The Super Mario Bros. Movie Monopoly and NBA Prizm Monopoly Review

The Super Mario Bros. Movie Monopoly is largely a palette swap of the standard game with one big new gameplay feature. The board is adorned with stills and scenery from the movie, money is replaced with coins, railroads are warp pipes, and so on. The silver plastic gameplay pieces reference different characters in the movie and add to the charm. The big gameplay addition is Bowser. When you roll to move, you also roll for Bowser. If he lands on a property, whether it is owned or not, he flips it to Game Over mode, in which rent can’t be collected, and a Continue fee must be paid to bring it back to normal. If an entire color property set is owned by a player, they are immune to Game Over status. Land on the same space as Bowser to battle him with a partner of your choosing. Roll 7 or higher with your partner and you win, kick Bowser back to Go, and complete a free round. Roll 6 or lower, and get sent to Jail! This one gameplay addition keeps things a bit more hectic than normal Monopoly, all on its own.

As for Prizm NBA Monopoly, the game structure is a bit more altered. Visually, the board is decorated with visual cues of basketball, including the middle court, and stadium backdrops with team insignias to describe the games or “properties”. I also really like the player pieces, they’re light, made of a sturdy plastic and have pleasing hand feel thanks to the basketball hide texture. Inside a game box you get 3 Panini trading card packs, one starter pack of 8 and two boosters with 4 each. These cards will be used to build your team for the rest of the game. Lay them face up at the start, and whoever rolls higher on the die chooses the first player, then you alternate until each player has their 1 reserve and 3 starter players. Play then continues as normal, with properties being games and money being points, but each time you have a playmaker or all star card challenge, you face your team off against your opponent’s. It usually boils down to a comparison of stats once you flip your cards.  All star Contests happen every time a player lands on Go, even if they have more spaces yet to move. Collect the most points by the time every All Star card has been completed to win the game! This version of the game takes a little getting used to at first with the addition of cards and stats, but the added mechanics help differentiate it from standard Monopoly to the point where it’s worth picking up even if you have the vanilla version.