Yokohama Board Game Review

Written by Emma Garrett

Establishing myself as a merchant in Meiji era Japan has never really been on my bucket list, but that’s the setup in this middle-weight, worker placement eurogame. Despite the theme, money isn’t the only goal, other things are important too. It’s a varied, strategic game full of ways to score points, tough decisions to make on every turn, and no single route to victory. The game builds, strategies change, it almost feels like being at the frontier of an expanding city. Discovering Yokohama is a fantastic experience.

New Version Differences

For this 2024 release, the new publishers have given the 2016 original a glow up. It plays almost identically to the previous version, but the pieces, artwork and rulebook have been redesigned to incredible effect. It feels fresh and looks great. From the box art, all the way through to the achievement tiles that have iridescent strips that make them sparkle, the game looks beautiful. And there sure is a lot of it to look at. It’s a big game with a multitude of boards, resources, meeples, coins and cards.

Playing Yokohama

Yokohama benefits from knowing that it is expansive. It is one of the most satisfying games to open and punch out, not just because there are so many pieces, but also because inside the box, everything has its place. There are trays with symbols telling you where to store each piece. The boards have indents for the assistant meeples to hold them in place. The rulebook is clear and simple, walking you through what initially seems impossibly complicated and sprawling. The player aid cards are invaluable, explaining succinctly the turns, the phases and importantly the end game conditions and scoring.

There is a brilliant mix of scoring as you go along and bonuses that you score at the end based on coming first or second in various game aspects. Each turn you choose where to place two or three of your tiny meeple assistants. They can visit different areas around the city of Yokohama, picking up resources from production areas and receiving things like order cards, or technology from the commercial districts. It’s a nifty system where an action is taken on a board when your president visits, but the strength of that action is determined by how many of your assistants are there when they do.

Review

I love the gameplay experience. Each turn, you want to build up power in various parts of the city that you hope to visit soon or eventually. But you also need to keep things widespread because your president can only walk through an area that an assistant is already in. Blocking another player is possible, but only for one turn and there are so many other actions to take that it isn’t hugely detrimental. An off-putting aspect for some will be that the assistant meeples are minuscule. Personally, I think they’re cute, but I can see how they’d be fiddly for larger hands.

Whilst nothing about playing the game particularly makes you think you’re in Japan, it will pique the interest of some, as it has for me. The introductory section on the front of the rulebook gives you the briefest of welcomes to the sleepy fishing village of Yokohama, before dropping you in to play amidst the bustling, not-big-enough-for-all-of-us city. Reading online that it went from fishing village to city in 30 years made me realise what the creator was trying to show in its busy, tussling gameplay. 

There’s something addictive about Yokohama. It reminds me of our first plays of Wingspan, early in my tabletop gaming career. That feeling of something seemingly incomprehensible resolving itself into a manageable puzzle is one of the best buzzes in gaming. 

Yokohama Game Verdict: 

This is a must-play game. If you like getting that whirring feeling going in your brain, you’ll love Yokohama. It’s more complicated, in every dimension, than Wingspan is, but if you loved that and are ready to level up, I recommend giving this a go.

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About the board game

Designer: Hisashi Hayashi

Publisher: Synapses Games

Time: 90 minutes

Players: 2-4

Ages: 13+

Price: £60

What’s in the box?

• 4 Presidents (1 in each colour)
• 92 Assistants (23 in each colour)
• 32 Shops (8 in each colour) 
• 16 Trading houses (4 in each colour)
• 4 Warehouse boards (1 in each colour) 
• 31 Copper tokens
• 31 Silk tokens
• 41 Tea tokens
• 41 Fish tokens
• 20 5-Power tokens
• 1 Station token
• 10 Foreign agent tokens
• 23 Imported good tokens
• 51 ¥1 tokens
• 16 ¥3 tokens
• 1 Starting player token
• 12 Achievement tiles (4 each of A, B and C)
• 18 Area boards (14 different areas)
• 6 Management boards
• 24 Building tiles
• 30 Technology cards
• 36 Order cards
• 4 Player summaries 
• Rulebook 
• Bags
• Organiser trays