Tanto Cuore

Theme:If you're not an anime fan in general, it is a safe bet you won't get past the theme.If you play games purely for the thematic experience, you probably won't like this game.As an avid anime fan, this is still a somewhat weird theme for me, but let me try to reassure some of you readers, there's nothing here that could be considered hentai. Medium to strong fan service, but about average to the typical Shonen/Shojo anime. There's more objectionable stuff on TV then on these cards.Gameplay:I've never played Dominion, but if you look at all the other reviews, this is basically a Dominion-clone with more player interaction.Setup is relatively quick when you get the hang of it.The object of the game is to have the most Victory points at the end of the game. To do that, you need to buy cards that give you VP. These cards tend to be more expensive and high VP cards are generally unattainable in the early game. So you'll need to buy currency or cards with special abilities that will extend your actions, increase your draw amount, increase the amount of money you have, or some mixture of them. As you build your deck, you will be able to chain cards together, and will strengthen your buying power. As the game goes on, some cards will become more useful than others. A lot of the strategy is making sure your deck has a good balance and you aren't getting stuck with too many useless cards in your draw.There are unique maids that never enter your hand. They all have certain abilities that range from getting an extra action or draw at the beginning of your turn or sending them to another player to hamper their turns or to reduce their VP. In order to stop another player's special maids, the player can send them an illness event. This stops the maids special power as well as effectively nullifying a maid. Since some extra VP is made from certain maid combos, this can impact a player's scoring ability. Player's can also send another event card that straight up reduces VP called Bad Habits. There are ways to remove or prevent events as well so that will play into the game dynamics.As far as component quality, they're pretty nice cards. The art is great, colorful, and vibrant. The text on the cards however, are small. Each card is also listed in the manual with pretty good explanations so it helps with the small text issue. Now for the manual itself. It isn't the clearest. And I've had to look up certain rules on the forums.The box isn't anything special, but it comes with dividers that separate each card type. When sleeved, the entire deck fills out the box nicely without the extra piece of cardboard.Pros: Great art,great game mechanics,good amount of strategy,good amount of confrontation/interaction between players,anime theme,simple gameplayCons:maid theme and the connotations of the overall theme,may take a little while to learn because of the ridiculous themed jargon,can become multiplayer solitaire if players aren't utilizing the event cards.Conclusion:This is really a great game. I know it is tough to put the money down on what its going for here, but it can be found other places for cheaper. The theme is weird, and as you can tell from my review, I've completely ignored the game's themed wording. If you're sick of the same old medieval or space themes and watch anime, it is worth a look. If you are really into deckbuilders and want some unique theme, also worth a look.I've bought the other expansions from somewhere else and I would say they change and improve gameplay. They add buildings, more unique maids, more general maids, and vp cards. It helps diversify the strategies and the buildings provide a defense against the events.Between this and the first expansion, there may be 2-3 maids that may be bit echi. The second expansion is that fan service beach/hot spring episode.

I'm a Dominion fanatic, but I'm also just a girl who really likes anime maids--my primary moe weakness. The card illustrations are lovely with lots of personality, and all but one of them are perfectly tasteful (I'm looking at you, unnecessary-panty-shot Milly Violet). The cards themselves are nice, heavier stock, although the box storage is rather simple, like a card catalog. The gameplay works a lot like Dominion, but only original Dominion-- most of the cards aren't particularly strong or complicated.For the Dominion players: There are some elements that make Tanto Cuore very different from Dominion-- in a good way, in that they separates the two games and add a new kind of fun. For one, the scale is different and cards are slightly more expensive, which might be a little unsettling for veteran Dominion players. In terms of actual play, there's the introduction of Private Maids (which are something like a Seaside-Black Market deck in Dominion: there's only one card of each type and it generally activates at the beginning of every turn) and Chambermaids/Private Quarters (something like an Island or Native Village mat to get those Estates out of your deck!) which add an element of dynamism. This, coupled with some weird victory point maids that have special point scaling effects, makes it something of a different game from Dominion, and I think it adds some interesting new dynamism.A couple things aren't that great. I did mention the card effects are pretty simple, so there's not much room for amazing, creative combos. The set advertises 16 kingdom cards, already less than Dominion, but the three Crescent sister maids are kind of the same thing, so it's really even fewer. The game instructions are rather poorly translated, and there's lettering in Comic Sans (ew!).All in all, if you've played Dominion to death and want something to tide you over between expansions, Tanto Cuore is great! If you haven't played Dominion before, this might be a little complicated. And if you love maids, that's only a bonus~

No need to buy any other set to improve your experience: hours of fun for you and your friends with the cutest maids ever. Not that buying the expansions is a bad call if you want.

I love that you can vary the strategy wildly by mixing up the town (available cards to choose to build your deck) each game. Part of the fun is letting other people pick the town and then analyzing to try to figure out what implications that has on the best strategy for this particular setup. Things I dislike are the individual targeting. Generally, I prefer effects that affect either yourself or everybody but you. I wish there were more mechanics to get rid of illnesses and bad habits without claire is the only viable counter and is OP.Some recommended variations (some solve the same problem, so I don't know if I'd implement all of them at once):- 3 private maids face up at a time (it's very easy to get stuck at 2 and 1 person just has a big advantage all game)- during your starting phase, discard a 3 love from your hand to remove a private maid from the town (and consequently, the game)- vary the depth of the maid piles by the number of players (reduce by 1/4 for 2-player game)Personally, I love it! It's a lot of fun, and LOADS better than Tentacle Bento. The production quality is excellent and so is the art.Make good investments, and surely you will become the ultimate master.

A fun and interesting game with plenty of cute character designs. Initially a bit difficult to pick up how the Gane flows and works, however once you know all the rules it is a very fun game to play with friends.

Ordered the original pictured and received the wrong version.

Easy to get people into. Simple flow of gameplay. Fun game

Have you played dominion? If not I would probably recommend that first.Tanto Cuore is like dominion with an extra 'banking' ability and cards that interact with players directly, creating a more head to head version of dominion..... with maids!This obviously has an intended audience, putting people off that aren't into anime styled art work, but is a good dominion-like game

Returning, Description of the product is in English, The pictures are of the english version of the game but the game received was a spanish copy... one line saying the game is in spannish when all your marketing is in English is frankly deliberately missleading.