Unboxing Post I: Star Wars: Imperial Assault
Alright, now we move forward with day two! I have a bunch of games that have pictures all
ready to go so it was tough to really narrow down the games into seven that I
wanted to add to Unboxing Week. However,
with that being said, this game was always going to be one of the seven. Tokaido is an absolutely beautiful game by
the fantastic designer, Antoine Bauza of 7 Wonders, Takenoko, and Hanabi fame. This game was beautifully produced by
Funforge and they actually have a collector’s edition that was on Kickstarter
over a year ago. Hopefully that
beautiful edition will see the light of day within the next year or so!
Tokaido is a point-to-point movement game that has
elements of set collection and variable player powers. You take your meeple and travel the “East SeaRoad” in Japan which connects Kyoto to Edo.
You and your fellow players will travel this road and make stops on the
way at towns to shop for souvenirs, at temples to pray to the gods, at
panoramic spots to paint, at hot springs to relax, and at inns to eat and spend
the night. Basically you are trying to
have the best possible vacation imaginable!
First of all, when speaking of Tokaido, you have to look
at the absolutely beautiful art. The art
in this game is done by the fabulous Naiade.
Naiade (Xavier Gueniffey Durin) is quite possibly the best
boardgame/cardgame artist out there right now and definitely my personal
favorite. He has worked on Seasons (my
current favorite game), Shinobi WAT-AHH!, The Phantom Society, and the upcoming
games Melee and The Big Book of Madness.
His work has a very specific style and it fits so perfectly in the
boardgame medium. I always look forward
to the new stuff that he puts out.
The first thing to talk about is the rulebook. This is a pretty standard fair rulebook that
does a good job in showing how the game is played with some nice looking art
within it. It is nicely put together
with good examples of how to play the game.
To be fair, this isn’t a hard game to play so the rulebook should be
able to adequately put forth the rules without the player needing to go to
outside means (such as BGG forums) in order to find their answers. This rulebook does a good job as I have
personally never needed to go anywhere else to find answers that arise from the
game.
Next we move on to the game board. This is a tri-fold game board that is made
over thick cardboard and will hold up very well under multiple plays with no
problems. As well as being well made the
game board is completely beautiful. It
has a stark white background with Naiade’s brilliant artwork on top of that
background. The graphics and icons fit
perfectly with the theme and make sense as your meeple takes their journey down
the East Sea Road. The board also has
places for the cards that you will need during the game. It is clear and was beautifully graphically
designed.
There are over 100 cards in this game in two different
sizes. The first size is the small
mini-card size that is popular in many of the Fantasy Flight games. These are on nice card stock (sadly not the
linen that I usually prefer) with rounded edges and they ruffle-shuffle very
nicely. Each of the types of cards have
very clear backs with drastically different colors so that they are very easy
to sort out at the beginning of the game.
The other size of card is just slightly larger than the mini-card size
and they don’t have the rounded edges.
The reasoning for this is because these cards are put together in order
to for panoramic pictures as you are collecting the different sets during the
game. All in all the cards are nice and
of a pretty decent quality.
Next up are the components of the game. These include the cardboard tokens and the
wooden pieces. There aren’t a whole lot
of these components as the game doesn’t really need them, but those that are in
the game are very nice. First of all,
the cardboard tokens include five colored tokens that show the color of each
player and also the coins. I love the
coins! They are beautifully made and
actually have a square hole in the middle of them that really makes them feel
like Japanese Yen. Then, there are the
five wooden meeples which are very nicely made and each color also has a small
disc which is used for scorekeeping. The
only component I wish was a little different is the five colored discs. They are a little smallish and I think they
could be a little more thematic.
We now move onto the player cards. These are absolutely beautiful! Each of the ten characters has their own
cardboard card with a small hole in it.
This hole is where you place your color token so you know what color
each player is during the game. On each
of the cards is a gorgeous rendition of the character and below that is the
icon of the player’s power. These were a
great addition to the game and I love that they were printed on thick cardboard
instead of just putting them on cardstock.
Lastly I just want to point out the insert of
Tokaido. Publishers take note…this is
how an insert should be done! It is made
perfectly where each of the components/cards/boards has a specific well that
they go in and it keeps them so nicely separate from each other. I love when thought has gone into the inserts
of a game. I understand that it isn’t
necessary thing to have a nice insert, but it is a nice addition.
Thanks for reading everyone! This has been an interesting process as I’m
finally going back through all of these game pictures and doing the unboxings
that I’ve been sitting on for far too long.
I have some good games coming up during the next week so check back in
tomorrow for the next one! Thanks again
for reading and let me know if you have any questions or comments. Until next time, game on!
