Red Rising (2021)

The reviewer highly praises Red Rising as an excellent, highly replayable strategy game with great components and unique cards, noting its captivating depth and suitability for all player counts despite a few minor flaws.

“I love Red Rising. It is a solid game that I will keep in my collection and enjoy for many years to come.”

“Red Rising is a solid OUI! OUI! OUI! from me for those who have read the series (and a OUI! OUI! for those who haven’t). Get the Red Rising book series and read it and then get the game and play it.”

The reviewer highly praises Red Rising, noting its significant replayability with a large number of unique cards and various paths to victory. While new players may find it challenging initially, it becomes very enjoyable with repeated plays, earning a spot in the reviewer's top five favorite board games.

The reviewer finds Red Rising to be an addictive and enjoyable card game that is easy to learn but offers significant strategic depth and replayability, highly recommending it to both fans of the book series and those looking for a new card game.

The reviewer found Red Rising to be a fast-playing, simple-to-learn card game that offers significant depth through its card combinations and hand management, making the process of optimizing scores and curating a hand truly satisfying and engrossing. While acknowledging some potential for analysis paralysis and a lengthy scoring process, the overall experience was highly enjoyable.

The reviewer highly praises Red Rising's gameplay for its quick setup, ease of learning and teaching, and varied scoring opportunities, noting that it's a great choice for those who enjoy light player interaction. They also commend the game's phenomenal art and quality components, especially in the collector's edition, though they acknowledge minor concerns about potential analysis paralysis and the theme's appeal to non-book fans.

“What it is, however, is a game that twists your brain as you try and find compatible cards. It’s a game that pairs cards thematically. And, perhaps most importantly, it is a game that is a lot of fun to play.”

The reviewer highly praises Red Rising for its unique multi-use cards and the engaging hand management puzzle it presents, finding it an undeniably fun and highly replayable game that evokes the same thrill as classic card games, despite a potentially slow initial learning curve for new players.

Rahdo finds Red Rising to be a fantastic, fast-paced, and fluid tactical card game, praising its multi-use card mechanism that creates constant tension and engaging decisions for players. He particularly highlights its excellence as a two-player and solo game.

The reviewer found Red Rising to be a deeply strategic and engaging card game with satisfying card combinations, praising its depth and decision-making despite acknowledging potential analysis paralysis for some players.

“Red Rising is well designed, highly replayable, and works great at all player counts. It’s the full monty of things I like to see in a board game, and the speed at which it’s rising to my top shelf has my other games seeing red.”