Top 100 Board Games From Japan, Part 10 (10 to 1) | Cardboard East

[Music] welcome to the top 100 board games from Japan part [Music] 10 cat in the box is the best chick ticking game that I've ever played now I do think the crew is a better game overall but I found that a lot of the cards in my hand I didn't care about and there really wasn't that much tension except for that one card in my hand that I really needed to play but with cat in the Box every single card has weight and gives a really important decision the recent addition from Hobby Japan and bizier games really shows what an amazing game this is sometimes the cat's there sometimes the cat's not I love that I love that the most recent edition of cat in the box has an I love the most recent edition of the game plays from two to five players extending the player counts of the original design now with the two-player game the area control with the board is far more intense and you're really fighting for control of that board whereas I found in the higher player counts the mechanic isn't as strong but you're really fighting to not cause a paradox and hoping that one of your opponents causes the Paradox before you I love the simple idea of a trick ticking game where each car doesn't have a suit and you get to decide the suits of each car that you play uh trick taking games have become a huge thing in Japan in the last 10 years and people are constantly exploring the simple mechanics that drive trick taking games I think cat in the Box stands above all the rest and the recent colossal Edition from Biz games I found really really interesting although very very big and maybe not suitable for all players but I really love that they heard heard some of the common complaints that people had about the hands being a little bit too tight and created an expansion that allowed for more flexibility with the from the original design just like cat in the box the cat is there and the cat isn't there it's both now the nerd in me wants to say that the original cat in the Box theory was designed to show how ridiculous this idea of physics is but physics has proven time and time again that the cat does exist in both States but in regardless of what addition that you have of Kat the box it is a worthwhile investment especially if you love trick taking games I haven't played trick taking games where each card felt painful and each card was sometimes even a bad decision trick taking games often get more exciting as your hand gets smaller and smaller and Cat In The Box really heightens that up to a very painful amount sometimes I often find myself praying that one of my opponents creates the Paradox before I do and I love that a game that gives you tense decisions all throughout the entire hand and that makes can the Box an easy game to recommend and suggest and more than worthy for being the top 10 greatest board games to ever come from Japan Square on sale is the best auction bidding game I've ever played now granted most of that is because I'm really into abstracts and this just adds this beautiful bidding mechanism on top of of an already tried and true abstract so imagine you have ath or reverse if you know that game by by that name and you have like black and white and then you place a new one on an empty space and then you flip all the pieces between a previous piece and the piece you just placed now Square on sale says you don't have to place it on empty imagine you can place it anywhere you want and so now you can place your new piece on an empty space or you can place a new piece on a place that's pretty occupied so now everything is flipping in all sorts of weird random directions and then you add the next layer of the game which is a delayed time effect and time becomes a resource that you have to think about in this game so every time you make a bid now you have to wait two turns before the bid follows through and if no one out bids you then you get to place your piece and then everything begins to trigger it's more interesting than that because instead of one bid on one square everyone's bidding on every square and now you have all these delayed time reactions maybe here here so maybe this round this and this place will trigger and then next turn this this this will trigger and then two turns from now this this this will trigger and you're constantly looking at this trying to think to yourself if I bid here and then I bid here this will flip and then this will flip and then I could trigger it to where it'll be in my advantage and one of the ending mechanisms of the game to trigger the end of the game is to run out of squares and that's really really easy to do especially when you're able to combo these big chains really really quickly but what makes this game even more brilliant is that the money is finite like if you bid on a corner Square it's gone it's out of the game and you have to lose an action to get all your money back the first time you play this game it's going to warp your mind and then the second and the third you begin to see the patterns that emerge in the game play and it's it's quite amazing and I've talked a little bit longer than this than some of the other games uh in the top 30 but that's because Square on sale is so unique to me so special to me and I absolutely adore this game you can find it on secondhand stores in like secondhand sales and markets in America but it may be a little bit tricky I suggest going to the BGG Marketplace and trying to find a lock there I got mine in Japan and I was incredibly lucky to find it I'm hoping that some publisher will find it and print it out again because it definitely is worthy of of it I think a is something that a lot of players can uh relate to and is very approachable but the extra Twist of the delayed reaction and the delayed um bidding makes this game more than some of its parts all of that adds up to a very unique design that's approachable at first and then adds layers and layers of complexity that make this an absolute joy to explore and easily one of the top 10 greatest games to ever come out of Japan pass tally is an aack game that celebrates trains I first played pastal years ago and ever since then every single abstract game I play from Asia not just Japan I weigh it against pastal and I