Y2Jant Reviews: Takenoko

At this point in time, board games come in all shapes and sizes. One of these games actually holds a story behind it. Just a gift from one nation to another, which caused one person to completely lose their minds as an animal decided to have lunch with everything related to different colors of bamboo. I'm here to talk about Takenoko.

Takenoko is a 2-4 player game which places you in the middle of a pond, trying to complete objectives based upon how you make the board. You can control the Gardener, a man who can grow bamboo on the space and every space surrounding him of the same color. But you can also control the Panda, who can eat bamboo and add it to your collection. The three main colors are red, yellow, and green of bamboo you can grow and the land you choose as well. This can go hand in hand because you can be able to complete different tasks to get you the most points in the end.

As you can see, this is how the game board would look like after a couple of turns of selecting tiles. Improvements help the tiles in their own way. You can have a tile protected from the bamboo, making it impossible for the panda to eat it. You can also fertilize it to grow two bamboo stacks instead of just one. And you can have a water tile on it, making it possible to grow bamboo. The water blocks are a way to get water to the outer most tiles on the board that are far away from the center tile. Finally, you can roll the weather dice after the first round to give you an extra action, double down on a single action plus 4 other weather conditions to make the game that much interesting.

Everything about the game is just beautiful, from the bamboo wood pieces to the dice itself, the game is just beautiful in every way. You have the ability to place the tiles to meet some of your objectives. You can have the Panda cards, which allow you to eat the different colors depending on what the card needs you to have. The Gardener cards allow you to score points on how high and how many a certain color of bamboo you need to grow. And finally the Tile cards, making them set up in a shape and a color to get you the points needed to win.

There is also a Deluxe Edition of the game as well and it's giant. It has giant pieces and everything but it will cost you $300 dollars but it's a collector's piece for sure for those who like collecting those games.

Takenoko is a fun game that surprised me and my gaming buddies with such a unique set of rules and what you have to do to win the game. The pieces are beautiful and the game is simple, yet challenging at the same time. Pandas need the love and this game really delivers and everyone should at least give this game a go with family and friends alike!