Azure Review- If Splendor Was an Abstract Game!
Transcript
Hello my friends. Today it's all about the beasts and trying to control them like the blue dragon, the white tiger, the red bird or orange bird uh and the the black turtle because you're trying to control these beasts to help you win the game. This is Azure. This is designed by one of my favorite duo tag team design teams. Uh Brett Gilbert and Trevor Benjamin. They've done amaz tons and tons of great games. Lots of them two-player games. one of my favorite mandala. So, let's take a look at this. This is from Bitewing Games. I'll show you how to play it. I'll see you on the other side.
Before I get to the moment you've been waiting for, I wanted to tell you about finding your grill game at Noble Knight Games. Grill games are games that you've always wanted, but are no longer in print and very hard to find. Hence, finding the holy grail. Noble Knight buys and sells pre-owned games and developed a condition grading system from 30 years of experience from buying and selling games so you know exactly what you're getting. Maybe it's the top 100 game Mech versus Minions that only had and ever will have one printing. Or maybe the slipcase version of the classic game Acquire from the 1960s. So go on your holy grail quest at Noble Knight Games by clicking the link in the description of this video or on the eye up there in the upper right. Now, this game's all about the beasts. There's four beasts. You have the black tortoise, you have the red bird, you have the white tiger, and the blue dragon or as your dragon. And each of these have their own cards as well as some nice artwork. And you're going to be trying to control these beasts to score points. It is a race for points because you could try to be the first one to get to the 25 to win. Now, this is an abstract game and each of these tiles are double-sided and they are randomized. And so, it's random where they are, what side is where, and flipped. And so there's actually 10,000 different setups that this game has. So every game is going to feel a little bit different. So here we have them there.
And there's a specific spot for each of the beasts and these are called mountains. On your turn, you're simply going to try to place a stone somewhere and get some reward for it. But there's a cost. Now the first player starts with one card in their hand and the second player starts with two cards in their hand. And so let's say I'm the start player and I want to go here. This is on the white board. So I have to spend one white card. Now, for the most part, the cards are face up decks because you're going to be grabbing these cards. But there is a hidden deck as well that you'll be drawing from at some points as well that you the other player won't know what you take. Now, here I played one white card and I can go here. Well, I can go here cuz it's white. And this little circle, these are serpents. This these are always the ones that cost one. And it costs one because there's one thing in inside of it. So I will spend one white card to go here and my reward uh is going or bond as they call it is going to get or sorry boon is going to get one black card. So I place here and I pick up a black card into my hand. Now let's say the second player they play one blue card. Blue card means they're going to play on the blue board. Any of the serpents has just one thing. So they're going to play one blue card.
They're going to go here and they're going to get one red card as a reward because that's what's in the middle. So let's say this next player uses their black card. Now, normally this would cost one black card because there's only one thing in here. But because they have a stone, at least you look at the the the row and column. If I want to go here, I look in this column and I look in this row, these mountains block, so only I can only go right here and I get a discount. So, this would normally cost me one, but because I have one stone here, it's actually free. So, I'd go here and I would get a red card. Now, this uh specific thing now in this column, next turn, I'll have a discount of two in this column. So if I want to go here, I can go here for free because this has two things, a point and a card. So this would cost me normally two, but I could go here for free. This would get me four points. I have a discount of two. I could go here for two black cards and just get four points. So it's engine building in that way. However, this is a beast. And then this beast special way is the serpents. So whoever gets two serpents first, this light blue player has two of them. They get to get this beast. they will collect this beast and they get to place one of their stones on here. Now this acts as you're guarding that mountain. And so now this row here, this spot and this spot I have a discount of two. Uh and then the rest of this row here, here I have a discount of one. So this acts as like it's a stone for discounts there. However, this spot for this player normally would cost two.
They have a discount of one and they only have to play one blue to go here. They're going to get a point and a black card. Now they have two in line with this. And so what they get to do is they get to take the white dragon. This gains them two points immediately. Now if later on the blue player is able to get more than two and this shows up, down, left, right. So anywhere in the line um it that's not blocked by other mountains. If the light blue player can get more than them, meaning they need three total because they have two, they would take this from them. The player losing it would lose the two points. The player gaining it would gain the two points. So maybe this light player goes here for free. It costs two, but they have a discount of two. So they'll go here. They get a point and a red card. Let's say this player, this normally costs two because it's one, two, but they have two. They go here for free.
