Fans who saw Avengers: Endgame know that Captain Marvel showed off just how powerful she is in the 10-years-in-the-making epic, though we could’ve used more of her before the credits rolled. The good news is that USAopoly has the perfect solution in Captain Marvel: Secret Skrulls, which allows you and up to seven friends to battle it out and try to either root out and defeat the Skrulls or take down Captain Marvel and her allies, and we’re here to break the game down and let you know whether you should give it a try.
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Captain Marvel: Secret Skrulls is a card-based game that has four to seven players hiding their true identities and working towards one of two goals. One player plays Captain Marvel (as either Vers or Cap) and everyone else pulls identity cards of various allies and enemies. Thing is you also have an Alliance card that reveals whether you are a Skull, a Skrull Defector, or an Ally, and that card is what will dictate your behavior and your next moves.
If you’re a Skrull, your goal is to take down Captain Marvel, and if you’re a Cap or one of her allies your goal is to discover who’s a Skull and take them down. There’s also a Defector in the group, who acts as sort of a wild card that can hurt or help both sides.
Taking down an opponent is pretty straightforward, as you try and knock down their health with Attack cards or other cards that have an Attack effect. They can Evade those attacks with either Evade cards or other special cards or abilities, and who you can hit is dictated by your weapon, which you get over time as you draw more cards.
The game requires a minimum of four players, but to get the most out of the mechanics, you’re going to want to grab as many up to that seven number as you can. The game with four players is entertaining on its own, but isn’t all that deep, though with more people you definitely get more out the core mechanics and the various abilities the cards have to offer.
The biggest issue we discovered in our four player game was the lack of intrigue in the hidden identity aspect of the game. After a few turns though there isn’t much doubt about who’s a Skull and who’s not, making one of the bigger elements pretty much moot. That’s why if at all possible you want to at least get five if not seven players, and trust me, you’ll quickly notice a difference.
Things like range don’t have much of an effect when you can just about hit everyone aside from one person at the table, as happened to us during our four-player playthrough, but once you increase that you really have to start thinking about how to hit people further away, giving more importance to weapon cards as well as cards like the Quadjet and the Hellion. Without the extra bodies, those are but in the rarest of occasions pointless.
The player count also has an effect on who you target. The more people involved the more others are fighting each other and not just targeting Captain Marvel, giving the Defector more of an opportunity to hide in plain sight and operate. That lets the wild card actually create doubt, and possibly scheme toward winning in the end, a wrinkle that livens up the rather straightforward gameplay just enough, so if you can manage it try and make it happen.
Adding more players in won’t really slow the game down much either, and it makes Secret Skrulls perfect for a large tabletop gathering or a party setting. The rules are easy to pick up and setup is painless, and Captain Marvel fans will get a kick out of seeing their favorites from the movie represented in the game.
Captain Marvel: Secret Skrulls is a fun but not quite fulfilling experience with the minimum amount of players, but with a full roster it becomes a fast-paced combat game with a hint of secret identity thrown in, and this is definitely the way it was meant to be played.
Rating: 4 out of 5 (6 Players)
Published by USAopoly
Art by Rick Hutchinson
