Board game review of Urbion: A Face from the Past

When inPatience – the new home of the Oniverse – was founded in 2022, in addition to the novelty Stellarion also reissues all previously published Oniverse titles. Only the direct successor to Onirim There wasn't one. Urbion, originally released in 2012, wasn't forgotten, however; it was thoroughly revised and now appeared in its second edition at last year's SPIEL. We took a look at it.

According to the BGG ranking, Onirim the most popular title in the Oniverse. urbion is in last place with the first edition. As a successor to the successful title, it had urbion Not easy, which is a shame, because despite the obvious parallels, it's a very good and, above all, standalone game. The new edition includes seven expansions, more than three times the original.

In the library city of dreams, the Sognae (happy dreams) and Incubi (sad dreams) live in a delicate balance. If you play urbion, it's the players' job to maintain this balance. This task isn't exactly easy.

Simple mechanics with a big challenge

The basic game has very simple rules. You only have to remember two actions and a few rules to maintain the balance in urbion to keep.

Before you can use these actions, however, you first have to set up the city. To do this, you reveal four of the twelve city cards and place them one below the other. These city cards each show two of the four possible elements that determine which cards you may place there. However, these elements are not relevant during setup. For each city card, you draw two dream cards and place them next to the city card according to their mood—the Sognae on the left and the Incubi on the right.

With four cards in hand, you then plunge into the hustle and bustle of the city. You choose a card from your hand to discard. Depending on its mood and element, you either play it next to a city card (maximum three on each side), or you discard it to swap two placed cards or perform a census.

During the census, you check whether the city cards are in balance. If they are, you place the city card on the success pile and discard all dream cards. For city cards that are not in balance, you may discard any cards from the left and right that have the same total value.
If you manage to have all four city cards in balance at the same time during the census, you may place another city card on the success pile.

Then you draw a card to get four cards back in your hand. Chaos cards can be a problem here. If you get one instead of a normal dream card, you have to resolve it. You have three options, none of which are particularly appealing. You can play it next to a city card on the stronger side. Alternatively, you can discard it and use it to discard more cards from the dream deck, or you can remove all dream cards next to a city card that's in balance.

As soon as you have all twelve city cards in your success pile, you win the game. If you have to draw a dream card when the draw pile is exhausted, you lose.

Information about Urbion

Conclusion

urbion is unfairly overshadowed by the other Oniverse games. It has everything that defines the series and offers sylvion by far the biggest challenge when it comes to winning.

Mechanically, you can feel the proximity to Onirim Quite strong. You again have cards in your hand that you can either add to or discard for an effect, and a card type that has negative effects when drawn. The effect triggered by discarding is a bit more sophisticated, and the "evil" cards are also a bit more versatile, but the core still feels similar.

In the subtleties, urbion But then it becomes clearer. Above all, it's anything but easy to win the game, especially in the base game. You're pretty much defenseless against the Chaos cards, which can be frustrating, especially if they're toward the bottom half of your deck. The first four expansions provide a remedy, each introducing new City and Dream cards that give you more control. These are a must-play for me in any combination. The subsequent expansions tend to introduce new elements into the game, but weren't tested significantly for this review.

Visually, the new edition fits perfectly into the Oniverse, and like all the other games, I really like it. As always, there's nothing to complain about with the material either.

The game's high difficulty makes it appealing even in the long run, but I also think the expansions are needed to provide just that little bit more control and variety. Despite the simple mechanics, the basic gameplay hardly wears out.

urbion was and is a worthy successor of Onirim and despite its 10 years, it is still fully convincing today. Whether to complete the collection or as a new entry into the Oniverse urbion a full recommendation.