Oh come on ... the game is not THAT ugly. Certainly not worse than Concordia, and that seems to be one of your favorites. Not recommending it based on its aesthetics seems a bit nit picky to me. I loved the "classic review" joke though. Hilarious!
Man, a friend of mine has a copy of this game, and it's really a legit masterpiece IMO. I've played it a bunch of times and every time is an amazing photo finish between two or three people all within just a couple points of each other. We even have had legit ties where even the tiebreaker conditions came down to not breaking it, and that honestly felt great too because I could sit there with my opponent who had objectively played the game EXACTLY as well as I did, shake his hand and go "good game" without it feeling forced from one side or the other.
To be honest, I sometimes get annoyed at "modern designs". They have a knack for looking very similar in style and themes and leaning hard on contemporary design cliches. I suspect the trend towards minimalism and flat solid colors is out of laziness or lack of imagination more than anything else. Maybe Shogun could use some more contrast or definition in it's visuals, but I don't find them to be particularly bothersome and they fit the with the theme. I don't recall when this review originally came out, but I am kind of glad to be reminded of Shogun... I think I'll go find a copy.
Love the minimalism in games. Too much of modern games focus on good lookin but lacking actuall gameplay. With older games like shogun (which is a masterpiece) minimalism works well. No matter how great the game looks after few plays you always focus on actual game and iconography. Shogun provide very nice theme and great gameplay ;) Its very very good game.
I don't consider this game ugly. Unlike some Euros which use cubes to save cost, this one uses cubes because it's a function of its game design. Also? The tower *IS* the spark. No one I've gamed with who has seen the tower in action has not been immediately hooked by it, and it looms over the proceedings, everyone aware of the next impending cube drop into the TOWER OF DOOM. Love this game.
I dont undestand what he doesnt like about the board, it looks pretty nice to me. Just because it doesnt have super-detailed and fancy drawings or loads of miniatures like another kickstarter game overloaded with unnecessary fluff, doesnt make it bad, sometimes less is more.
You don't need miniatures to have a game look beautiful. This game looks bland as fuck, and if I had walked past people playing the game with no previous knowledge, I would absolutely not play it. At least make it with universal design in mind.
Interesting, Shogun is still in Quinn's 136 board games in his April 2019. So that means even with the "not recommended" review, he kept this game for four years. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-jtwWPF_KxCo.html
That component drop had me laughing obnoxiously loudly. Hysterical guys. And land bastards. Jesus Christ I’m dying. ALSO... this is basically Nobunaga’s Ambition: the Board Game. Which is great because I love those games.
Unimpressive visual design, and little potential for grand events to take place. Doesn't mean it's not enjoyable - he said it himself, the game is "just good" - but in the end, he's looking fore something with more "spark" to it.
So I gotta' say while you're totally right that the aesthetic of this game is abysmal, this is one of the most finely-honed games I've ever played. Literally EVERY game I've ever played of it has come down to tie-breaker mechanics.
Yes, the Queen Elizabeth referred to in the shut up & sit down archives video (which seems eerily authentic) is the same as the one that is still on the throne, today (the II.). I know, i know, brain component drop, right (cause: "mind blown")? The one and only queen of the atomic age (she held the opening ceremony for the first nuclear power plant ever built and, at least here in germany, nuclear power is now on its way out). She was already queen, when Churchill was prime minister and britain still had its empire. Imagine that, if you can!
Thought I'd check out a review of Samurai, as Quinns held it up for comparison. It looks really basic and much blander than Shogun, as if it went through the wash with a pair of socks.
This is not the game I remember playing in the 1980s. It had a similar board, but instead of cubes it had plastic figures. Each player had a daimiayo (sp?) which we pronounced "damn-you" (we were in high school) and there were great plastic coins with a square hole in them you could use to hire a ninja to assassinate other players. I remember it as being very fun to play, but only ever knew one person who owned it and haven't seen it for decades.
shogun is such a generic japanese word at this point and probably is untrademarkable so i wouldn't be surprised if there were tens of different games called exactly shogun.
As a marxist I can confirm that we do encourage people to eat their hair. I was actually disapointed when that wasn't an action card in twilight struggle. I would also invite you to eat your hair. After all, as marx said in his most erotic work 'capital; or how I learned to stop worrying and love eating my hair': "untill now philosophers have only cut their hair. The point however; is to eat it" and "you have nothing to eat but your hair! Workers of the world; eat your hair" *soviet amthem plays* ✊💇♀️💇♂️🍴
I don't know about the spark. With my friends we still remember the times I burned down their game winning castle or snatched their farmland right before the winter.
