Rising Sun Board Game Review: A well-known name on Kickstarter is CMON Games. Nearly everyone who follows the games as they leave the Kickstarter pledge train has seen significant funding for one or two CMON games. It was inevitable that the fundraiser would include CMON campaign hallmarks and achieve high numbers given that our next game was up for assessment. Now we will have Rising Sun Board Game Review.
Rising Sun Board Game Review
This doesn’t always imply that the game is enjoyable. Since there was a lot of gameplay material, including video playthroughs, and since supporters never know for sure whether a gaming experience will be as good as it sounds, for this reviewer, making a pledge for Rising Sun was a significant risk. Readers of Board Game Quest will be curious to find out if the experience is as good as it claims to be.
Rising Sun Board Gameplay
Rising Sun isn’t a particularly sophisticated game at its foundation. By forming alliances and capturing as many territories as they can over the course of three seasons (rounds), players attempt to accumulate the most victory points. They accomplish this by enlisting soldiers, receiving aid from the gods, and forming alliances for the best results.
Players advance through an initial phase of alliance formation and receive a predetermined amount of income per round. Following the formation of alliances, the game is played out turn by turn using an action selection and follow process. This implies that the selected player selects an action from four randomly generated tiles. Then, each additional player may take the same action. Depending on the action, the selected player and their ally (if any) get a bonus action or a discount.
In order to finally have the strongest army when fights are decided at the end of each round, the major objective of each round is to instal new troops in the various areas on the board. By exerting the maximum force on the powerful Kami tiles, players may also be trying to win the favour of the gods. Players can also choose season cards that provide even more exceptional abilities by taking actions.
Province-level fighting is the main topic of the round’s final phase. Players covertly bid on actions as battles are resolved province by province during the War Phase. The action is concluded by the highest bidder.
Game Experience Of Rising Sun Board Game
Since the game being reviewed is the reviewer’s own copy obtained through Kickstarter support, some of the components seen in the photographs have been improved. All of these things won’t be in the retail version. Having said that, this review will make an effort to focus solely on gameplay.
To get right to the point, Rising Sun is the real deal in this reviewer’s eyes. In terms of gameplay, it delivers on what it promised. It is amazing even though it is not flawless. Although it won’t appeal to a wide variety of gamers, the primary audience will find its content to be well-crafted.
The fact that this isn’t truly a fighting game may come as a surprise, and that is the only real connection to Blood Rage. It’s a game where you have to decide how to handle conflict. There are numerous ways to get points, some of which entail combat and others which do not. It is frequently possible to win by just having a lot of money and intelligently bidding during the war phase.
This clarifies the type of replay value that Rising Sun has. The only thing that doesn’t vary from game to game is the map, but almost everything else does because there aren’t many rules. Opportunities choices drive the game. This gives each game a unique story. The fairly constrained content in the core box, however, can annoy some gamers. I’m reluctant to think about playing without these possibilities after experimenting with some of the expansion stuff.
Rising Sun’s primary play structure is its drawback. Each player will have different opportunities, many of which are strongly influenced by the random options available to the player and their ally. Although it is possible, going it alone is rarely the best option. The allied element requires that players select people who will take the same course of action as them. This is a challenging task that could leave players with too little time to complete the desired action, especially when there are more players involved. Players will have more options with fewer players, but the game will play more staticly because fewer provinces will engage in combat.
Finally, although readers are likely to already know this, the delivered actual components—particularly the miniatures—are really beautifully done. The retail box still looks beautiful on the table even though it lacks the genuine chrome that was promised at the higher pledge levels.
Final Verdict
Rising Sun is a top-notch video game. It’s entertaining, offers interesting choices and a clever strategy, but lacks the complexity and depth of many other huge games. It’s a showpiece with a grandiose play style that will undoubtedly appeal to anyone who enjoy big games with somewhat intense warfare. Rising Sun is best played with a limited number of players at first to “see” what the game has to offer, and then with more players to really enjoy the game’s intended level of alliance building.
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