Kombo Klash! Review

You will be forgiven if by looking at Kombo Klash’s box art showing various animals assuming fighting stances, you initially think it is a fighting game. If this is what you were looking for, you may be disappointed. However, while there may not be any actual clashing in this tableau tile laying game, there will be plenty of combos to compensate. 

In many games stringing several actions together to create a powerful combo is one of the most satisfying moves. It turns out, this feeling never gets old, even when combos are all you do. In Kombo Klash, players are playing tiles from their hands and placing them on the tableau to create groups of the same animals to score points. Each animal has a different point value and a unique ability. There is no limit to how many cards you can play, so players can use any combination of powers at their disposal to perform the most spectacularly point giving combo they can think of.  

Yet while cards in your hand offer many combinations, the action on the board remains disappointingly static as there are very few ways to manipulate the arrangement of tiles. There are some mechanics that seem to encourage it, like vulture’s power the tiles to flip tiles over, which adds a fun little memory element to the game, however it feels very underutilized. Because most of the game focuses on tile powers in hand and not on how one can manipulate the layout on the board to score combos, there is little player interaction. Especially in larger player count games, there is no need to pay attention to actions of others because the board is likely to be wiped clean and ‘re-tiled’ several times over before the turn gets back to you.

Even so scoring a hefty amount of victory points in one go feels immensely satisfying, even if Kombo Klash lacks a perfect stance to become truly special. 

ALEXANDRA SONECHKINA

PLAY IT? MAYBE

Designer: “Nero” Ondrej Sova

Publisher: Hub Games

Time: 15- 30 minutes

Players: 2-4

Ages: 8+

Price: £15

This article originally appeared in issue 55 of Tabletop Gaming. Pick up the latest issue of the UK's fastest-growing gaming magazine in print or digital here or subscribe to make sure you never miss another issue.

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