Star Wars Monopoly - Saga Edition
Written: Sep 01 '05
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Pros: Star Wars twist on a traditional game.
Cons: None.
The Bottom Line: Any Star Wars fan would love adding that theme to Monopoly.
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| Staceys1's Full Review: Star Wars Monopoly Saga Edition |
In keeping with the current theme in my home, we recently had a Star Wars themed birthday party for my son, complete with a Darth Vader cake, Yoda green punch and balloons in colors correlating to the Light and Dark Side of the Force. One of the gifts he received was this Star Wars Monopoly Saga Edition.
The rules for this game are basically the same as that of the original Monopoly game, in that you may purchase properties as you land on them, collect rents when others land on your properties, and may improve those properties by building on them and therefore collect higher rents. The winner is the last one left in the game, after the other players have lost all of their money and properties.
Instead of houses and hotels, here, you purchase settlements and eventually cities. Instead of Railroads for transportation spaces, here there are four Capital Ships: the Corellian Corvette, the Imperial Star Destroyer, the Republic Assault Ship and the Super Star Destroyer. Rather than streets and avenues, the game board is made primarily of galactic properties, though their colors and values are the same as those in the original game.
The four corner spots remain Go, Jail, Free Parking and Go To Jail, with basically the same pictures an information as the original Monopoly game, which apparently is the case with most, if not all, of the various versions of this game. It just looks odd to me to see the old fashioned picture of a man in jail sandwiched between the properties of Bepin and Hoth.
The box that this game comes in is rectangular in shape, but not quite the correct size for the board to fit into when folded in half, so the board has a cut in it allowing you to fold it into quarters for storage. The other contents are:
Money (with Star Wars Characters and Republic Credit denominations)
Galactic Title Deed Cards
16 Sith cards
16 Jedi cards
12 Cities
32 Settlements
Dice (one blue, one red)
8 Star Wars character tokens
In the original version of Monopoly, when a person rolls doubles, he or she gets to take another turn. Here, you have a choice to either go again, or, depending on which set of doubles you rolled, do the following:
Double One's - move your token to any space.
Double Two's - get 200 Republic Credits from the Bank.
Double Three's - get 50 Republic Credits from each player.
Double Four's - draw a Jedi card.
Double Five's - draw a Sith card
Double Six's - Attack! The player who follows the Dark side rolls red and the player who follows the Light side rolls blue. The person rolling double six’s chooses one of another player's property cards (though if all properties in a group are owned, you cannot Attack for any of them) and the player who rolls the higher number wins or keeps the card.
Double six's is the only reason for the two different colored dice. Of course, if both players are on the Light or both are on the Dark Side, then one would have to take the other color die anyway, and as a non-Star Wars person, I do not really see the point, but my son assures me it is much better to be able to roll your appropriate colored die. This doubles option is the only rule change that I can see from the original Monopoly rules, and it does not require knowledge of Star Wars to use this option, just knowledge of where the instruction booklet is.
Up to eight people can play Star Wars Monopoly Saga Edition and you can choose one of the pewter-colored figures to move around the board. The choices are: Princess Leia, Yoda, Luke Skywalker, Darth Maul, General Grievous, the Emperor, Darth Vader, and Obi-Wan Kenobi. The back of the box shows each token along with the number of the movie the figure is taken from. Since each one is attached to an oval base, they stand by themselves and they do not fall over easily. Each piece has a different colored thin band around its base, so if you are like me and do not know one character from another, you can just remember which person is which color, and then your children will not tease you relentlessly throughout the game!
American dollars are not used in this game. Instead the currency is Republic Credits with different Star Wars characters featured on them, though they are all from the Dark Side. The denominations are still 1, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100 and 500 and you start the game with 1500 of them. The cost of purchasing the properties and the amounts listed on the different spaces and cards are basically the same as in the original version, though podracers and Sith Lords replace trains and landlords. Most of the Sith and Jedi cards, which replace the Chance and Community Chest cards) have Star Wars related sayings on them, though the basic "Get out of Jail Free" cards are there as well.
I am not very well versed in the world of Star Wars, and I am not even sure which characters are on the Light Side and which are on the Dark Side, so for me, this version did not bring me any greater excitement than a standard Monopoly game. As I landed on galactic properties, I would do my best to pronounce them, while my husband and son, would refer to them as the planet with two suns, or the planet where a certain light saber battle was fought. A Star Wars fan would definitely have a higher appreciation of this particular edition, but knowledge of the movies is not a requirement as the rules follow the standard Monopoly rules closely.
My children are now almost eight and six and a half, and this was our first time playing regular monopoly with them. We have played the children's Toy Story Monopoly version in the past, but have not played it in quite some time since that game was over quite quickly. Even though they liked the Toy Story characters, my children were beginning to feel as if that game was too young for them. They did enjoy playing the Star Wars Monopoly Saga Edition with standard Monopoly rules, but were quite surprised that the game took almost two and a half hours to complete.
With so many different versions of Monopoly available, many households have more than one and this Star Wars Monopoly Saga Edition is perfect for a Star Wars fan. Those not interested in Star Wars would mostly likely not appreciate it as much, but no knowledge of the movies is required, so that anybody can easily play. This was one of my son's favorite birthday gifts this year.
Other Star Wars items my family enjoys:
Wookiee Blaster Super Soaker Water Gun
Darth Vader Voice Changer Mask
Star Wars Mpire: M-Trooper and M-Vader
Star Wars Mpire: M-Grievous & M-Obi Wan
Star Wars Mpire: M-Peror and M-Anakin
Star Wars Mpire: M-Bacca & Mace
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): gift
Type of Toy: Board Game
Age Range of Child: Whole Family
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