IDWGames Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Showdown: Bebop & Rocksteady Board Game

came as described

I purchased this game on sale for $24.Background: I'm a huge TMNT fan and an avid board game player, so I really wanted to like this game.Gameplay: Kind of boring. My wife and I played together (2 players), I controlled the villains and she controlled the heroes. It wasn't bad, but it also wasn't very interesting. Rather than being fun, it felt like work. Maybe it would be more interesting with additional players.Each round, players place tiles, navigating over/around water and pipes, while attacking the opponent to push them back. The combat is quick dice-rolling skirmishes, with slight variety provided by the moves available on the character cards.The heroes fetch the allies and bring them back to the goal. Unfortunately, the allies are just glorified "MacGuffins" and have no abilities of their own, they're essentially generic objects that do not impact the gameplay, which feels like a missed opportunity,Artwork: The artwork on the standees and character cards is great, with a comic book vibe. But the artwork on the board and tiles is uninspired and bland. Better artwork would have made the game feel more engaging.Quality:The board is good qualityThe clear plastic standees are good qualityThe game tiles are terrible. They're very thin and flimsy, basically the same thickness as a business card. If these were thicker cardboard, it would have felt more premium.The character cards are fine.The cardboard tokens are fine.Pros:TMNT!Easy to learn.Cool artwork on the clear acrylic standees and character cards.Cons:Weak artwork on the board and game tiles.Thin/flimsy game tiles."Allies" do not have abilities of their own.Gameplay is kinda boring.Summary:Get it if you're a diehard TMNT fan or you enjoy simple skirmish games.

So far, I'm not too impressed with it. I've seen people describe this gameplay as "flat", and going through my first play-through I'd have to agree. The random element of flipping tiles to create a sewer system is pretty neat, but maybe spice it up a bit with special tiles that trigger events. I also noticed a few flaws with the game pieces as well. 17 out of the 42 sewer tiles are skewed, showing black lines cutting into the tile, which does not look visually appealing. Also the Bebop character card with the Chainsaw ability has a typo. It says "Place a chainsaw token, Pipe side face-up, on any pipe on your tile or any adjacent tile". The opposite side of the chainsaw token is a grate, so it should say "Place a chainsaw token, grate side face-up...". I contacted IDW Games as I didn't really expect to be paying for flawed tiles and cards with typos. I'd maybe upgrade to 3-stars if they end up replacing the flawed game pieces.**Update: IDW Games did get back to me and sent out replacement tiles, so good customer service on that front.**

It’s an ok game. TMNT Showdown looks great, the art is amazing but the game play is very flat. Not a lot to do here! I think that after TMNT Shadows of the Past this is a big letdown but I still think this will be a good game for kids. Production quality is average, the tiles a very thin and the rulebook is not that great.