think to myself do I want to play it more or less and pesale keeps winning those fights time and time and time again now this flips over here La La La La La on your turn you're either going to move one of the little dots around the the edge of the board or you're going to be placing a new tile making this route structure even more complicated and then you score and the scoring is so fascinating how you score points for each layer of the route that you build and it even comes with a cute little ruler that you could use to measure the height of the stacks this is an a game that is quite vicious because not only do you have to constantly build and build and improve upon your route system that's scoring more and more points you have to defend yourself against your opponent because why build the infrastructure when I could just steal it from you now while the box does say uh two to three players I think this game shines best at two I found out at three players it can get quite a lot of AP at the table and everyone just ends up helping everyone else but I think you really need that two-player moment where you're fighting head to-head against each other I've never played a game of P where my brain didn't feel like it melted halfway through the game even my wife I'll even suggest playing past and she's like no no no no I need my brain today I need it to still function after we gain because it can be quite brutal of planning and laying out the tiles how you think will be best for your score one of the many layers that I love about past alley is that the the game really really ramps up when you first begin the game maybe you get like two four maybe a handful of points but by the end game you are scoring massive amounts of points especially as the sacks get higher and higher and higher and the game can be quite swingy maybe you're ahead and then your opponent steals your routes and is just scoring tons of points and you are in a desperate battle to block them and steal that route from them and it becomes that delicate balance of do I just ruin this route for everybody or do I try and steal it and use those points to catch up while I can make a mistake bastal is not a nice game now I've heard other people call this game pastal but I believe it's pastal because you're tallying up your passes and that's why pass Sally is one of the best games to ever come from Japan uh I only have one shot at this so we got to make it count natu memo is the best Rolland right game that I've ever ever played it is about uh junior high school Japanese kids and it is the last month of their summer vacation and they are planning it out but the best thing is that it takes place over a month first round is first week second round second week third round third week last round is fourth week but you have 25 pages of homework to do and you got to do that otherwise each page you don't do you lose 10 points each each day of every round you're going You're deciding whether or not you're going to Japan or Tokyo or maybe you're going on vacation or see your grandma you ask your friends who's going to go with you and who's not and you raise your hand and it's really really fun and you're creating like these stars in relationships everyone who goes on trips with you and at the end of the game you can see who has the best and strongest relationship with whom and it becomes this really fun moment of like I spent all this time with you chill and you didn't give me any love I thought we were best friends and I absolutely adore this game and I love the fact that at on week four all the vacations are worth more points and you also do your homework even faster than before just kicking that uh procrastination to high gear I absolutely of it it's a fantastic flip and right game that I think Publishers will probably never pick up in the west because I'm don't not sure how well it's going to transfer over and one other cool thing is that the ruic itself is a little pamphlet where you practice writing your your Chinese or Japanese characters and they didn't really have to do that extra inch but I'm so glad they did the version I have uh comes with an animal eraser and different boxes come with different animals so I had a little fish a friend of mine had a zebra another friend of mine had a dinosaur so cool and I'm I just can't recommend this game enough so if you're having trouble finding the Japanese version the Taiwanese version uh might be a little bit easier to find and also be more colorful and have cooler erasers with you and all of that combined is why natu memo is the best flip and right I've ever played and one of the best games to ever come out of Japan wind the film is one of the best C games to ever come out of Japan I love the fact that Mato games has picked it up and called it photograph but I'm also deeply saddened that they changed the name wind the film uses a very interesting mechanic of cards where you take one card out of your hand and you shift it to the end and you do that because you're forced to dump cards from your hand here here here in order and that can be quite difficult because you're drafting Cards into your hand placing them in a certain order hoping you get the right way and when you drop them you're trying to drop the different suits uh collectively in different sets and you want to do that from low to high or high to low and you don't want to skip too many numbers like 7 to 13 is bad 7 to8 is very good and someone described this once to me as Lost Cities but with nothing but bad choices and they're not wrong because it can be quite a brutal game right now I'm on the streets of Kyoto and I think this is the perfect place to talk about this game because Sashi himself well he's from Osaka but he lives in Kyoto after staying here only for a few days and visiting some of the local games and some of the local art shops it's really easy to see how this game came to be in the game you're running around the city taking photographs and then once the end of the day comes you quickly go back and you score of all the shots that you took and whoever had the best panorama gets the to score and it's really quite simple but the artwork from takako takarai just creates this nice mystical otherworldly feeling when you play the game you really feel like