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Bitoku is a relatively heavy Euro game from 2021. I’ve only played it at two players so this review will be coming from that perspective. Please note that I’ve got the Folded Space insert, so in the photos, you’ll see parts of the insert out on the board. As an aside, it’s an excellent insert that really helps with set-up and tear-down.
It's easy to tell that the game was inspired by Miyazaki films and I can strongly recommend playing it with the Princess Mononoke soundtrack playing in the background.
How Does It Play
On your turn, you will either be placing one of your three dice out on the board or playing a card out to your player board, releasing one of your locked dice that you can then use.
Your dice never get rolled. They start at three, two, and one, and can then be changed throughout the game. If you place your die in the lower half of the board, below the river, the action you can take depends on the value of your die; the higher the value, the stronger the action. On a later turn, you can move one of these previously placed dice to another dice placement spot across the river, but when you do so, the value of the die is reduced by one, and if it had a value of six, it gets reduced all the way down to a three.
There are lots of ways to make points in the game and many paths to victory. It’s good that you can focus on different aspects in each game.
What’s Good About It
There are limited dice placement spots on the board, and much of the fun in the game comes from trying to unlock your dice and time when you place your dice to make sure you get the juicy actions and cards instead of your opponent.
On our first play, we were not impressed by the bonuses that let you unlock one of your dice, freeing it up for placement on your next turn. It felt like a wasted bonus. How wrong we were. They are the most cutthroat bonus in the game. Get one of those, and suddenly you can jump ahead of your opponent, grabbing the action you desperately need and setting yourself up for moving across the river and getting a card that will make you a stack of points.
At any time, you can give up one of your pilgrim counters to unlock a die, but those counters are in short supply, and you want to keep them for other scoring opportunities within the game. But the option is there if you’re desperate.
My main concern with this game, as with all heavy Euros, was that if I left the game for a while, I would have to completely relearn the game again when I came back to it. This wasn’t the case at all. We only had to look up a few minor rules, and we were straight back into it. That makes this a game that will stay in my collection as opposed to some other heavy Euros that I’ve got rid of due to the relearning problem.
The turns are short and snappy. I can see that the game would be okay to play at three players because of this. The dual-layer board has an alternate side where you can slot in board pieces to change the dice placement spots for three or four players. Saying that, I’m very happy with how it plays at two players, and I’m not sure whether the increased interaction would be worth the time the extra player would add.
Components
The game's components are amazing overall. Initially, the gorgeously colourful board looks so busy that it will hamper functionality, but this isn’t the case at all. Every dice placement spot is easy to see. It comes with wooden resources, some of which are screen printed. The bog standard version feels like a massively deluxified game.
My one problem with the components is the translucent dice. It is sometimes hard to see the value of the dice because you can see through to pips on the other faces. This is mostly a problem with the yellow dice. I would have preferred solid dice. But I’m nit-picking.
Scores
Total Score 85/100
Artwork 5/5
Complexity 4/5
Replayability 4/5
Player interaction 3/5
Component Quality 5/5
You Might Like:
· The dice placement
· The multiple paths to victory
· The quick, snappy turns
· The ability to come back to a heavy Euro without relearning the whole game
· The colourful board!
Might Not Like:
· The colourful board; you may find it too busy for your tastes
· The translucent dice
· It is a pretty heavy game, and the first teach can be a handful
Conclusion
I’d recently gone off heavy Euros due to the proliferation of too many procedures that need to be followed, but the theme and colourful nature of this game brought me back into the fold. The initial teach can seem a tad overwhelming, as there are a lot of names for the different areas and tokens that, quite frankly, can be instantly forgotten without any impact on the gameplay. It’s not something that I would play at the drop of a hat, I have to be in the mood, but it is a game that I thoroughly enjoy when I play it and it’s staying in my collection.
