I wonder how including the diaeresis in the title of the review is going to affect the SEO of the review. It doesn’t really matter, if there’s one thing I’ve gleaned from the stats, it’s that unless I’m reviewing a brand-new game, or one that is a proven evergreen classic, SEO doesn’t pull too many eyes onto my reviews. Which means if you’re reading this post, you’re probably one of the few people who come back week after week to read my reviews, because you like the way I write, instead of seeking out the review because you have an interest in the product. So, thank you! If I described you, thank you for being here!
Yamataï, designed by Bruno Cathala and Marc Paquien and released by Days of Wonder in 2017, is a game in which players are placing ships between a dense archipelago, and either scooping up the coloured resources that are littered across most of the islands, or, if the island is empty, building one of the buildings to earn victory points and money.
The action selection mechanism is really the star of the show in Yamataï. Along the bottom of the board sit 5 action tiles face up, and 5 more face down. On your turn, you take one of the action tiles, which will provide you with a number of ships as well as a special ability for your turn. The action tile will also dictate where on the turn order track you’ll end up next round.
Your turn follows the same 5 steps each round. Pick your tile, optionally buy or sell one of your ships, then place your ships and either take the resources on the islands next to your placements, or build on an island next to your placements, then store any unused ships, and finally, trade in the resources for some special character powers. There is a lot of nuance I’m skipping over, but you get the general idea of how the game plays.
As always, publisher Days of Wonder makes some really good-looking games. Yamataï is bright and colourful, with wonderful artwork. The wooden buildings that get built are all big and chunky and satisfying to hold and look at. Just from looking at it, I don’t feel like the insert is particularly good, but the copy I played with had everything in baggies, so, I suspect it’s not. If I’m wrong, someone please correct me.
The gameplay is something that I should love. I always talk about positive player interactions in games, where my actions benefit others and vice versa, and Yamataï has some of those feelings. The ships you place out next to the islands can be used by anyone during your turns, and in fact, you’ll need to utilize the ships that others have laid out to really extend into the centre of the archipelago. This creates lots of interesting decisions on your turn. You’ll want to try and place your ships in a way that benefits you, but doesn’t create amazing opportunities for your opponents. Furthermore, several of the buildings are these special red prestiege buildings that when you choose to build them, you don’t put one of your houses on that spot, you place the big red torii or castle on that tile instead. Then, anyone who builds one of their houses on an island adjacent to one of those prestige buildings earns one extra bonus point.
Yamataï doesn’t feature luck in its design. Instead, I feel like a skilled player will dominate a table of novices. Each turn, I felt like I had a tonne of decisions to weigh and consider. At the same time, the score feels a bit flat. And by that, I mean that if I simply execute my first gut instinct move without too much thought, I’d earn, like, 3 points per round. But if I sat, and gave it a lot of thought and really squeezed my brain to make the most optimal move, I’d earn 4 points per round. Yamataï is not kind to players who get paralyzed with too many options. Even at two players, the game could drag on as players take whole minutes to consider their moves.
Although it’s important to note that the 2 player game is similar to Five Tribes, in that you get two actions per round instead of just one. It creates a lot more depth and gives players a lot more control over how they’ll shape the round. You’re able to set up a juicy scoring spot and if the tiles you took last round afford you two turns in a row, you can capitalize on that spot immediately. It’s really satisfying.
The specialists that offer players special powers can be very powerful, and it was quite fun to see new ones get revealed every round, and figuring out how they can work together is, I’m sure, the key to getting good at Yamataï. In one of my games, I was holding 40 coins when the specialist that changes the money to victory point conversion from 5 to 1 to 3 to 1. I snapped that specialist up, and the extra points it awarded me was the entire gap between first and last place.
In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with Yamataï. It’s a good game with a fine theme, great production, and fun mechanics. I would never turn down a game of Yamataï. But I also don’t think there’s anything special in this box that would encourage me to pull it off my shelf, especially sitting next to other Days of Wonders games, or Bruno Cathala games. Five Tribes is the game it most reminds me of (but let me be clear, Yamataï and Five Tribes are very different games), and I think I’d reach for Five Tribes 7 days of the week. At the highest player count, your ability to plan is just thrown out the window. There’s no catch up mechanics, there’s no randomness, there’s no real engine building or sense of acceleration. The specialists give you new actions or augment your existing ones, but each one is fairly minor, and you’ll likely see every specialist in each game, although the order in which they come out is random. The buildings are functionally the same, requiring 3 to 5 different colours of boats arbitrarily, and your ability to make clever and interesting plays feels limited to the 2 player experience.
It feels weird to be so down on Yamataï, because again, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. I like so much about it, from the action tile mechanism, to the shared building spaces, to the specialists that do combo together nicely. I had a fun time playing Yamataï, but I also doubt that I’ll ever play it again. I don’t feel like there’s anything in the game that’s really drawing me back to it. There are too many games and too little time to play games that don’t spark joy, and even though Yamataï didn’t do anything to snuff my enjoyment, there simply was no spark.