you're exploring this little city exploring the little nooks and crannies the little elevators the windows the lights and slowly you get to tell this emerging Narrative of you walking around the city uh and taking photos and when you walk around Kyoto it definitely feels feel like that you definitely feel like you're walking around exploring the city some of the many many temples and the very long long hikes cuz yeah there there are a lot of wi the film is one of the few games that just scales perfectly it scales well at two three and four and it's a game that I think has stood the test of time the ending with the twilight sunet sunset card coming can be a little fidly and I wish it were a little smoother but be that as it may why the film stands The Testament to simple Japanese minimalism of design that you don't need a lot of chrome and minis now I love my Chrome I love my minis I love the dice chucking all you need with a board game are a good hook a good simple mechanic that ties the whole game together and if you're very lucky takako takar right's art to really bring this emergent narrative to life why the film is a game that I would strongly recommend that everyone puts on their shelf it's one of the few car games in from Japan that is unique and doesn't need to fall into the trick taking category cuz now that trick taking games I love them but they're everywhere and it's nice to see a game from years past that tried something a little different and really succeeded at it and this has been some of the few reasons why why the film has stayed in my collection and it should stay in yours it's been a long time coming but nana is the best card game to have ever come out of Japan and I feel so strongly about this it somehow did the impossible it combined Go Fish and memory and somehow made it work so beautifully when I describe this game to people they just me like memory games go fish no boring but once they see the art they have a chance to play and they are just simply blown away because there's so many hidden little layers in the design that I think are just a joy to explore and so much fun to play all you're doing in this game is are finding three three of a kind it be 32s 35s and 38s it's a deck of 36 cards 1 through 12 * three but if you could find two sets that add up to seven like two and five then you can also win immediately and naturally if you find the one set of seven which have a gold foil on them then you win the game immediately and that's what Nana means Nana is the fancy way of saying seven in Japanese some of the fun layers that I discovered with this game are the amount of bluffing because if you have a card that's in your hand and someone is looking for it you are looking away you're trying to get them to look at somewhere else or maybe you're talking shade about some other players like no no no they got it no they got it and it's there are all these little layers and wrinkles in that design that just are so much fun to to play the fact that you're forced to keep your hand from like lowest to highest or highest to lowest means that the sevens don't come out to Mid or late game and I love that moment in every game and S is revealed and the whole table just G ass in unison my favorite memory of this game was playing a game and I knew that I was going to win on the next turn and the person next to me knew I was going to win as well and they flipped over a card in the middle and it was a seven and they flipped over another card and it was a seven and the whole table was just all tensed up and I'm thinking to myself no no there's no way and he flipped over another card in the middle of the table and it was a seven three sevens anyone and the hilarious part is that those sevens were there on the table the whole time and and anyone could have won the game right from the get-go and that's what Nana brings not now I will say that Nana was re published as Trio and given a de meros theme there's nothing wrong with that theme I think it works great but Z Beppo's art is in full force here and if you don't know who sa Beppo is she does the artwork of I don't know maybe like a third of the games at Game Market every year and her artwork is just so cute and so emotionally resonant that when you see that you just think oh this is so much fun and I I'll give this game a chance I think the French publisher really missed out on on trying to get that license of the of the artwork because I think side bebo's art really helps sell the game and helps Elevate the game to that next level now Nana can be played with a regular deck of cards so if you want to try it at home and see what I'm talking about you totally can but I really think it's worth hunting down the original Nana game so that way you have the beautiful side beo art bluffing is one of my favorite mechanics in games and Nana does it with such perfect and simple execution it is a joy to play I've I've never played a game where someone at that table didn't immediately say let's do this again because Nana is just so approachable and fantastic you you just should run out and buy a copy now because I think it's that amazing of a game so how do I look do I look good do I look good I'm trying to fish for compliments it is a publisher that has been continuously on this list time and time again but their Pinnacle of design is Crash octopus if you've been following my channel for a while you know that dexterity games are not my biggest cup of tea but crash octopus does it so well it's hard to deny how amazing and how fun it is even with the setup it just begins with a shotgun blast and you're ready to go the countdown clock as a crab moving along the each each individual bead adds a nice amount of tension to the game and the hilarity of flicking things towards your bat not the closest but the second closest I love that the kickstarter Edition has this little friction tape that you add to your boats to add just a little bit more friction uh to holding your Treasures onto the boat and if you happen to have like a nice blue tablecloth to help simulate that nice ocean experience ah the more the better the best thing about iten's designs is that they make interactive art and gamify it and that makes it so relevant today in 2023 with games needing to have that Instagram