Rhino Hero: Super Battle is the sequel to a previously reviewed tabletop game: Rhino Hero. This 2 to 4 player game has you building walls, stacking floors on top, and hoping that your specific hero will be at the top of the tower when the game ends. Unlike the previous game, where you simply raise the rhino hero while trying to keep the tower steady,, in this game being on top really is the goal.
Rhino Hero: Super Battle begins with the dealing out of the four heros: Rhino Hero, Giraffe Boy, Big E. and Batguin, one to each player. Once the players have their heroes, they will then be dealt three floor cards — long rectangular cards — face down. Three more cards will be placed face up on the screen as an inventory that you can grab from on your turn. The rest are placed face down in a pile.
Across the table, you can place the three bottom cardboard bases. These bases contain yellow dots which show where you can place the starting walls. Whoever goes first will play a floor card and obtain the types of walls displayed on the floor card, from the stack of wall cards. There are two types of walls; tall walls and short walls. Tall walls are the height of two short walls on top of each other. These cards are folded down the middle, so they are stood up, allowing you to put your floor card across them — as long as it’s flat instead of at an angle.
Once they have made their decision, they must place the wall cards they have collected among the tower everyone is building. These walls don’t need to necessarily have a floor placed on them instantly, however, your floor card must be placed in a way that it is balanced on two walls instead of using the middle of other floors for support.
Once your floor tile is placed, you can then place any spider monkeys that were displayed on your floor tile. These monkeys can either hang from their arm or tail on the floor tile you have just placed. If all four of the spider monkeys are currently hanging from the building, you must retrieve the lowest one to the bottom floor and move it. It’s okay if the monkey falls, as you can pick it up and keep trying until it’s hanging from the floor.
Now that your tower has been built, you can roll a dice to see if your hero is going to move up. The dice does have a zero and a negative one on it, so you can end up moving down a floor or not moving at all. If you are lucky enough to move up, you might face other heroes on the same level as you. It turns out that not all heroes are happy with each other — so if you are on the same level, you will end up battling each other by rolling a dice. Whoever has the highest number stays on the level, while the other hero goes down. If there is a hero already on the level they have moved down too, they must continue the dice rolling battle until on their own level.
The hero at the highest level gets a medal placed in front of them. This medal shows they are top hero! Once your hero is in place, you can either grab a card from the inventory or grab a face down card from the tower. The game continues until there are no more floor tiles left or until the tower gets knocked down. Whoever’s hero is at the top, at either end game, is the winner of the game.
Rhino Hero: Super Battle is a fun game for all ages. Our tabletop group got Super Battle because we had so much fun with the original Rhino Hero. It’s worth stating that these two games can be combined, allowing you a 5th player and a lot more floor and wall cards. We did not combine the two, and just played Rhino Hero: Super Battle on it’s own.
There is something about planning out the use of high and low walls — finding the best places for your floors, and if you are playing with strategic players — blocking in other heroes using the construction of your walls and floor cards. The game reminds us of Jenga, but with more purpose. There are a lot of great moments of holding your breath while you place pieces and watching anxiously while your friends nearly knock the tower over.
Rhino Hero: Super Battle is like a more expansive, even more fun version of Rhino Hero — an already wonderful game.
You can purchase your own copy of Rhino Hero or Rhino Hero: Super Battle on Amazon.
