After reading reviews, seeing the components, and feeling the need for a fast 2-player game, I could not resist picking up Ninja versus Ninja.My wife Talita agreed to help me try it out, and it is definitely easy to learn and fast to play.
Component-wise, the ninja pieces are awesome. There's absolutely no need for the game to have a separate Shadow Ninja and Ninja Master piece, and that is why they're great. :) The dice are cute, but a little annoying to actually roll.
Gameplay-wise, like I said, it is fast. I won't go over the rules here; they're simple enough.
We played 2 games in a few minutes; even my wife suggested that we add a house rule to play to more than 7 points. At one point, I was robbed of a win by a die roll of 2 (if I had rolled a 3, I could have gotten home and scored my mission), but I don't think the randomness is too intrusive.
Overall, it is a good game, and it's filling the niche I bought it for. I'm sure that it will be a good solution for at least a few weeks, for the 2 people sitting out of VTES games (or between turns in Battlestar Galactica, or whatever), and again it's a game my wife will play which is always a plus :) . And Eli will be able to play when he's maybe 4 or 5.
On a scale of "GR" to "GRRRRR", I give it a solid GRRRR
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No rules overview at all? Not even a lil' something?
ReplyDeleteGood scoring system for the review!
"No rules overview" is probably one reason why this was declined when I tried to crosspost it to boardgamegeek (although they listed no reasons :( )
ReplyDeleteSo alright here's a little something for John:
There are 2 clans of 6 ninjas each. The goal of the game is for all 6 of your opponent's ninjas to die (either by you landing on them or them failing a mission), or to get 7 points on missions.
Points are gained equal to the depth of spaces into the enemy dojo that you were able to get before running back home.
When you start a mission (leaving your home dojo), you have 3 turns to get back home with information, or the points don't get scored.
Movement is with 2 4-sided dice, the components for which are cleverly 6-sided dice with swords sticking through them. You move in a straight line in any direction, may take one 90 degree turn, and may backpedal along the path you entered if you're in the enemy dojo. Can't move through a ninja, but you can kill an enemy ninja by landing on him (except in the neutral zone between dojos).
That's about it for rules summary.
This might've been declined for length. I noticed that there was a direct correlation between how much gold BGG gave me and the length of my reports.
ReplyDeleteAnd the rules overview isn't for me, as I'll likely be playing this with you at some point. It's for the people out there in gamerland who aren't lucky enough to be able to say the same.