Monopoly: Star Wars Heroes vs Villains review – Monopoly like never before… for better or worse

I’ve got good news: Monopoly: Star Wars Heroes vs Villains isn’t your typical game of Monopoly. But I’ve also got bad news: Monopoly: Star Wars Heroes vs Villains isn’t your typical game of Monopoly. The changes brought to this unique take on the classic board game at least make it something different, but those changes aren’t necessarily always for the best.

As its title suggests, this take on Monopoly is all about Heroes vs Villains. As such, is can only be played in a 2v2 or 3v3 format. If you were hoping to play a straight game with one or two of your friends, you’re out of luck – it can only be done by having AI players fill in the gaps (or by you and your friends taking control of multiple characters each).

The standard rules of Monopoly have also gone out of the window here. Sure, you’ll move around the board and buy up properties as you land on them, and you’ll pay rent to your opponent if you land on something they own. But you can also take over properties already owned, and your wealth is not the be-all and end-all here. You can (and probably will) get into a negative bank balance, and it doesn’t mean it’s game over. Instead, the amount of influence you have is what determines victory.

You’ll get influence by buying up properties, but the majority of influence comes from completing GO Events. Each time you pass GO, you and your teammates will play a minigame which provides an opportunity to gain a stack of influence points. The games are all dice-based, and simply task you with rolling a certain number, or a number between a particular range. When the opposing team passes GO, they’ll also play an event, and once a certain number of events have been completed, it’s game over.

You can choose the number of GO Events you want to complete, with the max being eight. That’ll take around an hour to complete, which is both a blessing and a curse. It means that you don’t have to worry about those never-ending games of Monopoly you’ve undoubtedly experienced as a kid. But it also means that winning or losing feels completely down to luck. A GO Event can completely change the course of the game based on a simple roll of the dice, and the actions of moving around the board have little consequence.

It’s a shame, because it means the entire game boils down to some very basic dice-based minigames. I’d have loved to see the GO Events a little more hands-on, perhaps requiring an element of skill as you compete in an actual game: why not shoot some TIE Fighters out of the sky, or take control of a Stormtrooper as you hunt down a rogue Allied drone?

But it is what it is, and despite Monopoly: Star Wars Heroes vs Villains materially changing the core experience of a game of Monopoly, it clearly didn’t want to move too far away from the dice-based tabletop game we know and love. That’s understandable, but given that, it feels like an oversight that you can’t simply play a straightforward classic game. There’s only one game mode here, which I feel has much less longevity than classic Monopoly would have.

Where Monopoly: Star Wars Heroes vs Villains shines, though, is in its presentation. Rather than simply moving counters around the board, you take control of a fully-animated character who’ll walk and run around the board. Landing on a space will also see the middle of the board come to life with a full diorama of whatever location you’re visiting, be it Tatooine, Endor or Hoth. Better yet, starting a game sees you approach the game board in a Cantina, which adds a nice sense of immersion.

It’s a shame, though, that the voice clips in the game don’t help hold that immersion. Unsurprisingly there are no official voice actors here, and the imitations are poor at best. Some characters sound much worse than others, but at least some will make you chuckle in how bad they are!

Monopoly: Star Wars Heroes vs Villains isn’t going to replace a traditional game of Monopoly, at least not for most fans of the game. What you’ve got instead is a simplified, showy version of the game, making it more accessible and fast-paced. Bring it out when you’ve got friends round, in the same way you might Mario Party or its ilk. But I can’t imagine many people will want to load it up more than a few times before they’ve had their fill.