In April 2023, the American game publisher AEG financed the set collection game Let's Go! To Japan on KickstarterThe game's exceptional artwork and design won over over 11.000 backers. The game reached its backers in 2024 and was subsequently published in German as "Off to Japan!" by Schwerkraft Verlag as part of the Essen Spiel trade fair. Find out whether the game's gameplay is also impressive in the following review.
Your next trip is coming up. You've already decided which country you're going to. It's Japan. But what your trip will look like isn't yet clear. So, each of you tries to plan your very own dream week around the Tokyo and Kyoto regions. Whoever has planned the best trip after 13 rounds wins.
We received an English-language review copy from Alderac Entertainment Group. Therefore, some terms may differ from the German version.
Planning a dream vacation
In Let's Go! To Japan, we try to plan the perfect week in Japan. Each of the 13 rounds follows a simple principle. We draw cards, play one or two cards, and place the rest of the cards – depending on the round we are in – on the discard pile of an opponent on our right or left. Each card represents specific activities that we can perform in either Tokyo or Kyoto.
While we receive one card each from the Kyoto and Tokyo decks in the first few rounds, in later rounds we also draw all the cards from our discard pile, which an opponent has filled with discarded cards. Thus, round after round, we face new travel decisions to make.
When we play a card, we can freely choose which activity we want to place on which day of the week. Each day of the week has three slots for activities. When we play a card, we can even place it anywhere under or over cards already placed. Once placed, however, it must remain on that day and cannot be swapped with other cards from the same day.
Despite freedom there is orientation
But even though we have complete freedom with each new activity, we should be careful that our trip through Japan doesn't get too wild. For example, we shouldn't constantly switch between activities in Tokyo and Kyoto, as this would require us to take the train repeatedly, which could cost us valuable victory points in the end.
Additionally, there are activity tokens assigned to each day, which determine which type of activity you're most interested in that day. If you match these tokens with your three daily activities, you'll receive a daily bonus, which can be higher or lower depending on how many matching symbols you've accumulated during the day.
Let's go to Japan!
The order in which you lay out the cards also plays a big role when it comes to scoring. After all thirteen rounds have been played, we complete the planned journey day by day and activity by activity.
On our journey through Japan, we receive not only victory points but also experience and mood tokens for each activity we play. These allow us to move up or down the experience track, or up or down the mood track. This is important for the final card of each day—the so-called highlight of the day. Depending on which card we place in the last position of a day, we receive important bonuses (such as victory points), which, however, are only activated if certain conditions are met. Typically, we must have collected a certain number of symbols on the experience track by the day the card is activated.
The mood bar, on the other hand, determines our current mood on the trip. If we manage to move the marker over the bar, we receive a victory point boost. This also works in the opposite direction. If the marker falls to the other side, we receive a point deduction. Therefore, it's important to ensure the correct arrangement of the cards played here, so our trip doesn't turn into an absolute disaster. In the end, the person with the most points and thus the best trip in Japan wins.
Information about Let's Go! To Japan
| Number of players: 1 – 4 Age: from 10 years Playing time: 45 - 60 minutes Difficulty: Higher family game Classification: Set Collection, Drafting Author: Josh Wood Illustrations: Chaykov, Kailene Falls, Toshiyuki Hara, Magdalena Pruckner, Erica Ward Publisher: Alderac Entertainment Group, Schwerkraft Verlag Official Website: Link German version: Link Year of publication: 2024 Language: English, German Cost: $49,99 |
Conclusion
I personally really liked Let's go! To Japan. I haven't played any other game with this format and theme before. I had a lot of fun planning and perfecting my trip to Japan. However, I must say that I'm a big fan of Japanese-themed games! Players who aren't as interested in the theme might find the game monotonous. Let's go! To Japan is definitely not going to win any innovation competitions. All of the mechanics have been implemented better somewhere before. The combination of these doesn't feel particularly refreshing either. Everything just plods along.
Ultimately, what makes Let's Go! To Japan soar is the theme. You play cards that suggest and describe various activities. The descriptions are beautifully detailed and provide great information about Japan and its culture. Playing with this information and incorporating it into role-playing activities greatly enhances the entire game. The rules themselves even stipulate that the scoring should be role-played. "I was at XXX on Monday, then I visited the XXX temple to look at XXX." To have a really good time, everyone should play along. This is where the game really comes into its own!
The game also impressed me solo. Even though the core theme—the theme—played a subordinate role, it was pleasantly challenging to compete against the Travel Agent. Here, you have to place your discarded card into the Travel Agent's plan, which prompts additional considerations. He almost always gets the counterpart to the one you chose, and thus tends to build strong sets. This also allows you to focus more on the cards, the beautiful illustrations, and the informational texts.
Overall, Let's go! To Japan is a simple, rock-solid set collection game. People who are interested in the theme should definitely take a look and give it a try. Other players can also take a look, but probably don't absolutely need the game.
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