Marvel Tsum Tsums: Stack Your Way To World Domination
This holiday season one of the things The Marvel Report has been playing is Marvel Tsum Tsums. A variation on the popular Tsum Tsum Disney game, Marvel’s devised a way to utilize their stock of characters, combine the fun of collecting and the fun of playing a phone game. You can literally stack your way to world domination with Marvel Tsum Tsum, playing as both heroes and villains, completing quests, and more. It’s the craze that’s sweeping The Marvel Report and worth a look if you’re in the market for fun and exciting apps.
What is Tsum Tsum?
The word tsum tsum comes from the word tsumu, which means “stack”. Released in 2013 as an accompanying line of toys to promote the phone game and arcade game designed by Konami and the line corporation, Tsum Tsum first appeared in the United States in July 2014. They appeared soon after in Paris in 2015. Toy wise they come in 3 different sizes:
mini (3.5 inches long)
medium (11 inches)
large. (17 inches)
In June of 2014, a new “mega” size (21.5 inches) was released to the Japanese market. In October a subscription size called “micro” that’s listed as 2 inches. The toys have been sweeping the company including vine promos trying to make them go viral and a very addictive series of video games. Including things like a star wars set released inside of a taun taun (That’s hilarious) Marvel has 3 different sets of toys (Spider-man, Avengers, and Women of Power). They’ve also released a completely different Marvel version of the popular Tsum Tsum game.
How Do You Play?
Simply put, you match up a line of matching tsums and do it in 60 seconds.
The lines can vary in size but the bigger lines give you more points. 8 gets you a bomb – those knock out a bigger collection of tsums in a circle around the bomb. There are different sorts of bombs, 10-15 gets you a bomb with a clock that adds more time and 18+ adds a coin bomb. You use coins to buy upgrades to your tsums and you can use orbs – that you either get from buying or by completing quests to upgrade or by new tsums.
Orbs are the main currency of the game. You can get coins, tsums, and buy extensions to each level + quest with them. They’re available for purchase but you can win them by competing quests and making friends. That’s right, tsum tsum rewards you for making friends and influencing people, but it’s nothing compared to battle mode – which is just plain awesome.
Battle Mode:
Battle mode is the best part of the game, you can win orbs, gems to upgrade things and free villain tsums. That’s right, Marvel not only lets you play as various characters but it lets you play as their rogues gallery. While Avengers Academy does the same – some people might not feel comfortable collecting Crossbones or other characters to their arsenal. Battle mode on tsum tsum gives you an opportunity to collect your favorite bad guys and pass on the ones you might not like – or collect all of them if you’re as obsessed as we’ve become.
The most recent addition to battle mode is Kilgrave – aka the purple man. He looks a lot like the traditional comics version (they all do. That’s one downside) but given who Kilgrave was having him run around looking ridiculously purple is part of the fun. His attack involves using various defenders tsums (defenders only.) and “manipulating” them. Elektra, Luke, Jessica, and Iron Fist all make appearances as Kilgrave (whose power is mind control) uses them to knock out large groups of tsums.
You set up battles against the villains to knock out tsums and detonate bombs which causes their life meter to fall to zero. If you beat a villain in certain levels you win a duplicate villain tsum to add to your arsenal. Popular villains include Loki, The Winter Soldier, even Cottonmouth Stokes complete with hat. All of these villains are available to win and add to teams with their heroes or on villain teams themselves!
Why’s it so great?
Simply put? It’s a game that combines collecting and nostalgia. When Marvel games did the peggy event earlier this year they added Peggy Carter so you could complete your tsum collection with a tiny Peggy (and her special attack is turning all of the middle tsums into tiny steves!) And with their first Heroes for Hire event you can even win a limited edition Nick Fury tsum. He’s pretty nifty (And summons a hellicarrier to take out tsums in the group)
If you’re looking for a fun game to play, The Marvel Report can’t recommend Marvel Tsum Tsums enough. While the art isn’t as cool as David Nakayama’s Avengers Academy (seriously Marvel deserves it’s own comic?) It is adorable, cute, and again combines that thrill of collecting. With Iron Fist as the latest addition (no word yet on his villains) it’s sure to be a real fun game to add to your phone.
Like Marvel Tsum Tsums? Tell us about it and share your favorite team in the comments below. In the meantime, happy Marvel Gaming!