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The opening scene in Big Hero 6 is great. As someone who was raised on a healthy diet of Robot Wars, the bot battling captured my imagination. Given this, Gekido: Bot Battles should be a shoe in. I like the theme, and I like the Yahtzee dice mechanic used in similar games King of Tokyo and King of New York.
Gekido: Bot Battles has wonderful fully painted miniatures and comes from fairly consistent publisher in CMON. Yet is there enough game here to warrant a recommend steep price tag? (NOTE: Zatu sell this game for less than the RRP price)
Gekido Box Battle
The first thing I noticed about Gekido: Bot Battles is the smaller than expected box size. I know I'm judging this by cost, but had I paid RRP I think I would have been slightly disappointed. Opening it up starts to make up for this as the first thing you will be drawn to is the six detailed, chunky and painted bot figures. They are seriously impressive.
There are six custom dice with different coloured shapes on each side and then a load of smaller six-sided dice with the usual numbers on. Rounding out the package are some cards, six punchboard tiles to make up the arena, three lock on tiles per character, and a double-sided player mat for each bot.
Although the quality is good throughout, again the price point raises questions. The tiles are only single-sided and the art work on the edges makes them look scuffed. Two of the player mats have mistakes on that should have been spotted.
Worse than that, currently CMON are only offering a print your own solution. Yes this doesn't affect game play, but it makes it hard to justify the price tag.
Gekido: Bot Battles
Gekido claims it is a 2-4 player game. In a two player game you will use the duel side of the player mat, and an arena made up of four tiles. I haven't played two player nor will I. Games like this, and the recently released Arena: For the Gods, are best as multiplayer blood baths. And Gekido: Bot Battles really shines here.
Players choose a bot, their matching player board, and the lock on tiles for each other bot in the game. They also take 5-6 of the numbered dice and place them in the squares on the left hand side of their player board displaying the number six on each. This represents your bots health.
There are a number of squares to the right of this that represent a bot's upgrades and powers. A bot may have both powers and an upgrade or just powers. Once a Bot takes enough damage to remove a dice, that dice will be used to make your Bot more powerful in one of these spaces.
I Like Big Bots and I Cannot Lie
To cause damage you need to roll the other dice to gain certain combinations that activate your attacks. On your first roll you must lock in which attack you want to aim for. Each attack lists two numbers, the damage it will do to an opponent if you are successful, and the damage it will do to you should you fail to roll the whole combo.
You get up to two more re-rolls to complete your attack, but after every roll you can use one power. This can be from a card, the tile you are stood on or one of your Bot powers once you have taken enough damage to gain them. The powers range from dice manipulation, to attack modifiers and ways to earn more cards. Should you choose one of the two weaker attacks and succeed you will also gain a card.
On your turn you must attack, the arena is made up of nine tiles in a 3x3 grid and diagonal movement and attacking is allowed. This means you will either be near enough to attack someone or one move away. You move one space, if you need to, then choose who you will attack. When you have chosen you must flip over your lock-on tile for their bot to the reloading stage. You cannot attack them again until you have attacked all the other Bots in play.
If you fail, nothing else happens, but if you succeed you can push that player out of their space, or if you haven't moved yet you can move to a free space. For example you may want to do this if a defensive space was available. The game ends when one Bot remains.
Bot does it work?
Gekido: Bot Battles is a fast playing battle game with loads of interesting concepts. Player elimination is offset with quick play time and it has the clever targeting system which stops one player being singled out. On top of this, the fact that you get stronger as you lose health, similar to Adrenaline, acts as a balancer too. Attack strength is simple as your hit power plus any modifiers minus any defensive modifiers and armour equals the damage done.
Success in Gekido is somewhat luck heavy, and if you choose to push your luck you can be richly rewarded with devastatingly powerful attacks. There is some variability to the bots too, some being more defensive or attacking. It's not as fleshed out as it could be, and attack focused Bots have seemed easier to play, and do perhaps win more.
It is almost a non-euro light version of Adrenaline, boiled down to move and attack with dice rolls for added unpredictability. Yet the price remains a sticking point for me. The tiles should really have been double-sided to add more variability, the missed typos are not really acceptable and I question the need to put six Bots in the box. I think this would do better as a base set with four of the Bots included and perhaps selling the others separately. I'm sure the plan is to realise more Bots, will sales justify this though?
It's a shame as I think there is fun to be had here. My son loves the game and I have enjoyed a quick battle between heavier games with my game group. Gekido: Bot Battles will be staying in my collection, but whenever I play it I will be reminded of all that could have been.
