Marvel character The Collector has been getting a pretty raw deal in recent times. Not only does he not have a lot of fun in the movies, this walking avatar of acquisition is also the principle bad guy in a popular mobile app called Marvel Contest of Champions. The app pits various heroes against each in competitive fighting contest, Street Fighter-style.
Marvel Contest of Champions: Battlerealm is a board game inspired by a video game which itself was inspired by a comic book. If this seems like an odd choice for a franchise, well it is. Board games can’t do fighting quite the same way; the rapid thrills and moves are hard to replicate in cardboard. Upper Deck, the game’s publishers, have decided to go a different route, with a dice and card setup that blends the fun of push-your-luck dice games like King of Tokyo with more traditional strategy.
The setup is pretty straightforward. You pick one of sixteen heroes from a cast of mostly familiar faces – comic book versions of movie favourites like Hulk, Black Widow, Hawkeye, etc. We also get Guillotine, a character unique to the video game who we doubt we’ll ever see elsewhere. Each has their own special abilities, some of which trigger when you roll the right combination of dice. This is the big difference from King of Tokyo; everyone begins with different powers, which changes your strategy from opponent to opponent. The place where you fight also matters.
A location deck is shuffled and placed on the table, and this forms our board. Each location does its own thing, typically modifying the dice rolls in some way. In the middle of these realms is the crystal prison.
You can be exiled here during play and you can’t fight whilst exiled (this isn’t always a bad thing). You need to roll a triple to escape, but you may not want to.
This is a three to six player game and the aim of it is to beat up everyone else, becoming the Collector’s champion. Each round you need to pick your fights carefully – go all in too soon and you’re going to lose. Roll your dice, keep some of them, and then decide if you need to roll again. With the variable powers and locations, it becomes a fun challenge to figure out when you need to push your luck.
Battlerealm is a fun game, though hardly an essential one. Still, if you’re anything like The Collector, you’ll simply have to have it.
MARVEL: CONTEST OF CHAMPIONS – BATTLEREALM / PUBLISHER: UPPER DECK ENTERTAINMENT / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
