You now know that a Final Fantasy VII Remake board game exists. Now that you’ve accomplished that, should you buy it? While you may be a die-hard Final Fantasy VII fan, that doesn’t necessarily mean this game’s for you. Intellectual properties have been hitting cardboard and cardstock with increasing prevalence over the years, and some do the source justice, whether through strong theming or pure, simple fun. Others, like Borderlands: Tiny Tina’s Robot Tea Party, are shameless cash grabs looking to capitalize on fans who impulse buy.
Final Fantasy VII Remake Boardgame: Materia Hunter falls somewhere in between with leanings toward a worthwhile purchase. Materia Hunter is more a card game than a board game, able to be played heads-up between two people or in teams of four folks total. The components include twenty large character cards from Remake and Intergrade, five materia placeholders to line up cards, some medal tokens, and a large deck of materia orbs ranging from one to three on each card for each of the five types. Character art is pulled straight from Remake, while the materia orbs look like the sparkly balls we’re accustomed to seeing in Remake and Rebirth. Unfortunately, the components are basic, with the playing cards feeling like cheap cardstock that lacks texture, while the medals and materia placeholders are standard, thick, and light cardboard. Visually and tactilely, nothing truly pops.
Okay, so the components are fine and the game doesn’t match the stunning visuals we’re accustomed to seeing from Square Enix. What about the game? In Materia Hunter, both players try to earn the most materia placeholders at the end of six rounds. To do that, players must have more orbs on their side of each placeholder by the end of the game. Each round, players draw a card randomly off the top or one of the five randomly on display. After doing so, they reveal one of the four characters they chose out of seven cards at the beginning of the game and then play two cards out of their hand next to the matching colored placeholder on their side. Do that six times and that’s essentially it.
Don’t click away just yet, though: the nuance makes this a much more enticing game. All twenty characters are unique in that they include a specific bonus if you play their matching materia color and a special action if you meet the appropriate materia card count. This special action can replace playing cards out of hand, which is usually a much better option and only accessible during the latter half of the game. Most special actions require at least three cards in any combination of two colors out on your side of the placeholder, with some requiring as many as nine. As one might expect, the more expensive, the more you get out of it. Those conditions may never be met by game’s end, , so choose your characters wisely.
Special abilities come in large quantities and varieties. Some of these abilities include drawing cards, playing cards out of hand, playing blindly off of the top of the deck, playing from the pool of displayed cards, flipping over the opponent’s cards, unflipping your cards, and earning medals. The theming revolves around what each character’s special ability does. For instance, Rufus Shinra’s special ability allows the player to draw two cards and play two cards as if reloading his shotgun and shooting. Barret’s ability lets him play seven cards out of hand as if firing his Gatling gun. Yuffie can play four cards on display, as if stealing all the materia she can find. Our Wall Market friends tend to give the player medals, while the bad guys tend to flip over the opponent’s cards.
Why do medals matter, anyway? One use is that they can lower the requirement to use a special ability by one; if you’re short on yellow materia, this can lower that requirement. More importantly, medals used at the end of the game let players—in secret and simultaneously—play cards out of their hand after the sixth round is over. This is a nice way to come back by surprise in case you ran a heavy card draw and medal strategy.
After three rounds, players compete with the three middle rows (of the five) and see who has the most orbs of those colors. Those three rows offer a free medal to the victor, which provides some incentive to favor those colors, and the rows are always set up differently across games. This is important because if you play a single orb under a color, each of the five colors provide a unique ability to encourage players to use single orbs. For instance, red materia allows players to flip over an opponent’s card, while green provides a bonus medal. In this way, a three-orb card may not be better than a single orb, depending on one’s strategy. This also takes the edge off having to take a card with fewer orbs on it so you can play a character’s special action.
This is one of those games where, by looking at it or playing it once or twice, you may think there isn’t any meat on these bones. After repeated plays, I can assure you this game has depth. We’re not talking Through the Ages, of course, but knowing how to draft, what colors to favor, how to react to your opponent’s tendencies and card draws, and knowing when and how to reveal a specific character all play into the strategy. If the red materia’s on the edge, for example, playing defensively by drafting characters that unflip cards may not be wise. If it’s in the center, those characters may be stronger. Also, recognizing that your opponent doesn’t have characters to accrue medals may guide you toward that strategy to earn a surprise win at the end.
I won’t say that Materia Hunter is the FFVII Remake board game I was wishing for; it certainly isn’t, and the modest quality of components is a shocker given the company that’s producing this game—Square Enix—and the importance of the intellectual property. What makes this even more perplexing is that another board game under review (Chocobo’s Dungeon: The Board Game) has outstanding visuals and components and also just released this year. I don’t get it. What I can say is that Materia Hunter is fun to table once in a while, and has enough depth to it to warrant your purchase if you love the series and enjoy simple card games.
This article is based on a free copy of the board game provided to RPGFan by the publisher. This relationship in no way influenced the author’s opinion, and no compensation was provided in relation to coverage. Learn more on our ethics & policies page.
