards give you ongoing ability that you can keep using. The others give you one time ability that you can choose when to use it unless the card says otherwise. For the one-time, you discard the card after use.
Be aware that there is a power card that lets a player takes another card from their opponents. Some of them can also prevent you from resolving specific icon from the dice. Like you want to heal but the other players can discard a card to prevent that.
There are always 3 face up cards you can buy from. You can also choose to spend 2 energy to replace all of them before buying from the new one. Except, there might be an EVENT CARD.
Event cards are part of the Power Card deck and cannot be replaced. The moment it is revealed, bad things happen to all Monsters and it will keep affecting them until the card is purchased by any Monster. The Monster who purchased it will gain benefit stated at the bottom right corner of event card. So, having enough Energy for this situation can be very useful.
Players can also choose to not purchase any power card at all. For that, they gain 1 Energy. Refreshing the market by spending 2 energy doesn’t count as buying a card. So, you can refresh and if no good card to purchase, you still just lose 1 energy.
At the end of your turn, you check whether you have Power card that resolves during this phase. If not, then that is the end of your turn and you pass the 6 brown dice to the next player.
So, that is the general idea of how you play King of Tokyo Godzilla. You keep going until either one player has 20 VP first or if there is one Monster left while the rest is eliminated.
The game also comes with optional EVOLUTION module. Every monster has its own deck of Evolution card. To get an Evolution card, you need to have 3 heart icons from the dice. If you have them, you gain an Evolution card as a bonus and you can still resolve the icon to heal if you are not in Tokyo.
To use the card, it is similar to Power Card. It can be temporary evolution or permanent. For the former, you just discard them after use while the latter stay in front of you for the rest of the game. The temporary card may return to you. When you run out of your own deck, you just shuffle the discard pile back.
From what I understand, you can also integrate the other Monsters with the content of other King of Tokyo game boxes.
Session Reports
August 2026 session and more pictures of this session on Instagram and Tumblr.
I actually got 2 sessions, one with 2 Monsters and the other with 3. There is a variant to play with just 2 Monsters with just simple change. Instead of getting VP for entering or starting in Tokyo, you only gain 1 Energy.
In either session, I only played the basic game, without the evolution. So, all monsters are the same, except that with 3 monsters, you deal and take damage to and from more monsters instead of 1 on 1.
With just 2 Monsters, maybe not yielding, staying in Tokyo is lesser deal than against more. And you gain more Energy faster. While you don’t heal, it feels like you can just yield and suddenly roll a lot of hearts. And maybe you also deal a lot of damage to the other monster so that they cannot stay in Tokyo that long.
From my one session with 2 Monsters, the first player won after reaching 20 VP first while both still had 7 health. The other player got to 19 though.
That is my initial impression. It feels like the experience is that swingy. This is not about the swingy roll but also swingy how you can almost get eliminated and suddenly recover back to almost full health.
So, dealing damage doesn’t really mean anything since you can heal back up. Unless of course, more monsters deal damage to one within a round or so. VP feels more permanent but there are a couple of ways from cards mostly where you can lose or steal VP.
I guess paying attention of what cards have been purchased and knowing their power is very important, especially if it can affect you. That is also what makes the experience very swingy but in a good way. The funny thing happened in the 2nd session.
One player almost won the game via VP but they took a lot of damage. After they left Tokyo, they rolled 3 hearts just to be cancelled by the next player with the card. That player, obviously, got eliminated right in the next turn.
I like that this is not just a fighting game where your only option to win is just to keep hitting other players. You can choose to focus on gaining more points, especially if the rolls dictate in that way. Those power cards also help you significantly improves your chosen way to win to the point you want to ignore the other ways.
Like the Cross Attack Beam that allows you to add 1 more Smash if you roll 2 Smash. If your initial roll already get you 1, maybe you want to focus on that instead of getting 2 more 1s. But then maybe you have MONSTROUS NUANCE where every 1 also gets you 1 VP. Having multiple cards that can accommodate different possible rolls can be very handy.
Some cards also feel like they are impossible to use. Like the Energy Pulse where if you have 24 energy, you may gain energy from rolling a 1. Or like the Magnetic Field where you need 4 of a kind of anything to steal VP. Well, I did get 5 hearts once but you can choose at that point to use extra 2 dice. The Chrono Cure allows you to take extra turn if you roll 4 hearts.
There is at least one card that I think doesn’t work well with 2 players. That STASIS GENERATOR prevents other monsters from healing using dice if the owner of that card is in Tokyo. With just 2, even if that owner yields, you then enter Tokyo without the ability to heal, you may lose the game.
During that 2nd session, even if it started with 3, 1 of them was eliminated. The 2nd player got that card and the first player was down to 2 health left. Luckily for the first player, 5 turns after that, they got 20 VP first and won.
Even if you play with more, this is a game where you eliminate players during the game. If one Monster got that card very early and they were the remaining 2, there is a low chance that the other player can win.
What to do then with that card? Either you remove it from the game completely or you announce that whoever buys that card should be eliminated. I admit that session felt awesome but only because it was close to the end.
Some people may not like that player elimination element because that eliminated player will have to just wait and watch the other players keep going. I heard that even if that happens it happens very close to the end. Well, that one play says otherwise. That 3rd player was eliminated like only 2 thirds through the game. The other 2 took 10 more turns total before the game ended.
I do think this is much better with more than 2. With 3 players, the other 2 can fight and just damage each other while you are busy gaining energy and VP or recovering. More players also means cards are claimed by different players instead of 1 keep getting lucky draw and accumulates similar powers.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t feel like there are enough cards from just the base game. With just a couple of plays and you probably have seen all of them. That means, you probably want to try the Evolution module sooner.
So, as initial impression, I like with what happen in the game. The swingy experience really makes it feel thematic where you can make a comeback instead of bad luck or rolls on top of bad luck. As mentioned before, I like that this is not just a game where keep hitting the other opponents is the only way to win. There is a moment to just focus on yourself for VP, build your energy and recover. It is a fighting game but not to the point you can only bully your opponent.
An error note from this play. I think I misunderstood the VP from rolling numbers. Apparently, you get VP equals to the number but you still only collect 3. So, you want to get more 3s and more 1s.
Playing time took about 1 hour for both with 2 and 3 Monsters each.
More unboxing pictures of King of Tokyo Godzilla on my Instagram.