Neko Syndicate had me at cat clans. The premise is that a feline-led organized crime clan is vying to take over the sushi trade in Japan. Anyone who has spent any time around cats knows they are diabolical. Cute. But diabolical. Cats are furry little overlords who demand our attention, food, and devotion; on their terms only. So I one hundred percent believe that they are ruthless enough to attempt to take over the trade from an aging Kumicho. How soon can I play?
My own two furry beasts were gracious enough to allow me room on my game table for a few rounds of Neko Syndicate. All while carefully watching to see if my human brain could keep up with theirs. I don’t imagine it’s much of a spoiler alert to say they did not approve of my strategy. The real question, though, is did I win? Let’s see.
Gameplay Overview:
Neko Syndicate is played over fifteen rounds. Each round, you either draw minions or place them in your pyramidal tableau. Then you move your single worker from top to bottom through the tableau. On each card, you play one of two available actions.
The card actions include taking sushi cubes from your warehouse, exchanging sushi types, moving sushi cubes (either up or down card levels or using a subway line), or cooking sushi into nigiri. The number of times you can perform each action is dictated by the level of the card within the pyramid. Actions from a card on the second row can only be performed twice. Actions on cards from the fourth (bottom) row can be performed four times.
Each card has a sushi/nigiri order at the top, and once cubes are moved into the corresponding spaces, the order is completed. Points are awarded for every cube in an order at the end of 15 rounds (the entire order doesn’t have to be complete). Points are subtracted for cubes that are on cards but do not fill an order. Additional points can be earned from three missions randomly selected at the beginning of the game. The mission points are determined by which round you are playing when you complete the mission. So completing them early earns more points.
Game Experience:
This review is based on solo play only.
Fifteen rounds sounds like a lot, but this game plays very fast. The strength of your actions is something you need to be cognizant of, but more critical is the sequence. If you have an order with four nigiri slots but can only cook two at a time, it’s going to take multiple rounds of completing the cook action to complete that order. You only get one action type per level. Subway actions let you move pieces side to side across the board as well as up or down, and this can be super helpful, but you also need to pay attention to where the subway lines actually connect. Similarly, generating lots of red cubes only helps if you can also exchange those cubes for the colors you need to complete orders.
It sounds like a lot to keep straight, but it’s a very smooth-running game once you get familiar with the rules and the action limitations. For solo mode, you simply play your fifteen rounds, then, before scoring, you build a solo bot pyramid with the discarded minion cards and fill slots with the cubes allocated to the bot. A chart in the rulebook tells you which round to assign the bots’ mission completion markers. Solo difficulty can be increased by selecting more challenging mission rounds and allocating more sushi cubes to the bot.
The game has a quick setup and tear down: collect cubes, shuffle two decks of cards, and then start. Rounds are tracked with a round marker token representing Kumicho, the cat clan leader you are trying to impress. I left the game out, and Kumicho went missing. I later found him under the bookshelves, so it would appear my cats gave up on impressing him and overthrew him in the time-honored feline tradition of knocking him off the table.
Final Thoughts:
Neko Syndicate has a cute premise and lovely artwork. It plays fast and smoothly with a short learning curve. This one is a definite keeper. It’s a nice little puzzle, and it feels really satisfying to see your entire pyramid complete and running smoothly. The biggest drawback is that the pyramids can take up a surprising amount of table space.
Final Score: 4 Stars – This is a great game for a couple of quick rounds to help you chill out and limber up the brain muscles.
Hits:
• Great artwork – very thematic
• Easy learning curve
Misses:
• Table space needs to be considered
I would say mechanics-wise it’s more straight forward. The art on the clan leader cards though does add to the overall theme. There’s one that every time I look at it, I just know she’s plotting something.