Superheroes Ltd (Sentinels of the Multiverse)

REVIEW #100

Are you an up and coming hero with a special set of powers?  Do you want to do more with your life besides catching bank robbers and purse snatchers?  Do you want a sweet uniform that doesn't look like you robbed an old ladies clothesline?  Then you should apply for the Sentinels of the Multiverse, the team that rights wrongs, battles giant monsters and inter-dimensional threats, and looks good while doing it.  Positions are open today!



BACKGROUND:  Sentinels of the Multiverse is a cooperative card game published by Greater Than Games for 2 to 5 players in 2011.  Players take the role of various super heroes and team up to battle powerful enemies.

GAMEPLAY:  Each player takes a Hero card, and appropriate deck, and choose a Villain character and rules card, and matching deck to battle against, and a Environment deck to determine where you fight.  Gameplay consists of the Villain turn, the Hero turn, and the Environment turn.  Villain and Environment turns consist of effects that trigger at the beginning, an action to reveal a card, and an end phase to trigger end of turn effects

VILLAIN:  Villain character cards have various abilities, and generally have two sides, which flip when certain conditions are met, and have varying abilities depending on the side shown.  Each turn, players reveals the top card of the deck, and any others according to the card chosen.



HEROES:  Once the Hero turn starts, a player is chosen to go first.  A typical turn starts by playing one card from their hand.  One Shots will apply once and be discarded, while Equipment and Ongoing stay in front of the player.  Cards with Limited mean you can only have one of that kind of card out.  Then the player may activate a Power on either the Hero character card or a card in front of them.  The turn is ended by drawing a card.  Players may get to draw or play more cards if they have a card which allows them to.  Alternatively, if a player feels they cannot make an effective turn, they may skip their turn to draw 2 cards.

WINNING:  All Hero and Villain character cards, as well as some Environment and Villain cards have Life totals either in the top left below the Sentinels logo, or the top right.  If a Heroes ever drops to 0, They flip their card, and can now only choose 1 of the 3 actions on that card during their turn.  If all Heroes drop to 0, the Heroes lose.  If the Villain drops to 0, the Heroes win.

CONCLUSION:  Sentinels is designed to be a difficult game, but it isn't nearly as hard as most co-operative games can be.  The world built in here is obviously crafted with care and love, and with more forethought than I can give some comic books.  Mechanically, it seems like a fairly simple game, but there's a lot of complexity going on.  It can be a bit frustrating to remember and deal with some of the Villains, as they play a lot of cards and effects that are all over the place, but if you can get around that, then Sentinels of the Multiverse has a good amount of replayability, especially with the various expansions of new Villains and Heroes to play.