Takenoko: Chibis Review (First Impressions)

Takenoko has become one of my go-to games for when I want to play something a little lighter while still enjoying a bit of strategy and depth. It’s easy to teach and fairly straightforward to play, but still has a good number of strategic choices and room for competitive play.

So I was quite excited about trying the expansion, hoping it would supplement and enhance the game without diluting it or making things too complicated. It did.

 

 

This is a direct expansion, and as such requires the base game to play. It introduces a “Miss Panda” figure, new land types, additional goals for each of the three kinds, and baby panda tokens (3 for each bamboo color).

The new land types have a Miss Panda icon, which determines when she comes into play, additional movement, and is relevant for some goals. They also have various powers that activate when the gardener is moved to them such as growing bamboo on all irrigated plots of the same color anywhere on the board, one plot where players can chose to grow an color of bamboo, and a “gardener’s hut” tile that allows the player to look at the top card of each goal deck and choose one. All the tile abilities make sense and work well within the established gameplay framework.

 

 

The baby panda tokens can be claimed for one piece of bamboo of the same color whenever a player moves Miss Panda to the location of the (original) Panda, and provide small immediate bonuses (including the new ability to exchange a goal card from your hand for a new one) as well as 2 points per token at the end of the game. They are well balanced and seem reasonable in terms of powers and point value.

 

 

 

The new goal types are great natural extensions of the ones in the base game. New land goals include having a set number of a land type on the board and formations involving the Miss Panda symbol. The new panda goals are worth more points than the base game goals for the same color/number of bamboo, but can only be redeemed if the Panda is on a lake tile. The new gardener goals are perhaps the most interesting, involving having bamboo stalks of minimum height(instead of exact heights) as well as goals needing varying heights of the same type of bamboo. The point values seemed reasonable and the variety was nice.

 

 

 

Overall the new rules expand the depth of Takenoko nicely without being overwhelming. However I would still introduce new players to base game first, if only because of the numerous new tiles with “powers” and the intricacies of having two pandas to move with different effects. The theme of the expansion is quite cute (although the thematic ties of mechanics had my group chuckling often) and it all fits well in the established framework.

Best of all there are small nuances added that increased depth without making things too complicate. Everything in here is integrated well and nothing felt extraneous or unneeded. Excellent expansion, and an easy recommendation if you like the base game.