They get a point and a white card. Now they have solidified their lead. They now have three for the tiger where the light blue only has one. So they've solidified their lead for the tiger. However, that opens it up for the light blue player to now try to take the dragon. Now they actually have two red cards. So they're going to go here for two red cards. get a white card and a point. But now they're have one stone in line with the dragon and they have a second stone in line with the dragon. You see up down left right arrows and now they're able to take the dragon which gets them three points. But again, if now the the darker player is able to beat them and having three in line with the dragon, they'll take it from them, gain three points by losing their opponent three points. Now the last piece I haven't talked about is the red one. If you play two stones anywhere on the red one, you get a two two cards from the from the hidden deck. So, the other player doesn't know what you have in your hand. But again, if the other player gets more than you, you must discard cards and they will get two cards from the uh the deck. That's pretty much it. It's a race to 25 points. Whoever gets it first is the winner. There's also an advanced variant that comes with the base game. Each one gets a special stone and then one of these cards are selected for the game.
These two cards, you spend one more card than normal. these two cards, you would spend two more cards than normal. And then you put your special stone instead of that stone and then activates an ability. Like your special stone wins ties for favor of the beast or take an extra reward chosen from those in the space when you play a stone into the spaces that surround your stone, your special stone or it provides two extra bonuses or you can do things in diagonally. So everything diagonally counts as a discount. So all different ways really easy to play with but adds a little bit more depth. There's also a Cosmos expansion available. Now, these come with two large boards, the double-sided. They have different colors on each side. And again, randomized. You don't know which boards are going to be the big ones, uh, and which ones will be the little ones, and it's still randomized setup. These bigger boards now give you more access to more spots, which could be better for engine building, but they also have a new special boon or reward for you, these yellow circles. And there's this yellow board and a yellow dragon here. And so, for every yellow circle you get, you move this towards you. If you pass this, you get a point and a card of your choice. If you move a pass here, you get a point and a card of your choice. If you move it to the end, you win immediately. But if the opponent pulls this away, you lose a point and you lose a card of your choice. So, another area of depth.
Before I get to the moment you've been waiting for, I wanted to let you know that Game Toppers is giving 15% off premium game mats and accessories specifically to my US and Canada audience using code game boygeeek 15 off for a limited time only. hear more about this at the end of my final thoughts. All right, as I mentioned in the overview, uh I'm a little biased here because I do love this tag team design duo. Mandala is one of my favorite games ever. Uh and they just do a lot of great things. And so this game that that's my biases coming in. I like these. I like two-player games. I like abstract games. I like Splender. So here we go. Uh beautiful art. I mean, this is beautiful art and production. It just looks nice. I love the stones. They're sort of heavy. They're not little cheap things and they're smooth. They just feel nice in your hand. It just adds a a nice touch to the game. So, let's talk about this mechanically. Uh, essentially, and the reason why I mentioned Splender is because this essentially is like you're kind of playing Splender, but you're doing it in an abstract game. It just it's engine building, but abstract. It's a very different twist on that. Uh, and I'm not saying this is a ripoff of Splender. They're two completely different games, but it gives that feeling of, hey, do I got to get this engine building. I got got to get these things. Oh, I can do this for free now.
And things like that. But sometimes you don't want to because you really got to turn to points to try to win the game. It's a race. So a lot of it has of a framework of the things that you think about in Splender, but it feels completely different because it's an abstract game. Uh I like that you're placing to both gain cards and points because you know card is giving you more options and if you can't make a move on your turn, you lose. Which is like sometimes you can back yourself up into a corner or your opponent can see that you're sort of backed up in the corner because you just had a big play and you got no cards. if they can block you from being able to play uh you you know you'll lose there. So placing a gain cards which gives you some more opportunities. You're thinking that pretty much forces you to think one to two turns ahead. And a lot of times you might just have one or two choices and you're like okay not bad. If I go here it's going to get me this which then next turn I can go here or there which means next turn I can go there there or there. Hm. Okay. But if I go here and you do that thing up for the next permutation and it's like you're thinking ahead but it's not like too crazy and I like that because you can't think too far ahead in this game but you can think ahead and it's it's it's great in that regard. I like that all four mountains. It's sort of like the longest road in Katan. You're sort of fighting over them. Now granted once one person gets one of those uh beasts it's not easy to drag them back cuz once they have the lead you don't just have to tie them, you have to pass them to get it.
