by zinho73
Let’s get to the point: Ninjato is a very good game. It is a worker placement that borrows a lot of its mechanisms from Stone Age but with a different, well implemented theme and with a bit more depth.It may be tiresome to compare it once again with Stone Age, but to me it is really the easiest way to talk about the game. However, it must be said that the differences between the games are enough that Ninjato does not feel like a rip off. It is different enough to be its own thing.
In a nutshell, each player is a ninja trying to prove himself to the most influential clans in Japan. You do that by placing shourikens in areas of the board and executing the action of that place. In this process you will:
. Kill or evade guards to get goods (the equivalent of harvesting resources in Stone Age);
. Buy cards to get points (the equivalent of buying cards and buildings to get points in Stone Age).
. Improve you ninja to improve your chances in the game (the equivalent of using tools, farms and more people to improve your chances in Stone Age).
The mechanism that most differentiate Ninjato from Stone Age is the beating or evading guards to get resources, as this action exerts direct influence in the points available in three different score phases of the game.
The other two major differences would be in the way your tools work and an “area majority” thing concerning the types of cards you can get during the game. In the end, the differences are just enough to give the game its own feel and dynamics.
The production values of the game are top notch and if you are into worker placement games it is almost impossible for you to not have fun with Ninjato.
That said, I still think Stone Age is the better game. In Ninjato you have a bit more to think about (which is good), but you have less control of the environment and one lucky break can easily give you the game. What hurts Ninjato a little bit is a slight excess of random things:
The Tools
In Stone Age you have the tools, the farm and the family action (yeay, Agricola reference! Gain two points). You know what they do and their availability depends only of player actions. In Ninjato you have the dojo skills that serve several functions and are dealt randomly. You can invest in the tiger skill initially and see yourself forced to change gears because of bad draws. Also, the cards that complement those skills are also dealt randomly.
Granted, after you build your skills a bit, the whole thing is much less random than rolling dice, but I just think that the Stone Age system is just more reliable, especially in the beginning of the game.
Also, if you got a bad hand of cards to deal with in Ninjato you are kind of stuck with it for the turn at least, while in Stone Age, each new dice roll comes fresh with possibilities.
The goods
In Stone Age the goods are also always the same, in the same spot with the same probabilities. Fair if you think it is dull, but this setup favors planning. You might fail but you know the risks.
In Ninjato you know the risks of the fight to get the goods (and in some games by the middle of it there will be no risk at all as some ninja techniques are very powerful) and you get an idea of the goods you will get.
However, if the alarm sounds, new goods are introduced and this new good might be something inconsequential or a coin, which serves as a wild for any other good in the game. It is like going for wood in Stone Age and coming back home with some gold on the side.
If this new good happens to be one that was not previously available that will allow you to buy the card that no one else can, you are set.
The cards
There two sets of cards available to buy: one that gives you points by the end of the game and those are fine.
The other set gives you points in the middle of the game based on who controls the majority of three different colors. I like the dynamic those cards provide, with players trying to surpass each other. For the most part, this works well, because most of the cards give you an option of which goods to use on them. That said, some cards combinations can take the control of the game out of your hands completely.
It is possible to at least try to make an untouchable player lose points, but this is easier said than done because a series of other factors will come into play, including other players’ interest in the same faction of the untouchable player. In Stone Age all you need to block your opponent is turn order, which leads me to the last “problem” I see in Ninjato:
The player engine
In Ninjato, as in Stone Age, you accumulate tools during the game to get better in mitigating bad luck. Ninjato tools are even a little more efficient at that, but in Ninjato you never upgrade the amount of actions you have per turn, which makes an enormous tactical difference. In Stone Age is simply easier to block other players and work on a plan B and you can try to mitigate bad luck in your own terms, which I find more interesting.
Final words
Ninjato is a good time, but the way it chooses to handle luck is not ideal to me. A bad turn of events in Ninjato or in Stone Age can be very frustrating but in Ninjato, the card you didn’t buy or the tile you didn’t get might haunt you for the whole game. In Stone Age you can recover more easily because what you lost in the last round (because of luck) will have no direct influence in your next plays and, because you have more actions in Stone Age, you will have the tools to work on a plan B.