Combining two games can always be dicey (pun intended), and it's even more of a stretch when, like in this case, you're taking an overtly competitive IP like Munchkin, and introducing it to a cooperative setting in Castle Panic. Not having played the original CP, it's hard to judge authoratively, but the TableTop episode was indicative to its elements, and first of all I'd say even without the added competitiveness, MP is a harder game to survive. However, survival is not the only way to win – maybe you're willing to let the castle fall down in flames, so long as you net the most monster points. In that case, you can definitely play quicker games in which you essentially compete to be the best loser. However, that isn't really my playstyle, and when my wife & I sat down to play our first game of MP, we actually decided to treat it as the good old fashioned co-op. What's great is that the game is versatile enough to allow you to do this, and it still remains challenging – especially when you get a swarm of creatures all advancing down the same arc. This is only ramped up further by those monsters which require a more powerful hit than normal to actually take them off the board – if they get too close, they will tear through the castle, since they can no longer take damage from the walls. It's at this point that a fully competitive game can be over very quickly, and even a fully cooperative play will face problems (unless you're lucky enough to draw one specific card). All in all, there are a lot of things to like about this different take on the original Castle Panic. The different monsters add more flavour than the original Goblins, Orcs, and Trolls, and the treasure system helps to empower the players in a more interesting manner. The weakness of the concept, to me, however, is that if you're after a competitive game, you're practically resigning yourself to ‘losing’ in pure game terms, in my opinion – without playing more games with more people it's hard to say for sure, but it seems to me that unless you are working together well, you are not going to defend the castle, and any individual ‘victory’ in terms of monster tokens is going to be more down to the luck of what cards were drawn by the player in question, rather than brought about by the actions of them and the other players. Still, that in no way detracts from the fact that it is a very fun game to play, and is more than a mere re-skin. But I do feel that it needs a bit more Munchkin to really achieve its full potential. On a more practical note, the components are all of a good quality, and should hold up to wear and tear from repeated play.