Re;Act: Rapid Review
Information:
Mechanics: Head to Head, Assymetrical, Hand Management, Action Queue
Player Age: 14+ Player Count: 2 PlayersTime to Play: 20 - 40 Minutes Game Designer: Chris Lin, MingYang Lu, Eric Zeringue
Player Age: 14+
Rundown:
Re;Act is an anime-style head-to-head game with a unique theme. As a power-enhanced artist, each artist has a unique way to play that represents their medium. Simply damage your opponent three times, and you win.
Players will take turns one at a time, containing multiple phases: Masterpiece Phase, Draw Phase, Main Phase, and End of Turn Phase.
Masterpiece Phase:
The masterpiece is a way to supercharge your character by ascending them. This can have multiple effects, from transforming and gaining new abilities that will either last until they use an ability descending them or an immediate one-off effect followed by an immediate descend. This ascending is achieved by having the character's three-panel art piece displayed in order on the side of the board.
At the start of each turn, one piece of the active player's masterpiece will be placed in the masterpiece spot (which holds five segments). If the section is full, you will swap one of your opponent's pieces for one of your pieces off the board or swap two of your pieces if all of your pieces are on the board.
If a masterpiece is completed, that player's pieces will be removed from the section and they will flip their character to the ascended side.
Draw Phase:
The main currency of cards will be drawn in this phase. ALL players will draw one card during this phase.
Main Phase:
The main phase has no mana. Instead, the game has a chain system. The active player will play an intention card. Then one at a time, the two players will play reaction cards to they both pass. This will be explained in more detail later, but it instead makes the crucial resource unexhausted characters and cards.
End of Turn Phase:
At the end of the turn phase, any end-of-turn effects for the active player will occur. This may also result in end-of-turn effects for the opposition player to occur sometimes.
The game will end once one player has taken three damage. The surviving player will be the winning artist. A player will also lose if they go to draw a card but can't because their deck has been depleted.
Alteration:
There are nine characters, including the expansion character DJ. Each of these characters is vastly different. This ranges from their summons, unique mechanisms, how they attack, and the amount of unique cards they have in the deck, including if they even have a deck. Some characters have different resources, like the Painter, who uses dice instead of a deck.
Some examples of these characters are the Tagger who sets up locations that help whichever player lands there;
the Dancer which jumps over opponents while he drops shards to either explode or summon his fighting fish once there are three in the location; to the DJ which has two speakers that are trying to get the opponent in the same row or column as both speaks to blast them away, while at the same time the DJ is playing tracks that will give extra movements or other benefits at the start and the finish of each track.
With the asymmetrical nature, it could be assumed that the game has a steep learning curve. To me, I would state that there is a steep learning curve to master the game and the characters, but as jumping into each character goes. I would say this is an easy asymmetrical game to learn, especially when it comes to understanding your opponent. As the information is mostly open. Since each character has the information in their summons and artist abilities face-up, and each deck only has a few unique cards.
This makes it very easy for players to get into each other's mind even in the first game with a certain character. This is great for the alteration as players can feel comfortable swapping and changing characters to they find the one they want to master.
Production:
This review is focused on the deluxe edition of the game. The production, especially for a newer company, is amazing. Player mats for the board and acrylic standees (with cardboard included if preferred).
The most important part of the components is that this is an asymmetrical game; there are tuck boxes for each character outlining the difficulty and complexity of the character.
Also, there are player guides explaining the abilities and cards as well as a character plays guide for the player and the opponent to read.
My only issue is that once everything was tucked into their tuckboxes, the plastic insert in the box was no longer useful. The other standout element is the great anime-style artwork. This is a game that is working hard to make your new favourite character stand out.
Intentions and Reactions:
There is no mana system in this game. Instead, on a turn, the active player will start a combat chain by playing an intention card (blue). This can be done numerous times a turn through the abilities (of the artist and summons) and cards played from the hand. After an intention is played, a reaction card (red) can be played in turn order. A player can choose to pass if they want and play a new reaction later until both players pass. If five cards are played on this chain in total, it will also end the chain. Like trading card games, the last card played is the first to resolve, and may make earlier played cards redundant or require some tactical decisions to re-plan. Some of these cards will have costs above the ability such as exhausting a summon/artist or declaring a zone/direction that will be used.
The interesting element about this stack is that the react cards don't have to interact with the intention cards; they could be setting up something else for a future action or gaining resources like cards.
Determination:
- Unique Theme.
- Asymmetric characters.
- The game isn't about dealing large amounts of damage, it is about manipulating the board state, trying and succeeding in setting up "checkmate" style attacks.
- A great level of transparency that allows you to read your opponent once the game is underway.
- Easy to pick up and play a character, but takes time to master that character.
- Resources (cards) are a tight resource.
- Players may dislike that there are only a few ways for each character to attack, but I believe this helps players understand their opponents and their mindset.
With Re;Act, the first thing that drew me to the anime art style and the asymmetrical gameplay. But once I played the game a few times, I realised the best element it has going is that, as a game, it makes it very easy to begin playing with whichever character you choose. While still making it easy for your opponent to understand the battlefield and how the opponent's character can perform, even if it is your first game. Most of the game is fully transparent. Plenty of the intentions and reactions come from the characters, while each player's deck is made up of only a few unique cards. This means at all times, the players have a fair chance of understanding what their opponent could do or how they can react. Each character also has a quick start understanding of the opponent to help with this transparency. Since the character's health is low, the game is about trapping your opponents, much like a checkmate in chess, you are trying to trap them so there is no way out, no way for them to react. This can be extremely rewarding when the resources and summons are gathered through numerous turns to pull off the perfect undefendable attack. If you enjoy unique head-to-head games, I easily recommend Re;Act. the chain system is incorporated perfectly and gives the players an abundance of options on how best to trap their opponent. It also really helps to highlight the vast differences each character has.
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