Let’s Go! To Japan

Designer: Josh Wood

Artist: Chaykov, Kailene Falls, Toshiyuki Hara, Magdalena Pruckner, Erica Ward

Published: 2024
Players: 1-4
Playing Time: 45-60 Mins
BGG Rating: 7.7
BGG Ranking: 674
Publisher: Alderac Entertainment Group

Mechanisms: Closed Drafting, Simultaneous Action Selection, Solitaire Game

Sleeves: BST 70x120mm

Game Description:

In Let's Go! To Japan, you are a traveller planning, then experiencing your own dream vacation to Japan.

Quick play overview:

The idea of the game is that players want to visit Kyoto and Tokyo in a week. Players will decide which sites to visit on each day of the week by placing drafted cards in piles of 3 cards. Once a day has had 3 cards, it is closed and depending on the icons, you will get some bonuses that will help you plan further.

Visiting different cities also needs you to travel back and forth with a train, which is time consuming. So not only are you trying to visit the right type of sites (icons) during each day, you should also avoid useless traveling.

The twist to this game is the fact that you can plan later days before the first ones and also you can plan the afternoons before the mornings. Add to this a draft from just 2 cards and you have a very simple yet robust new drafting masterpiece where the main decision is where to place the drafted card, rather than the usual "should I hate draft"/"will this card come back around if I don't take it"/... drafting.

Final thoughts:

I really like the simple 2 card draft system. Players will not get overloaded with options from the start and yet there are more than enough choices as you can place it anywhere in the week schedule.

Taking the train between cities is a costly endeavour that can be also turned into a winning strategy if the right cards are drawn.

The length of the game is also just great where you get a nice arc with a dramatic finale where players will show off their combos.

FINAL SCORE: 

Gameplay & How often I want to play it: 10/10

This is the best evolution of the drafting mechanism I have seen. Choosing between 2 cards and making the decision where to use the card is much better than the average drafting from a big pile of cards.
This is a rare case where I want to replay a medium length game right away. Hopefully my friends won’t get too tired too fast of this game.

Art & Graphic Design:

The game looks amazing. The icons and important gaming info is all perfectly inserted onto the cards to not disturb the beautiful art.

Rules & Complexity:

There are a few icons and rules to learn at the start but the simple turn structure, make it easy to remember the details. Players are never overwhelmed by too many options.

Theme & Mechanism fit:

Visiting a foreign country via a board game was never really an interesting concept. Usually, it was done via Quiz questions or something similar. This game managed to put you in the spot where you have a limited time and you have to choose between a few interesting sites. Planning a vacation was never so easy (and cheap) 😊

Fun & Replayability:

I love the simple drafting and also a lack of hate drafting. Players have their own problems to solve and don’t need to think what shouldn’t be passed to the next player.
The decks of cards are big enough that you should get many plays out of the game before you would have seen all the combos.