Revisiting a game that you played many years ago, when your experience in the hobby was much less, can be a tricky proposition. Sometimes these older games hold up extremely well, and sometimes these games we loved were so beloved because they were the only things we had really played at the time.
Yokohama was one of the first mid-weight Euros I played when I entered the hobby. Will it hold up after the 8 years since its release and when I first played it, or will it pale in comparison to newer games, and maybe even itself?
Gameplay Overview:
In Yokohama, players will be taking turns placing Assistants around the different location boards and then moving their President piece to a location. The number of Assistants you have on the location your President lands on determines the Power of the action you’re taking. For instance, if there are two Assistants and the President on a location, then that location’s action Power for the turn would be 3.
Each location has different actions that will be done from them. Some actions are simply resource gathering, some are collecting contract cards, some are collecting rule breaker Technology cards, etc… Some of these actions may appear on several boards, whereas others may only appear on one location in a given game.
Since Yokohama is a modern-day Euro, it should come as no surprise that the objective of the game is to gather as many Victory Points in as many different ways as you can. Most points are gathered by converting the gathered resources into points, mostly through Orders. There are also a few of the locations that are miniature Area Majority contests, as well as some Set Collection thrown in for good measure.
Game Experience:
In case it wasn’t obvious from the rules breakdown, the basic bones of Yokohama are nothing unique. Gathering and converting resources is simultaneously an oversimplification of a lot of Euro games, and yet it’s not far from the truth for most, either. Where Yokohama stands out above the rest is with its choices with player interaction.
See, the placement of Assistants and Presidents is a bit more complicated than the way I described it. If I want to place Assistant(s) in a location with an opponent’s President, I must pay that player 1 Yen per Assistant I wish to place. Also, if I want to move my President through a space that has an opponent’s President, I must pay 1 Yen.
This mechanism is the meat of Yokohama. This makes an incredibly simple resource conversion title turn into a brawl. Each and every decision about Assistants’ placement is now dual purpose: offense and defense. In every game of Yokohama I’ve played, there are Assistants that I place out on the board with no intention of activating the action of that location any time soon, but I place that Assistant simply to gain me some cold hard cash. Also, every time I move my President, I’m not only looking out for the opponent’s Presidents to avoid paying them cash, but I also want to try to choose a location that is actively in the way of other players for their upcoming turns.
I absolutely adore this mechanic of the game. It takes a game that could be “mathed out” and pretty straightforward and adds a wrinkle of human interaction that a lot of resource conversion Euros find revolting. I honestly cannot believe that there’s a Euro with as much bite as Yokohama has. The downside to this mechanic, however, is two-fold.
One, this game really suffers at lower player counts. Yes, the map of the city shrinks, but the number of players between my turn shrinks, and thus makes exploitative moves harder to pull off. Two, there’s a contrast of audience at play here between friendly Euro players and confrontational Euro players that makes this game quite difficult to get played.
Another mechanic I didn’t discuss in the rules breakdown is the implementation of Shophouses and Trading Houses. These are buildings that can be placed on each location by each player that act as permanent Assistants. I’ve always had an issue with these buildings. First, they signpost to other players where you’re most invested in taking actions in the future, making their impact feel lesser. Second, they start to remove the impact of the Assistants as the game goes on, which as I alluded to above, is the main reason to come play Yokohama in the first place. Finally, the buildings can be pricey to get out, and because of that, they feel like they’re railroading your strategy in ways that the Assistants do not.
Finally, I want to talk about what I foreshadowed with my introduction: how does Yokohama feel eight years later? I honestly feel like, even though the game itself hasn’t aged a day, its place within the board game community has shifted. This game is too mean for friendly gamers to enjoy, and for feistier Eurogamers out there, there are so many better options. This has always been true to some extent, of course, but with the saturation of the market as a whole, I just feel that Yokohama is such a hard game to put into just one camp, and thus that makes it pricklier than ever to try to get played.
Final Thoughts:
Yokohama stands out for its competitive nature and “route building” worker placement, but it is still a pretty barebones resource conversion Worker Placement game. If you’re looking for a bit feistier of a Eurogame, you’ve come to the right place. Otherwise, this game doesn’t have much to offer in today’s crowded landscape.
Final Score: 3.5 Stars – In 2025, the game has lost its luster but is still better than most Euros.
Hits:
• Unique worker placement rules
• High variability
• A good mix of tactics and strategy
Misses:
• Doesn’t stand out from the crowd
• A lot of minor rules
• Resources can become off-balance
Source: Board Game Quest
