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Last year Pandasaursus Games dropped the Sci-Fi loving, Pandemic offspring THE LOOP, designed by Maxime Rambourg and Théo Rivière. For those living in a vortex, THE LOOP is a co-operative game where a team of time travellers work together to catch the evil Dr Faux before his rifts in time cause the whole universe to collapse. The main focus in this production is the cube tower in the middle of the board distributing rift cubes as Dr Faux moves from era to era.
Every element is gorgeously illustrated by Simon Caruso. Playing homage to the best sci-fi films of the 80s and 90s, this art adds a humorous nostalgia trip to every turn. Coined by some as a ‘Pandemic killer’, THE LOOP takes the co-op mechanisms from Matt Leacock’s 2008 megahit Pandemic and adds enough variation to make the game, not only more replayable, but thematically lighter. And now, not even a year since first getting this to the table in the UK THE LOOP is back with a shiny new expansion.
What Do Kaij-u Do?
So, what exactly does The Revenge Of Fauxzilla bring? As the title suggests, it brings a giant Kaiju named Fauxzilla to stomp around through time. What I love about the base game is the four different modes it comes with, each offering a very different puzzle to solve. Well this expansion comes with two brand new games to add into the mix. Both centre on Fauxzilla, a giant wooden meeple towering over your character pieces. It takes its turn following the standard Dr Faux phase, so, just as you feel overwhelmed by clones and rift cubes, this enormous creature adds another threat to deal with.
The first game, ‘Fauxzillapocalypse’, replaces the standard missions with exciting new ”time traps”. These traps are activated by playing artifact cards, going off when Fauxzilla moves into that era, causing damage to the giant menace. This game feels a lot more kinaesthetic, putting you into the heart of a Godzilla type movie as you run around placing cubes on these traps. The tension comes from, if a vortex is triggered, you lose your progress in that era and have to start again. It also comes with bonuses every time you make a hit and so feels like you are making real progress.
And let’s not forget how great it feels to pick up that super-meeple and stomp it around the board as it moves! The second game is lovingly named ‘The 7 Kaiju Balls’ in a Yu-Gi-Oh nod. You need to gather Dr Faux’s energy balls which Fauxzilla is also collecting, mistaking them for its eggs. It adds a ‘pickup and deliver’ mechanism to the game, as you pass between players trying to get them to the correct era. The reward, once an egg is sealed in its designated era, is a fourth slot for a rift cube, delaying the dreaded vortex!
Playing With Agency
The expansion also comes with more artifacts, more missions and two new Time Agents. The first, Faux Klein Schlag, is the younger Dr Faux who can, during their turn, move Dr Faux’s era. This is a lot more circumstantial than the other powers but can pay off with specific missions. However, that tiny meeple is ADORABLE! The best character addition is the Peak Twins. Treated as two separate agents, you can move and activate independently of each other within one player’s turn. That’s right, you can span two eras at once! The addition of the Twins creates a much stronger board presence at lower player counts, and I imagine, at capacity, to be incredibly powerful. And again, the meeple design is on point.
Should You make The Quantum Leap?
As you can tell, I love The Revenge Of Fauxzilla. It does what many of my favourite expansions do and gives more variation without dramatically changing the game. Most importantly, it all fits comfortably in the original box! It is important to mention that both new game modes are of ‘high’ difficulty. If the base game feels a little on the hard side for your group then this expansion may not be for you. However, if you have played the base game a lot, the new modes offer a very different type of gameplay, and that giant meeple really is fun to move around!
