Bora Bora Review

Number of Plays at Time of Review

Two: one four-player game and one three-player game.

Why Did I Buy the Game?

The fact that Stefan Feld designed the game got me to look at it. Reading reviews and watching videos got me to buy it as I think I would like the mix of mechanics and how it seemed the game played.

Aesthetics

Pretty darn nice. The game is very colorful and is full of imagery and iconography that is suitable to the game. Even the back of each player board is adorned with a unique and thematic terrific graphic.

Component Quality

Superb. The board is of excellent quality as are all the tons of the thick cardboard chits (that punch out cleanly and easily). The God cards are of the small variety but are of good quality.

Mechanics

Dice Rolling Worker Placement. Your three dice are your workers that are placed in Round A. The strength of the die roll is tactical in both blocking other player’s workers and the amount of activity your worker will produce. For those of you that dislike the randomness of dice, there are mechanics that are used to mitigate unfortunate die rolls – but you must prepare for that eventuality by doing the things necessary to use those mechanics.

Set Collection. You collect “men” and “women” that produce various useful items and actions during Round B. You also can collect other things like completed tasks and jewelry.

Area Placement. You build your awesome little wooded huts on the various island areas. Doing so earns you a one-time resource and the one-time option to score a few victory points.

Resource Collection. Resources are not a huge part of the game but do play a role in building simple ceremony buildings.

What Makes the Game Stand Out?

The dice/worker placement mechanic is the finest of the three Feld dice games (Macao, Castles of Burgundy and Bora Bora). You really can get tactical with the placement of the dice to make things less comfortable for your opponents.

The game also gives you a “Trajanesque” palette of options to choose from on your turn. This is something I enjoy.

The use of the five different God cards is very well done to aid you in your quest to score points but does not make it easy on you, Gods demand offerings, naturally.

Lastly, many Feld games have a “penalty” aspect to them (In the Year of the Dragon, Trajan, Macao) but this game does not. Maybe not being penalized is not an item that makes most games stand out, but in a Feld game, it does.

Replay Value

Pretty high, there are enough different Tasks and Men and Women as well as paths through the game for a good deal of variance.

What is the Best Part?

I really enjoy the tactical nature of the game’s worker placement aspect. I enjoy the God cards effects on the game too. Also, the Men and Women tiles offer a lot of customization to your approach in a given game. Given the way that these tiles can interact to get combination bonuses is a nice touch to the game. Of course, having too many important choices for my too few important actions is always fun for me!

What is the Worst Part?

When I am done I have not done anything. What I mean is you’re not really building anything, like, say, a Cathedral or something. You’re not really building a “game engine” that improves or produces things each turn – although collecting Men and Woman tiles is close to engine building. You’re doing things every turn to maximize your scoring and having more than one option is a good thing given the tactical placement of workers. Sort of a points race through the game.

So, this is not really a bad thing to be considered the “worst” part of the game.

Final Thoughts

This is a very good game and I enjoy it. I think if offered a choice between playing Trajan and Bora Bora, I might say that Trajan gets the nod. But I would happily play Bora Bora if I was out voted!