My friend introduced me to this game because he knew I am a sucker for game with good aesthetic design and a fan of the fantasy-genre. The ‘Van Helsing-esque’ premise was interesting enough but there is no available review (and Japanese was not our proficient language…). Yet the game was not that expensive, so I gave it a try and it turned out to be a pleasant surprise.

The Components:
1 Game board - functions both as a battleground where the characters duke it out and a HP track to indicate the health of each character.
6 Area Cards – each card has a number (or two) and its own special functions
10 Character Cards – in 3 different fractions: Hunter, Shadow and Neutral
16 Hermit Cards – help you to ‘guess’ the identity of another player
16 White Cards/ 16 Black Cards – provide you with an assortment of “Equipment” and “Single-Use” cards to aid you or hinder you in combat and survival.
16 Wooden Marker – come in 8 colored-pair, one serving as the “Player Piece” on the battleground area and the other as the “HP Piece” on the HP track.
8 Player Card – come in corresponding colors with the wooden markers
1 4-side Dice/ 1 6-sided Dice – use for movement and combat

The Basic:
This is a character-driven game and the objective is really about achieving the “Winning Condition” of your randomly picked character at the beginning of the game. In order to achieve the winning condition, you will have to figure out ways to either eliminate characters on a different side or ways to survive till the game end. A game is ended if one of the characters has achieved his or her winning condition.

If you have chosen a “Hunter” character, your winning condition will be: “All the Shadow Characters are dead”; and if you have chosen a “Shadow” character, your winning condition will be: “All the Hunter characters are dead OR 3 Neutral characters are dead”. If you have chosen a “Neutral” character, the winning condition will be a little tricky as it varies between different “Neutral” characters (e.g. Allie’s winning condition is: “You are not dead when the game is over”; Charles’ winning condition is: “At the time you kill another character, the total number of dead characters is 3 or more”). So, instead of being the cannon folders between the epic battle of good and evil as the game description may imply, these “Neutral” characters are actually fun and challenging and can significantly affect players’ dynamic as the game progresses. The assortment of character fractions varies with the number of players in a game (e.g. 5 players: 2 Hunter, 2 Shadow, 1 Neutral; 8 players: 3 Hunter, 3 Shadow, 2 Neutral, etc) and this in turn produces different gaming dynamic when different number of players are involved.

A regular turn consists of, first rolling both the 4-side dice and 6-sided dice to determine where your “Player Piece” will move among the Area Cards, and then you will have a choice of performing special function on each Area Cards (e.g. dealing damage to another character, drawing cards from different card piles, etc). Before your turn ends, you can also choose to attack another character within your attack range. Combat is determined by again rolling the two dice and damage is equaled to the difference between the two dice roll; if the dice roll is the same, the attack is not successful. A damaged character will move his or her “HP Piece” on the HP track, when the damage equals to or exceeds the character base HP, he or she dies. Sounds simple enough? Here are the twists.

First, this game enables multiple winners. As long as a character’s winning condition is met at the end of the game, he or she is a winner regardless whether he or she is the first to meet the winning condition. This setting encourages players with common winning condition to work together but the identity of each character is concealed in the beginning of the game. The fun is by using the “Hermit Card”, the game offers you a way to guess the identity of others. Every time you draw a “Hermit Card”, you will play it on another player and he or she will have to follow the instruction regarding his or her character type and acts accordingly. The effects ranges from the simple (e.g. “I bet you are a Shadow. If so, you receive 2 damage!”) to the slightly more complicate (e.g “I bet you’re either a Neutral or Hunter. If so, you must either give an Equipment card to the current player or receive 1 damage!”). Judging from the response of the other player, you will have some idea on his or her true identity. You can’t lie when you receive a “Hermit Card”, unless your character is the Shadow “Unknown” which allows you to lie due to its special ability. Therefore, while the “Hermit Card” helps you identify the character fraction of the other players, the “Unknown” possibility is always present, so it always keeps you second-guessing.

