Tanto Cuore is a physical, as well as, digital card game that features cute female maids drawn in anime style. It is published by japanimegames.com who also brings us Kanzume Goddess which I may review in future articles. You can find the digital version of Tanto Cuore in the app store here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tanto-cuore/id635555487?mt=8
Tanto Cuore is best described as a deck building game and is designed for 2 to 4 players. Each player starts with the same cards available to them, and then takes turn “purchasing” cards from a pool of available items.
Tanto Cuore contains everything you need to play all in one box! And additional expansion boxes are available to add new cards or new gameplay features to your deck.
Each card falls into one of the following categories:
- Maid Chiefs – these are very special and powerful maid cards with enhanced abilities, the starter box set comes with 6 of these
- General Maids – these cards get discarded after play and may allow for special actions such as drawing another card, etc.
- Personal Maids – these get stored in your “chambers” and counted towards your score at the end of the game
- Illnesses – you can play these on your opponent and nullify the effects/bonuses of their maids
- Bad Habits – you can play these also on your opponent and at the end if a maid has a bad habit her value is reduced when calculating the final score
- Love – it’s the energy system used, you need this to play cards from your hand, or purchase cards from the community pool
Turns consist of drawing a card from your draw pile, playing any cards from your hand, which typically begins with placing love cards for energy, and then playing maid cards for their abilities, or if you don’t have a maid to play in your hand currently, you can use love to draw a new maid from the “Town” (community draw pile). Some cards give you bonuses for collecting multiple maids (same card multiple times), which sort of adds to the otaku nature of this game, since players may choose to collect all of a certain character, etc as part of their strategy.
At the end of the game, a winner is determined by whoever has the most maids in his chamber serving him at the end, especially those maids who have not developed a bad habit or illness.
It’s a very cute game with excellent anime art work. They also sell cute accessories like playmats, card sleeves, and buttons with the same style of artwork. Some women or parents may be offended by the amount of fanservice but for me, personally it does not bother me. Maid and Host culture is part of Japan and anime, etc. There’s nothing inappropriate in this game. All characters are PG, or G even. I would recommend this game for kids ages 8 and up, or adults who love anime!
The physical edition of the game is currently out of print. HOWEVER, they recently got additional funding on kickstarter and are translating the Oktoberfest edition of the card game right now. You can find more information and follow them to know when the game will be available at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tanto-Cuore
They also indicate that this Oktoberfest edition is available for preorder from Card Haus at http://www.cardhaus.com/catalog/board_games/tanto_cuore_oktoberfest/301933
“Tanto Cuore 4: Oktoberfest Edition will be a stand-alone expansion to Tanto Cuore. Able to be played alone or with the previous three sets, it will feature all new artwork, gameplay and a full set of delightful maids for you to love!”
A special announcement: IF ORDERING TANTO CUORE FROM AMAZON… PLEASE BE CAREFUL!!!!!!!! MANY PEOPLE ARE GIVING THE GAME A BAD REVIEW AND SAYING THE GAME IS NOT IN ENGLISH BECAUSE THEY ARE SHIPPING THE JAPANESE VERSION. BUYER BEWARE FROM AMAZON. CHECK THE COMMENTS. The Game HAS been translated to English and so I’m not sure why amazon is continuing to sell the Japanese version, except for the fact that the English version is out of print (at time of this review).