ability to just leap off the table and no publisher from Japan demonstrates this Instagram ability better than itan and no it and design demonstrates this even better than crash octopus with a string simulating the entire board a giant octopus head in the middle and tentacles shooting out of the water surrounding all the treasures and all your boat as you viy for dominance of the treasure now one of the biggest concerns I had with the kickstarter was the flags and I wasn't sure if the flags would hold up to play but I have played my copy multiple times dozens of times right now and the flags are still sturdy and strong and if you can find a copy of the pink cthulu treasure boat for the five fler Edition yes do yourself a favor and get it in addition to the fifth player pink boat there's also this nice little island that it can exist as a nice little mini expansion in the game and all of this creates this beautiful fun little sandbox experience that's going to be unlike any other game that you've ever played or even on this list as unique and special as this list is it's in it's a publish you should keep your eyes on and you hear more about them right here at carboard East and as promised yokahama the last of the series that we're talking about but the first in the series to be released even though it came out years ago people are still talking about Yokohama and compare Yokohama to other new releases it is by far hasashi aashi's Masterpiece of design will you drop workers off in different locations around rohama or will you move your boss through the chain of workers that you laid building houses building factories getting foreign workers and diplomats to work for you building the church or going after contracts all these paths to Victory are splayed out in front of you and you can choose however you want to play the game Yokohama is also one of the first board games that received a deluxified addition showing people what board games can be the new release that was just recently announced uh for Yokohama to be released next year at Yokohama duel and Yokohama Rolland right while people are excited about that no one that I've seen online is talking about getting rid of their TMG deluxified Edition I'm not getting rid of mine either because it is beautiful now while there are variants of plac style that are on BGG that I do follow as well and that's just using fewer rooms for the higher player counts so the game feels a little tighter but I do Suspect with the new release old versions of to Yokohama are going to go up in price so you should do yourself a favor grab yourself a copy of the TMG deluxified Edition the components are out of this world it was one of the first board games that really used metal coins and used them well but for those of you who don't have access to that stick around for next year when it's finally released again for the second third fourth fifth time Yokohama is a classic for reason it's Unique design it's clever gameplay all show what board games from Japan can be and it will stick around for decades to come welcome to arashiyama Bamboo Grove it was really important for me to film this segment here because the peaceful calm environment really mirrors the gameplay of nikumi anen katuki now nikumi anen kuki is often confused with nikumi anen Hani and we'll just break those down really quickly here so you you can get it the first game nukumi anen Hani played similarly to agrica and had players building their own onen their own hot spring Hotel whereas the sequel nukumi Anan katuki mirrors the gameplay of Orleans and bag building but has players building the onen town of nukumi itself now I Orleans specifically because of the bag building mechanic that drives the most of the game but unlike Orleans n on S katak cooki comes with player Powers six characters double-sided each providing a different strategy to lean and follow throughout the course of the game now like many games like this the asymmetrical play here isn't perfectly balanced and there is some meta that has to be included in order to balance out those Powers among the players some like the chef are very St straightforward with what to do and how to approach that and others like the gentlemen are a little trickier and a little bit more nuanced to explore but despite the slight amount of tension in the game nukumi onen katuki remains a very pleasant multi solo experience or a knitting Circle Game as I like to call them and it has become my wife's favorite game her game of choice there are days where she left for work turned around and looked at me and says when I get back we're playing Tumi because it's going to be a long day and this game is just so pleasant and peaceful to enjoy now you can have the option of Carone of playing a little meanly and placing your buildings in a way that's inopportune for other players but most of the time you're working on your own engine getting as many buildings as you can down and slowly building up your pool bag to get more and more combos again and again and again one of the other things I love about this game is that it uses the same artwork from the original nikumi anen hoki and you get to see the same characters the same helpers uh be reimagined into this game you see the Entertainer again and she's giving you 16 points if you can make sure that you hire enough helpers in the game one of the most interesting mechanics in the game is the chasing the cat mechanic so you can be the first player there's a cat around the town just like in the first game and if you can move your worker there then the cat will move to a different location and players will chase the cat around the town and chasing the chance to be the first player draw one more resource per round and score seven points if you've caught the cat at the end of the game now this game has been extremely difficult to find because of the limited print run but the rumor is is that there will be a reprint next year in 2024 there's probably more tension in me telling you to run and grab this game while you can than there is in the actual gameplay itself while not everything is perfect with nikumi onen katak cuki in fact I have my own little game variants that I've put on BGG but I can't escape how much of a joy it is to play this game you're