Second, each character has its own special ability but when you activate the ability, you must reveal the identity of your character (except some special character like “Unknown”). The abilities are useful as they generally gear toward helping you achieve your winning condition, but what you gain in strength, you will sacrifice in secrecy, so choosing the right time to activate your ability is the key. Finally, there are hosts of “Equipment” and “Single Use” cards from the Black/White card decks to either assist you or hurt you.

The Good:
My gaming group has played the game several times and the feedbacks are pretty good:

Nice artwork - If you like games with good design and graphics, this game doesn’t disappoint. The character designs are in top-notch Anime-style (the “Vampire” and “Werewolf” characters look surprisingly like Demitri and J. Talbain form Capcom’s Darkstarlkers…) and the overall game design is in the tradition of Art Deco. It’s the little detail like an owl on branch on the HP track or the little digital effect on the “Underworld Gate” (an Area Card) that gives out the eerie sense of supernatural that fits well with the theme of the game. Also the cards themselves are quite sturdy, they should hold for multiple plays.

Balanced Characters - The characters are well balanced. There isn’t a particularly overpower character in the lot. Their special abilities, winning conditions, HP are carefully considered to help you remain a competitive edge no matter which character you have picked. From the games that we played, players controlling Hunter, Shadow or Neutral all have a fair share of winnings, so no particular fraction is better than the others.

Fast Pace Action – A standard game runs about 45 min and there is no down time in between. While the game runs fast, there is still good amount of strategy involved in terms of guessing the identities of others, position yourself in the right area when you have a choice (on a roll of 7, you get to choose which area you want to go), picking the right time to attack and using your special ability are also crucial to help you win. And while the Hunter and Shadow’s purpose are clear, the presence of a Neutral often gives the game a surprising turn because of their different winning conditions (e.g. one Neutral Character “Daniel” actually wins if he is the first to die. That will certainly motivates some interesting approach to the game). This element changes the gaming dynamic a little every time we play and in turn increasing its ‘replayability’.

Good for Large Group – The game actually works well in a 6-8 players setting. While we may have a slightly slower start because we need more time to figure out the identities of each other but it never became a drag.

The Bad:
Can’t Hold Cards – While all the Hermit and Black/White cards are useful but the downside is that you MUST use them when you draw them. Without having a hand, it limits strategic options and reduces the usefulness of the cards to the luck of your draw.

The Peculiar:
Moving between Areas – the game has an ingenious design of organizing the six Area Cards in pair and confining the characters’ basic attack range within their currently situated area pair. It limits your attack option and actually making it important to consider your moving option though its just 6 simple possibilities. This safeguards some pitfalls in this type of ‘killing games’. For example, if a Shadow wants to activate his or her ability, he or she will have to reveal his or her true identity and running the risk of drawing open fires from all the Hunters among the players. But this limitation on the attack range puts some constraints on the Hunters because they have to be in close proximity with the Shadow in order to attack him or her. My gaming group is still exploring its potential but it is quite an interesting part of the game.

Intriguing Ratio - The combined use of 4-side dice and 6-side dice produce probability that is not frequently seen in games. We will all expect a 2 6-side dice or just 1 6-side dice for these sorts of games, I’m not too keen on numbers but this unique combination certainly produce some interesting result.

The Remark:
This is no Power Plant or Puerto Rico, but it is a bit similar to Citadel (in terms of the special abilities of the character seriously influencing the game), Bang! (in terms of similar secret identity issue which condition the way you play and win the game) and Munchkin (in terms of using every tricks you process to beat your friends to the goal), only it runs faster and more balanced among the characters. If you like games that have fast action, good player interaction, and enjoy the harmless fun of killing your friends in the gaming process with a good fantasy theme, this one has it all.

We are looking forward to its expansion in English already! Anyone out there who can translate the Japanese from the expansion characters? Help… please?