And so they you got to decide, am I going to spend if someone goes and ties me on something, am I going to spend to then get the lead again and worry that they might take it or am I going to solidify that lead that might take me away of something else I'm trying to do? And those are the tough decisions that you have to make in this game that are just fantastic. I love that aspect about this game. [snorts] I like that the mountains block the engine building because every game is 10,000 different setups because the boards are randomized where they are. they have two sides and then of course what side is facing where and I like it because some games there'll be great spots where like hey this intersects both the tiger and the dragon where some of us like oh man if I go here I'm blocked on both sides by it's like right in between two mountains it's not great for my engine building and so there there's lots of interesting twists here with just the abstract nature and the setups make you makes you play differently and that's another thing that's great about this game the replayability is off the charts that randomized setup really makes every game feel different the opportunities are different. This is one of those games where at the beginning of the game, right when it's set up, you're going to stare at the board for 5 minutes and you're going to try to come up with a good plan, at least what's the best thing to do right off the bat and some of the main points of what the setup is going to give you or not give you.
You're going to kind of formulate your plan. So, yes, you're doing the same thing every game, but every game's going to feel different because of that randomized abstract setup. It's I think this game is unlimited replayability. I like that it's a race to 25 points. Uh because it is a race, it gets tense. Uh that's why sometimes pulling a, you know, the dragon or the tiger away from the other player can really swing things because it's like, hey, I get three points, you lose three points. Uh you gota find the right times to do those. Sometimes trying to force the other player not to play to win. This game packs a huge punch in a short amount of time. I mean, we're talking 15 minutes usually for a game of this. And man, it's great. Advanced variant. I like it. Um I don't see why you wouldn't play with this pretty much anytime because you don't actually have to activate it. It's the one with the little stones and you pay one or two extra but you get a special ability that that game and those abilities change. There's also an expansion available which I which I kind of showed a little bit in the overview and I like that too. I like the bigger boards. I like that new thing that gives sort of the seven wonders dual military track pulling where you're getting things possibly losing things but an immediate win condition that you just can't ignore. And also with the bigger boards, it gives you a little bit more rooms to, you know, some of the boards are bigger, so you could get extra or better sort of engine building with those. So once I've played the game once, I don't see why I would play without the the expansion. I think it's really good. Now granted, if you don't have the expansion, the base game is absolutely amazing by itself. Uh you don't even have to use the the advanced variant. It's a fantastic game as it is. Uh but I I do like the expansion. Um, anything negative about
the game? Well, sometimes you can forget to check for beasts control. Like sometimes you just put something and it's like, "Oh, I didn't realize that one actually adds to this one. I forgot you had two. I have now I have three. I'll take it." Sometimes you can forget to sort of check for the beasts. Little upkeep thing there. Um, the the black one is sort of easy to forget as they're sort of all spread out and it's like, "Oh, right. You did just beat me in serpents over there because you have one over here, one over here." It happens once in a while. Um, the icons on the mountains, I think they could have been improved. The the they're not great. The the the way that the just the icons on there could have been better. I think the sometimes they it actually tells you to put the the beast right on the mound. That actually hinders your view of the icon. So, new players can't like see all of them, especially the ones that are like pointing in different directions. So, I just kind of like put them off to the side of that board. Uh the terminology makes the game when if you're reading this and learning this from the rules more complicated than it really is. I think the terminology actually hinders the game with the boons and the bonds and you're like okay boons and bonds. They're kind of similar just in the way they said but one is this one is that it it just domains like I think they tried to get cute with the theme and the rules with the theme. It's just very abstract anyways. They should have just kept the terminology more abstract.
Small little nitpicks because this game is amazing. I would be absolutely shocked if this isn't in my top five two-player games of the year at the end of the year. And it's going to be in the lead for that for a while, I think, because this game is it is at the level that I have given my two-player games of the year in the past years. It is that good. And for all these reasons, I'm keeping in my gaming library. Love this game. Azure. So, let's give it a saxophone serenade. Here we go.
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