chasing a cat around the town and you can build cat statues in honor of the cat there is a slight little race of getting enough gold so you could be the first person to build the bank which is 40 whopping points at the end of the game but that doesn't have to be your strategy your strategy could be the chef where you're opening restaurant after restaurant after restaurant and each restaurant is going to be worth more and more points by the end of the game you can go the gentleman route and have lots of hotels and and souvenir shops ranking in tons of money spending the money on hotels or you can even be the con man and start the game off with a ridiculous amount of money and resources at your disposal but losing your money or your victory points at the end of the game there's a lot to explore and I've really enjoyed exploring each of the characters and trying to push their strategy to the Limit and I've played this game at 1 two three and four players and every time I introduced it to a new group they're always asking to Play It Again nukumi atsan katuki is by far are one of the best games to ever come out of Japan and I cannot recommend this game enough while you're here in Japan hunting it down I encourage you to come and experience the pleasure of the arashiyama Bamboo Grove because it's quite breathtaking and a peaceful stroll in the morning Prestige composure casual confidence cool no matter how you translate it eki is the best game to ever come out of Japan with an asteris I think that the best version of ieki is is the 2015 release if you have two copies and then you can use the rule set from the new release I think the 2015 Edition is far better than the new release that came out in 2021 not many games get a second uh reprinting and eky came out in 2015 and six years later was reprinted Now with an expansion on its way coming out this Essen ieki is slowly becoming more and more talked about and more widely known across the gaming industry but I think it's important to look back at the 2015 release and Marvel at just the am amazing production that went into this game the word eki itself was invented after generations of Civil War and the Tokugawa government was able to last in peace for well over two and a half centuries the agent city of Ed where modern day Tokyo now stands entered a prosperous age of innovation and economic Prosperity the population reached well over million and at one point it was one of the largest cities on the planet at the time the entire city was made of wood and so it was pled by fires that would happen at least twice a year sometimes causing casualties up in the hundreds of thousands the main art of the time was the yukoh E style which you see uh here on this shirt and that you see on all the components in the original 2015 release now I understand that the yukoh E art is divisive amongst gamers in 2023 but I think that the art really ties everything together and creates this other theor World experience when you play the 2015 release of eeky it feels like you're playing a game uh from centuries ago in terms of mechanics I love Rondell games and I think eki does an amazing job at this each round is tense money is always tight and you are trying to create an economy that feeds off of the other players I find that so completely fascinating I love economic games that are player driven and player decided there are even certain buildings that you can build in the game that won't be accessible if certain characters aren't entered into the board often on my reviews I talk about layers and design and eki is a game with multiple layers to explore I think it wasn't until my third or fourth game of VII where I realized that the color card count of the characters due to the set collection was not even at all and so when a green card comes up you really have to fight for it now while the two-player variant is fun and three-player variant is okay I think experiencing this game and the full four player setting is truly something to behold and while some players find the fire mechanic a little random driven it's Randomness that's defined and you know exactly where the fire is going to be and you can predict it and you can pay extra money to avoid that risk by building your store closer to the center of the city the original 2015 release had a wealth of little expansions uh out on bggg their player made including one that included this gorgeous player mat and an expansion that I really don't use now if you're asking me about which version of the game that you should get I think that the 2015 is a beautiful edition of the game and the definitive uh gaming experience from Japan but it's incredibly hard to find the newer uh 2021 release has slightly better math making the some of the cards a little cheaper and easier to upgrade through experience in the course of the game makes the game a little bit more forgiving there's also more tobacco and more fish and that makes the game also a little bit more flexible for players and not as tight if you're looking for the best way to play the game I think you need two copies of the 2015 release that way you can play it with the second edition rule set but regardless of how you play II is cool it is the best game to ever come out of Japan and I don't see that changing anytime soon it celebrates Japan in a way that no other game on this list has and I think it will continue to do so in the years to come and I even have an eky shirt and sadly our top 100 board games of Japan series comes to an end with me here at haneda airport waiting for my flight back home to Taiwan I can't than you enough for joining me in this series especially the last three episodes with me running around Tokyo Kyoto and Osaka never in a million years would I have expected my life to take this corner but I'm glad it did and I'm glad I got to share this journey with all of you thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next video [Music] oh

Channel: Cardboard East

Views: 4,770

Keywords: boardgames, Taiwan, Taiwanese boardgames, Japanese boardgames, Asian boardgames, Korean boardgames, tabletop games, gaming, boardgame reviews, boardgame playthroughs, boardgame impressions

Id: Zb4w8pTUBZw

Length: 32min 9sec (1929 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 19 2024