Giant D20, Sonic Speed Battle, and Luffy’s Bento Panic Review

Whether you like anime or RPGs, if you like playing games, then you’ll like this new lineup of games from Kess.

Anime fans can bring the fun of One Piece to life with the game Luffy’s Bento Panic. It’s a fast-paced game where players point to eat food, scavenge for leftovers, and steal from fellow pirates. You can play the game with three to nine players ages 8 and up. To start, pick which character you’ll play as and gather that character’s favorite food tokens as shown on their dashboard. All remaining food tokens get placed in the bag in the center of the table. Now each pirate trades two of their favorite food tokens with the pirates on their left and right. The number of players you have determines how many points the Luffy Tracker starts at. On the count of three, each player simultaneously performs an action with each of their hands. They can make hand symbols to signify eating, stealing, blocking, using the character’s special ability, or grabbing. Eating means an entire food pile gets moved from your plate to your Bento Box, and you want it in  your Bento Box to score points. Stealing means you take one food pile from a neighbor. A block means you’ll cancel a steal against you. Each character has a special ability that can only be played if you perform the special pose and the ability’s requirements have been met. And grabbing means you grab two tokens from the bag. Once all actions have been resolved, check the Luffy Tracker. If it gets to zero, Luffy attacks. What moves the Luffy Tracker? Juicy Meat Tokens added to a pirate’s plate. When Luffy attacks, he eats all the food tokens on the plate of the pirates who have the most meat tokens in front of them. All pirates not attacked get a free Eat action. If Luffy attacks twice, flip the tracker token to the Last Call side. Now, each Juicy Meat Token pulled moves the tracker by two. The game ends if Luffy attacks three times or if the final food token is pulled from the bag. Pirates score points for the food tokens they have eaten in their Bento Box, and the player with the highest score wins. 

Fans of Sonic the Hedgehog can play a super sonic card game with Sonic Speed Battle. There are actually three different card games that use the same deck in different ways, and you can play any of the games with two to four players ages 8 and up. In the first game, Action Race, be the first to 10 points to win the race. Take turns either racing by placing a card from your hand face down or spinning by discarding all your cards and not competing in the race. All players who chose to race reveal their face down card. If the number on your card does not match on any other player’s card, your card scores, and you progress one point on your tracker card. But if the number matches, a Homing Attack begins. In this, each player takes turns playing a card with the same number. If you can’t play a card, you’re out and don’t score. The last player standing wins the attack and scores the card they played during the race and gains a bonus point for each other player who was in the Homing Attack. The second game is Shooting Battle, and on your turn, you draw a card and either choose another player to duel with or discard all cards in your hand and then draw one card. In a duel, two players secretly play a card, and then reveal them. The player with the higher number deals one damage to the other player. When a player’s health reaches zero, that player is knocked out. And when only one player remains, he’s the winner! And the last game is Treasure Hunt. On your turn, you first dig by discarding as many cards as you want, and then drawing until you have exactly three cards. Then you search by playing one card onto your Radar play area. You can play a card onto an empty pile, onto a pile with cards of the same suit, or you can replace a pile. You’re hunting emerald shards, and to claim them, you must play cards to match the numbers on the emerald shard. Collect two emerald shards to win.

If you need a 20-sided die for any of your roleplaying games, go big with the Giant D20. This oversized foam die measures five inches and comes in six different colors. You can play with this soft foam die on the table, in the grass, on the beach, or in the pool. This is for gamers ages 13 and up.