Ra (1999)

The reviewer highly praises Ra as a classic auction game that remains excellent in its new edition, highlighting its straightforward gameplay and appealing components which enhance the strategic bidding experience.

“The reviewer highly recommends Ra, calling it potentially the best auction game available due to its quick, easy, and deep gameplay, and its unique bid token mechanic.”

“Ra is considered by the reviewer as potentially the best auction game available, praised for its quick and easy gameplay that still offers significant depth, making it highly replayable and recommendable for those open to auction mechanics.”

“Ra has quickly ascended to become one of my favorite games. It’s interesting, very interactive, and all this in a package that is easy to teach, takes right around an hour to play, and has good components to boot.”

The reviewer enthusiastically recommends 'Ra,' describing it as a fantastic, beautiful, and well-designed Eurogame that everyone should own due to its effective gameplay and enjoyable experience.

The reviewer enthusiastically praises Ra as an excellent and timeless board game, highlighting its dramatic auction mechanics and declaring it the best auction game ever designed by Reiner Knizia.

The reviewer enthusiastically recommends Ra as a timeless classic in auction board games, highlighting its elegant simplicity and the engaging tension created by its unique one-bid auction mechanic.

The reviewer highly recommends "Ra" as a timeless classic auction game, praising its simple rules, deep strategic bidding, and constant tension. While acknowledging issues with the artwork of the reviewed edition and the lack of included player mats for score tracking, the core gameplay is considered excellent and an absolute must-play.

“Ra delivers on the promise made by its components – it feels like a classic: simple to learn and hard to master. The auction is only one time around the table and you can only bid your sun disks, but it provides the tension I’d expect from an auction.”

“This makes every tile draw and every bid an excruciating elevator of excitement as you try and force players to bid on tiles they’d prefer to avoid while not getting caught in that trap yourself. This is back in print with a deluxe new edition that is gorgeous to behold.”

The reviewer enthusiastically praises 'Ra' as a brilliant and enduring auction game that uniquely keeps all players deeply invested in every auction, offering a fast-moving and engaging experience that has stood the test of time.

“Ra is an engaging board game that combines elements of auction and set-collection within an Ancient Egyptian theme. Players are immersed in a competition of power and fame across 1500 years of Egyptian history, condensed into an intense gaming experience.”

“Ra is a blast of an auction game. The combination of the push-your-luck mechanics with a simple auctioning system is guaranteed to spike your blood pressure.”

The reviewer highly praises Ra as a classic, pure, and accessible auction game that provides a ridiculously good and intricate experience, although it can become repetitive after numerous plays; he is excited to add this new edition to his collection.

The reviewers praise Ra as a classic and tight auction game, highlighting its tense decision-making and the significant improvements to player aids in the new edition, making it easy to teach and highly enjoyable.

Rahdo considers 'Ra' to be a deceptively deep and highly engaging auction game that he frequently praises, despite noting that its pacing can sometimes feel slow or awkward.

Actualol considers Ra a highly engaging and easy-to-understand auction game that offers interesting decisions and memorable gameplay moments, largely due to its unique bidding mechanism.

“Ra is a well-designed, elegant auction board game that plays fast and has just the right mix of mechanics. If you have never played it you should try it.”

“It’s too fast and too light to get the full five statrs but what it does it does damn near perfectly.”

The reviewer considers Ra a good auction game, especially for fans of the genre, but notes that it doesn't quite reach 'top tier' status due to some minor annoyances and their personal preference for other auction games.