Night Parade of 100 Yokai Review
Mischievous spirits battle for control of Japanese islands
đ BGG rated 7.3/10 w. just 686 ratings đ
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đĄ Designer: LuĂs Brueh
đ¨ Artist: LuĂs Brueh
đ¨ď¸ Publisher: Brueh Games Inc.
đ Released: 2021
đ§đťâđ¤âđ§đż Players: 1-4
đ Age: 14+
âď¸ Weight: 1.96/5
âąď¸ Time: 30-45 minutes
đ View Night Parade of a Hundred Yokai on BGG
𧊠Game Overview
King Enma is nowhere to be found. With his dreadful castle in Mount Fire vacant, asymmetric clans of demi-gods long forgotten will raise armies and battle to conquer the hearts in the islands of Japan.
As dusk settles, the spirits marchâŚ
In Japanese folklore, supernatural beings known as yokai surreptitiously sneak through the streets at night. Anyone unlucky enough to witness this event will suffer grave misfortune.
In Night Parade of a Hundred Yokai, you lead a Clan of these mischievous spirits spreading chaos â and shrines â across the islands of Japan. There are the Frogs (Gamanoke), Cats (Nekomata), Foxes (Nogitsune) and Bears (Onikuma).
To recreate the yokai procession, your personal playing area consists of three âParade Rowsâ representing three different types of Yokai: Earth (Brown), Wood (Green) and Water (Blue). Players starts with one card in each row, unique to their particular Clan.
Each turn consists of three phases:
đ Night Parade
Choose a Parade Row you didnât use last turn and flip its scroll face-up. Then resolve the row left-to-right, triggering each cardâs icons in order (think Wingspan, but reversed).
Every cardâs first icon allows you to place a meeple onto an island tile on the main board. Other icons include collecting Talisman or Spirit Tokens, moving one of your meeples to a neighbouring island or bumping another playerâs meeple back to their supply.
To sanctify an island for your Clan, amass meeples there equal to the tileâs value (top-left). Then place a Torii gate there. If yours is the first gate, claim the tileâs bonus.
đšRecruit Yokai
A central market offers three columns of yokai cards. The columns cost 2/4/6 Spirit tokens. You can buy multiple cards, but each purchase requires one Talisman. Once per turn you may wipe one column and refill it.
Purchased cards are added to the right-hand end of the Parade Row matching the cardâs background colour.
đRelease Spirit Power
You canât keep Talismans, so you must convert every two remaining Talisman tokens into one Spirit Token (rounding up).
You also canât end your turn with more than eight Spirit Tokens.
âŠď¸ End of the Game
When a player places their fifth Torii, continue until all players have had an equal number of turns.
Each player then reveals the Hidden Plot card they were dealt at the start.
These cards always award one point per Torii gate built, but youâll also score for two unique objectives.
Most points wins.
đ§ G.A.M.E. Analysis
đ˛ G - Gameplay
(pacing, downtime, intuitiveness)
First, be warned: the game runs a lot longer than advertised on the box (but when doesnât it!?).
In the first half of the game, everyoneâs turns are snappy because theyâre only running rows of two or three cards. Thereâs a risk, though, that the downtime starts to drag as the game goes on.
If someone has a Hidden Plot that rewards them for cards in a particular colour, that encourages a long row. The number of actions they have to run through can surge into double figures.
Also, if people choose to go down the fighting route (bumping people off) this can prolong the game, but it also arguably makes it more fun.
The rules are straightforward enough to follow and having the three stages of your turn written on the back of every scroll means that itâs hard to get it wrong.
â Score: 18/25
đ¨ A - Art & Theme
(visual appeal, thematic coherence, component quality)
Hats off to LuĂs Brueh for the quality of the components. All the playing pieces are chunky and vivid, which leads to a really tactile experience.
Normally, when setting up a game, you often just put everyoneâs pieces haphazardly in front of them. But with this game youâll instinctively want to face-off everyoneâs meeples and torii gates in formation. It looks awesome!
Not only did LuĂs design the game, he did all the artwork too - and heâs done a great job. The islands and the cards really pop.
The only thing is that the âspiritâ tokens look very much like male reproductive cells, but this just made everyone laugh and bizarrely made the game even more memorable.
Theme-wise, itâs bordering on a little thin.
While you definitely feel like youâre in Japan, the King Enma story and the parade of the Yokai doesnât really land as much as it could have.
â Score: 21/25
âď¸ M - Mechanics
(design elegance, balance, novelty)
Iâve played plenty of area majority games and plenty of tableau builders, but Night Parade brings both together in an unusual way. Itâs a cross between two bird-based games - running a row of cards Ă la Wingspan and battling over tiles like Perch (which I reviewed here).
The mechanisms I really admire are the need to have a Talisman in order to recruit a Yokai and the fact that youâre not allowed to keep them beyond the end of a turn. It requires careful planning. It also means that with two Talisman and six Spirit tokens, youâre often torn between getting one great card or two lesser ones. I like that crunch.
But we need to talk about balance, so often an issue with asymmetric games. The balance is slightly off here, particularly if someone is playing a Clan for the first time.
Take the Cats (Nekomata). All the starting cards have no Spirit icons, meaning you will struggle to buy more cards unless you immediately buy a card with Spirit icons using the tokens you start the game with.
On your first time playing Nekomata, you might not realise this and you have to live with the consequences for the rest of the game.
Even if you know what to do, sometimes those Spirit cards simply donât show up for the first few turns, putting the Cats on the backfoot from the off.
The gameâs designer concedes that some Clans are unforgiving if new players make a âmistakeâ. That said, he has published a guide on BGG laying out the complexity of each Clan and tips for how to handle them.
The game isnât broken by any means, but it could do with a tune-up from some of the expansions available.
â Score: 17/25
đ E - Enjoyability
(fun factor, replayability, emotional response)
Thereâs something about this game that just landed.
The first time we played, we didnât stop laughing from start to finish. The amount of âtake thatâ is perfectly balanced, leading to just the right level of good natured joshing and table talk without it ever feeling spiteful.
I got Whatsapp messages afterwards saying we must play it again soon. In terms of pure fun, it was one of the best games Iâve played this year.
As is usually the case with asymmetric roles, replayability is enhanced. If you shared them out evenly among four players, it would take five games before you adopted the same role again. The randomness of the islands also helps and you donât see every card in a game.
If you can get hold of some of the expansions there are even more Clans and powers to add in.
â Score: 22/25
đ¨ Final Verdict
Night Parade is just so much fun. Iâm a big fan of Japanese-themed games and area majority games that arenât overtly war-themed. This game ticks both those boxes for me and does it well.
Yes, the balance can be a little off at times, but once you get to know the various clans you can mitigate it a little. You could even say thatâs part of the strategy.
Iâll definitely be keeping my eye out for reprints of the expansions and looking into the other games from LuĂs Brueh.
Yokai Pagoda Review: The best card game I've played this year
đ BGG rated 7.7/10 w. just 498 ratings đ
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