Thread: Re: Review - Bandai's Mothra vs Godzilla Wargame (1982)

mechascorpio — 2007-11-17T19:22:45+00:00

THANK YOU! I was actually already following your thread and had pulled out some titles to review. Didn't expect you to find this one! Tip is much appreciated!

Thread: Re: Review - Bandai's Mothra vs Godzilla Wargame (1982)

mistermarino — 2007-11-06T06:27:09+00:00

Hi there--you're a winner of a Cordwainer Bird Award and a 5 GG tip for providing this review of an OOP science fiction game.

For more information about the Cordwainer Bird Award, please see my GeekList. You can help whittle the list of OOP science fiction, fantasy and horror games without reviews.

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mechascorpio — 2007-10-29T00:57:36+00:00

Rulebook including English translation available at BGG

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mechascorpio — 2007-10-29T00:56:47+00:00

Check boards for each of the monsters

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mechascorpio — 2007-10-29T00:56:02+00:00

"Island side" of gameboard

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mechascorpio — 2007-10-29T00:55:36+00:00

"City Side" of gameboard

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mechascorpio — 2007-10-29T00:55:02+00:00

Closeup of gameplay

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mechascorpio — 2007-10-29T00:54:43+00:00

Closeup of gameplay

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mechascorpio — 2007-10-29T00:54:06+00:00

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mechascorpio — 2007-10-29T00:53:23+00:00

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mechascorpio — 2007-10-29T00:52:48+00:00

Box cover art

Thread: Review - Bandai's Mothra vs Godzilla Wargame (1982)

mechascorpio — 2007-10-29T00:48:50+00:00

(this is part of a larger article I recently wrote for SciFi Japan)

A large-scale typhoon strikes the isolated Infant Island in the South Sea, and the giant egg of Mothra has fallen into the sea. The egg flows along a current to Japan, only to be found by a corrupt businessman who brings it to a large city and conceals its location.

At the same time, the monster Godzilla has perceived the existence of the egg, and by animal instinct has emerged from the bottom of the sea on the other side of the city, intent on destroying the egg. As Godzilla's appearance is reported, martial law is declared across the entire metropolitan area. Civilians seek shelter and the Defense Corps line up along the coastline.

Now, chasing the egg, two small priestesses from Infant Island have no choice but to appear, and desperately pray for the egg to hatch and Mothra to emerge to protect the citizens from the attack of Godzilla.

Can Mothra's egg and the city be saved from the invasion of Godzilla? -- from the Introduction of the rulebook

Mothra vs Godzilla is a easy-to-moderate complexity game for two players, though rules for solitaire play are detailed and scenarios with multiple monsters are included that allow more than two players. The game is divided into three sections:

- Part I: Mothra vs Godzilla - One player plays "The Mothra Side" (the defense forces, the civilians, the Shobijin (the little twin fairies) and the Mothra larvae). The other player is "The Godzilla Side", just Godzilla. Godzilla approaches the city from the sea in search of Mothra's hidden egg, with many opportunities for chaos and destruction along the way. The Mothra player uses the defense forces and hidden tactics to slow Godzilla long enough to allow the egg to hatch so that the Mothra larva(e) can face Godzilla.
- Part II: Solo Game - Provides rules for solitaire play of the Mothra vs Godzilla scenario. The player plays "The Mothra Side", with cards and die rolls governing the movement and behavior of Godzilla.
- Part III: Rules for additional scenarios - Provides rules for 4 scenarios on an island in which additional monsters face off against one another. Statistics for Mothra (adult), Rodan, King Ghidorah, Anguirus, Gigan and Mechagodzilla - as well as aliens controlling the monsters - are included.

