Board Game Review: Superfight!

You know what I love? I love games that bring people together and often times pit them against each other in some kind of antagonist sense. Take Munchkin for instance. Everyone is essentially on the same side, but only one can win and thus backstabs aplenty. Friendships are occasionally tested and truces are broke. Manipulation of other players is just as important as playing the right cards. The only problem I have with said game is that one match may take up the rest of the evening.

That's what brought me to Superfight! Take Munchkin and Apples to Apples and put them together. There are two decks, one for characters and another for attributes. Each player gets four characters and eight attributes. When it's their turn to host, players will construct a 'fighter' by drawing a single character card and two attributes. At this point, every other player creates a fighter with a single card and attribute. Once everyone has set their fighter, every player plays a single attribute card on a person next to them (everyone plays the attribute left or right) in order to cripple that character and make them less effective.

For instance, someone could have a Samurai who Breathes Fire. That's pretty awesome, right? Well, some of the attributes are negative. That Samurai might have trouble breathing fire while he's locked in a Hamster Ball.

After everyone has three cards sitting in front of them (one character, two attributes), the host then allows other players to make their case why their fighter is better than the rest at defeating the host's fighter. For example, the host draws cards that amount to the Super Mario Bros. armed with a bowling ball and is 6 feet tall. You'll say that your 60 foot tall baby that shoots webs will beat the Mario Bros far better than that previously mentioned samurai in a hamster ball can. Give your arguments (my webs will be more effective than the samurai burning himself up, 60 foot tall means a lot of weight so I'll crush you easy, your mario bros can't hurt my baby as well as they can hurt the samurai, etc.). Once everyone has been given a chance to present their case or pass, the host decides who wins, gives that player their character card as a trophy, and that constitutes as a single point.

You'll repeat this for every round until someone reaches a desired goal, or more likely when time runs out and everyone feels good to stop.

Have you ever played Apples to Apples where you have a select hand of cards to interplay with others? Multiply the possible combinations in a theoretical 'Who would win?' scenario. if you're a fan of one or the other (or both!) you'll love this game.

As Apples to Apples is, a lot of it depends on your friends, those you're playing with. If you know the host is a big fan of Doctor Who, arming anything of yours with a sonic screwdriver can be a very helpful decision, even if it's something completely unrelated like a whale. As you might guess from that example, some of the combinations become utterly ridiculous. Some of the competitive pairings are fun to argue to. What's susceptible to laughing gas? Is a whale fireproof because it's underwater, or will it be stuck in the open air to lazily flop about against its opponent? Anything can happen, and that brings me to the next point.

The debating. Good grief, the debating is possibly the best part. Arguing with players over the validity of one's fighter versus others. Remember that whale? That player says it can crush the host's character while another vehemently disagrees by saying it can't do anything against a Mario Bros with a laser sword because that whale can't move in a neutral environment. Someone might think a T-Rex in a Jet might be handicapped, while another might assume that the T-Rex just breaks free of it, not counting it as a handicap or a form of enhancement. Unlike Apples to Apples, players can make public cases, explaining how their Crocodile Hunter can deal with Godzilla, due to its ability to hunt crocodiles.

Yes, there are expansions (like practically everything I review) but these work in the precise way you figure they would, more characters and more attributes.

There are also two interchangeable (but not co habitable) expansions that add in Scenarios and Landscapes. Unfortunately a scenario might have a minefield of exploding kittens while a landscape might be outer space, so they don't always figure in the best way.

In addition, since the rights to Superfight! is held at Skybound (who also owns a certain zombie-centric franchise) one of the expansions focuses on elements from The Walking Dead. You've also got expansions that focus on super-nerdy stuff (from which a friend of mine played 'Pick a Science Fiction Character' at 'Half HP' and he translated it as Jigglypuff with half horsepower which was brilliant), kid stuff, offensive/adult material, locations, scenarios, and challenge cards (which changes the 'win' conditions). It's all great fun and I may review the individual expansions.

I would suggest pacing yourself if you get the expansions. I received about 5 or 6 of them all at once and my group of friends burned through them very quickly. Just word to the wise.

It's not exactly a micro-game like One Night Ultimate Werewolf, Superfight is a quick and easy game to pick up. Just shuffle up two decks and deal cards, playing forward without need to shuffle any more. If you finish off a deck, turn over the discard, shuffle, and you keep going.

• Quick, highly variable and random games that thrive off the human experience
• Very similar to Apples to Apples with a competitive edge
• 500 cards with huge variables creating immense replayability
• Room to grow with numerous expansions
• Base game is $35
• Got its start from Kickstarter funds

I'm working on reviewing a few more non-traditional (ie. not Battleship, Monopoly, and the like) board games but I've only got another micro game called One Night Ultimate Werewolf which is like your card games Mafia or Werewolf where everyone gets a special ability. By the way, it's a fantastic game for parties.

Or maybe you enjoy deck building? Have about a fantastic game utilizing Marvel Comics properties in Legendary: Marvel Deck Building Game.

You might also enjoy the trivia game Geek Out! but I didn't.

I've already written a considerable bit of material for the card game Munchkin, a massive selection of games that parodies various genres in a card based D&D style play full of backstabbing and manipulating your friends just to get ahead. It also has the options of tons of Custom Cards, so if you're interested in that, I've got more than a handful of cards that can spice up your games.