The maids and butlers are finally back! Tanto Cuore’s sixth standalone expansion, Memento Mori – Twilight Manor, fills the house with ghosts and spirits as players try to restore the old manor. This new expansion introduces ghosts, spirits, tarot cards, and an emphasis on restoring the manor’s rooms. Let’s see how it is!
A Brief How To Play
In Tanto Cuore: Memento Mori, players become the new owners of a haunted mansion, employing maids and butlers to fill out their deck (their home). The goal of the game is to restore rooms in the mansion by playing specific worker cards during your turn, which will earn you victory points (VP). Seance cards add a new dimension to the game by requiring players to place characters from their hands next to the tarot deck. The player with the highest-cost character (or the closest) will trigger the effect of the revealed tarot card, which can have powerful consequences. Each tarot card has a haunting number that determines how many spirit tokens are released or removed from rooms, affecting the state of the mansion. The game ends when either all the rooms are restored or two stacks of character cards have been employed. The player with the most VP at the end of the game wins.
The flow of the game remains similar to previous Tanto Cuore iterations. After resolving any starting effects, players play characters from their hands at the cost of servings. The first serving is free, meaning players will always play at least one maid, with the option to play more maids if they have cards that grant five servings. In the employ phase, players can restore rooms and hire new staff to expand their decks. Finally, the dismiss phase has players clean up by discarding used cards and drawing five new ones.
Pacing and Interaction
The pacing in Memento Mori maintains the flow of the original Tanto Cuore but with more interaction due to the seances and tarot cards. Tanto Cuore has always felt like a race, but this edition feels much more like a complete game, similar to how Oktoberfest and Winter Romance did. The victory point rush is still there, but the new additions make everything much more interactive. Players need to focus on their decks while being mindful of the rooms, spirits, and when other players pull them into seances that can have negative consequences. The game still moves quickly, but the added decisions make it more engaging and strategic. For faster games, it’s recommended to play with 2 or 3 players, but the game is still a good time with 4.
Most of the interactions in Memento Mori are negative interactions, which may deter some players, but there are certainly more cutthroat games out there. It’s usually a bunch of inconveniences that may annoy the afflicted player, but it’s never overwhelming or game-breaking.
Replayability
While the core gameplay remains similar to the original, Memento Mori adds enough new mechanics to keep things fresh. The randomness of the tarot deck and the active rooms in the manor give the game the feeling that no two plays are the same. There are also more maids and butlers than there are spots on the table, so there will be a different combination of characters in every playthrough. This new expansion adds more depth but also more unpredictability, which may be off-putting to some players who prefer more consistent strategies.
Of course, this is an expansion, and players are free to combine mechanisms or characters from this set with any other previous Tanto Cuore expansion – or even all of them. Do you want to take a vacation to a haunted house? Throw in the vacation cards and bikini maids and have a wonderful time! Wanna get drunk in the manor? Oktoberfest is right there. There are tons of combinations, and some are more fun than others, but it gives the game the feeling that there are endless combinations and replay value.
Theme and Components
Memento Mori leans heavily into its haunting theme without straying from the game’s identity. The tarot cards are a nice thematic touch, and the new spirit and evil tokens enhance the eerie atmosphere of the game. Cleaning the mansion ties the theme even more closely with the gameplay than the original Tanto Cuore did. Suddenly, it is not just a deck-builder about collecting maids, but it feels like there is more of an objective that makes sense for the theme.
The card art quality varies depending on the artists, as there are multiple styles and aesthetics. Despite the horror theme, most of the cards are still just attractive maids and butlers with a spooky coat of paint. If someone doesn’t like anime art, they will want to play another deck builder. This one has tons of fanservice with anime characters of questionable age, so it depends on how much of that anime style the player can tolerate. Our table acknowledges the questionable art at times, but we can still have a good time, so most players will feel the same because it’s just an enjoyable deck-builder.
Tanto Cuore: Memento Mori Is Great For Fans Of…
Memento Mori is excellent for players who enjoy deck-building games. Do you love Dominion but wish it had more waifus and husbandos? This is the game for you. Fans of the original Tanto Cuore will find much to love in this expansion, as it builds on the core mechanics while introducing new themes, tokens, and even ghosts to shake things up.
Memento Mori - Twilight Manor
Tanto Cuore: Memento Mori adds exciting supernatural mechanics to the beloved deck-building game, making it more interactive and unpredictable.
The Good
- Highly customizable
- The new mechanics makes the game fresh for longtime players
The Not So Good
- The theme might turn away some players
- Some of the art just isn't as good as others
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Pacing and Interaction
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Theme and Components
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Replay Value