Got my Kickstarter version of the Big Box with the Deluxe Upgrade Kit just a week ago. The game is tremendous fun and you get a nicer looking game with real metal coins, 3D buildings and a few other improvements.
Back in my day we had Samurai Swords..Ninjas, Ronin, Castles 🏰 ..but no rice or econ..i wonder which board is better ..Shogun Big Box or Samurai Swords??
Interesting. That is the second SHOGUNG Game I know of. The elder one in the Risk-style from the Eightieth had been the prototype for the later so successfull gomputer games.
I loved the original game Shogun is based on, Wallenstein, and obsessed about getting my own copy when I first played it (many, many moons ago, when board games seemed harder to come by). The cube tower as combat resolution IS genius, and a lot of fun, but I agree with the review that game design and component aesthetic has moved on. Good summary of thoughts, and as always, an amazing video. Job well done :)
I played Wallenstein and absolutely loved the cube tower and the decision-making with pre-planning the cards on your board. Beyond that, though.....it was just OK.
I kinda wanna try this now as a Total War fan and a big fan of Shogun II Total War. It looks kinda like a more strategic version of it, where Shogun is very tactical.
I assume you clean out the * after a combat/riot resolves, right? Because it would be hilarious if you had a fight between Red and Yellow and then 3 purples roll out and somehow purple took over a region they weren't even adjacent to.
IIRC, only the two active factions and green (the peasants) count in resolving combat. Any other colours are kept and thrown back into the tower again on subsequent clashes. So, a peasant army could revolt and take over a region! Happens if you tax them too often ;)
I still love Shogun! The tower is the best. I feel like it gives just enough randomness, but also balances it a bit throughout the game, instead of just getting unlucky with dice rolls on a streak.
Nothing will ever compare to when my friend got so salty at the farmers whilst playing this game, that he bluffed rice the entirety of the second year and still went on to win it. One of my favorite games of all time. My friends and I lovingly refer to the [REDACTED] as the Warp, like from Warhammer, cos my god those lads seem to get lost in there for eternity...
Please add the 'First Published on..." info at the start of the description so I can easily tell if I've seen it or not. I don't always remember just from the name of the game.
19th Century: "Won't someone think of the farmers?" 20th Century: 7:38 "Farmers are the bane of everyone's existence." 21st Century: "Everyone wants to be a farmer, and I hate them." 7:50
Amazing game ! So realistic and thematic and punishing...I am so happy. Every time I am playing Shogun. And. Art work is simple and thematic i love it.
Very entertaining review! Watched the entire 14+ minutes of it and realized that I just lost another 14+ minutes of my life :( How about another one? :p
There is a house role witch works great No re- role dice No tactical cards No healing Double swords you put by your Hero and it give dmg amount instead of re rolling
My friend had us sit down and play the first version of Shogun which came out in the 80s, not 2006. It wasn't the same game as this. It was unplayable. Playing a board game from the 80s made me realize just how far board game development has come since then. So many ridiculously obscure rules and confusing systems within systems... But hey, maybe that's your thing. I think I'll try out Samurai next time instead.
There's a different game called Shogun (re-released as Samurai Swords) which was also area control, but more like Risk. It's a different game, trust me, I own both.
The cube tower is the only reason I bought this. I don't care if I never play it. I will cherish the cube tower. I will pray to it. Also: Consolidation was the primary issue afflicting Japan up until, well, the Tokugawa Shogunate. Do you want to play "chaos reigns wtf is happening, my brain hurts, the game?" Then you might like this; many grognards approve of this sort of ugly dying horse game and do indeed see past the Lutheran virtues of its design. As the hobby is mainly older dudes with money and free time, there's not much stopping this from happening. Watch chit puller let's plays for what came before this stuff. You babies!
p.s. source for older dudes comment Stuart Woods, Eurogaming, 2012. Lots has changed since then but youtube search the critics in this little niche world of deep euro and GMT historical reenactment insanity and draw your own conclusions. I'm glad things are changing but I also know that form over function is a good thing. There's lots of garbage glitter being kickstarted, and it's much worse than this, because then you have the same storage problem, it's just COLLECTIBLY UNPLAYABLE as opposed to PLAYABLY UNCOLLECTIBLE. :-/
"you're going to struggle to get non-gamers to play it" well that is the seal of doom for me. 90% of the gaming I do is with casuals. And since there are lots of games that appeal to casuals and hard-core gamers, I'd rather buy those.