Upon opening the bookcase-style box for Mothra vs Godzilla, the players will find the quality and number of the components to be very high, like any Avalon Hill game at the time. The mounted color gameboard map is two-sided, featuring a seaside metropolis on one side, and a small island on the other. Counters for the military, skyscrapers, Mothra’s egg and even the Shobijin (the little twin fairies) promise a game that closely matches the movie itself. Particularly fascinating are the 9 molded rubber game pieces representing the monsters: Godzilla, two Mothra larva, Mothra (adult), King Ghidorah, Gigan, Mechagodzilla, Rodan and Anguirus. Based on the year the game was published, these familiar precursors to SD style Godzilla toys would be re-released and repackaged by Bandai many times during the 80s and 90s, and their use in this game may have been the first time they appeared. Each monster has a coated "check board" that details their abilities (movement, attack rating, special powers) and a table to track their health status using the markers provided. The 23 page rulebook and numerous event cards (all in Japanese, but a translation is now available in the game's File section), a six-sided die and a pair of combat results tables wrap up the contents.

Each scenario in the rules spells out where the pieces are initially placed, and details special rules that apply to that particular scenario. For instance, in the Part I game, the Mothra player will choose a secret location for Mothra's egg. It will be the primary goal of the Godzilla player to find the hidden location, hopefully before the egg hatches one or possibly two of the Mothra larvae(determined by a die roll later in the game). In addition to setting up civilians to be evacuated and defense forces to confront Godzilla, the Mothra player will set up a hidden line of electrical towers along the coast. The Godzilla player may unknowingly stumble into the towers when leaving the sea early in the game, doing damage to his health rating. Little touches like these serve to make the game unique and truly reminiscient of the film upon which it is based. The typical Part I game time runs about 45 - 60 minutes.

Other than tracking the passage of turns and the health of the monsters, there is very little record keeping in the game. The turn sequence, however, is a little more complex due to the number of unit types, and is as follows:

1. Check the spread of fire from Godzilla's destruction
2. Civilian panic movement
3. Civilian regular movement
4. Shobijin movement
5. Defense Corps movement
6. Defense Corps attack
7. Godzilla movement and attack (guided by drawing a Godzilla card and carrying out the actions described)
8. Mothra hatching attempt (beginning on the 8th turn)
9. Mothra movement and attack (once the egg has hatched)

Combat itself is divided into the use of the monsters' special attack abilities (Godzilla's atomic breath ray, Mothra's thread, Ghidorah's lightning ray and so on) against each other, civilians or the defense forces; and the "hand-to-hand" grapple combat between adjacent monsters. In grapple combat, the defender selects a defense card to try to mitigate the attack, but should that fail their attack powers (with applicable modifiers) are compared, a die is rolled, and the resulting values are cross-referenced on the combat results table to determine the victor and any damage.

After a few turns, the process becomes familiar and moves along quite quickly. To help new players, a number of examples of play are provided in the rulebook which detail a few turns and include illustrations showing pieces and their movement through hexes. Finally, each of the scenarios includes the victory conditions that must be met by the players, usually within a certain number of turns, to determine the winner.

In conclusion, Mothra vs Godzilla is an effort that, based on the source material, strikes the right balance between simulation and a simpler "beer-and-pretzel" game. It’s a bit more complex than The Creature that Ate Sheboygan, but it’s certainly not The Amazing Colossal Advanced Squad Leader. Part I is the best of the scenarios and really captures the feeling of its namesake. The later scenarios and additional rules add a number of iconic monsters and the "Monster Island" setting, but lack the more creative elements of Part I and as a result come off more as dice-fests without much opportunity for strategy. They do, however, provide enough of a platform so that ambitious players could easily create their own scenarios and fulfill the designer's orginal goal, to "capture the essence of all the films in the Godzilla series, from GODZILLA to COUNTERATTACK OF MECHAGODZILLA."

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Gangrel — 2005-02-14T02:48:29+00:00

Game: Mothra vs. Godzilla

Thread: Re: Review - Bandai's Mothra vs Godzilla Wargame (1982)

Thread: Re: Review - Bandai's Mothra vs Godzilla Wargame (1982)

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Thread: Review - Bandai's Mothra vs Godzilla Wargame (1982)

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