It’s a chilly fall morning. You and your friends are huddled together, frantically slapping cards on the ground. Mountain Dew cans and Little Debbie wrappers are littered everywhere, save the play surface. War is hel…la cozy.
But not cozy enough! Fight 5 is a reimplementation of the classic card game War, with a bit more game added in.
Fight 5, from Aaron Hein and Manny Tremblay, and published by Neon Knight Games (an imprint of Chip Theory Games), is a 2-5 player game that takes about 15 minutes to play.
Gameplay Overview:
In Fight 5, players battle their opponents for control of five lanes of cards. Each lane is decided via a clash (with five clashes making up a single Bout, or round), which is essentially a tug-of-war where whoever has the bigger number wins.
Each player takes a deck representing an element (air, water, fire, earth, or light). Someone shuffles the Clash Deck. Deal out stacks from the clash deck, with each player having 5 individual Clashes to play on. After shuffling your player deck, you draw five cards.
After flipping over each clash card in a stack, players place one card from their hand face down next to each stack. Then, each clash is resolved one at a time. Players flip over their played cards simultaneously.
The winner is the player with the highest card (or star card), provided the played card is higher than the clash card you’re battling for. Tied Clashes are left as-is, and all the cards are up for grabs in later clashes.
Points are scored for cards with values of 10+, star cards, and for whoever won the most cards in that Bout.
The winner is the player who is first to 200 points, or the highest score after 3 Bouts (15 total Clashes).
Game Experience:
The first thing you notice about Fight 5 is that the card quality is stunning. The colors absolutely pop off the table. The cards have embossed shiny stuff that catches the light in all the right places without causing glare on the information that matters for the game. They shuffle well and feel durable enough that I let my 3-year-old play with the cards without fear of irrevocable damage.
The next thing you notice is, unfortunately, that your hand stinks and every choice you have is an obvious one. This isn’t always a problem, but it is the same issue that its predecessor, War, suffers from.
Now, it’s not always doom and gloom. Especially when there are tied Clashes, or as you get a feel for how your opponents play. There is just a hint of bluffing. You can try and trick your opponent into committing to a specific Bout when you’re targeting an entirely different one.
The game can really open up as player count increases. By having a shared central Clash where all players are battling, you’re engaged with all players in each Bout. For the most part, though, you focus on players to either side of you, with 2 Clashes each plus the shared central Clash to worry about.
Resolving that center Clash is great fun. Raking in the points of a bunch of cards with a win feels good, and the potential for ties increases with each added player. It can end up being a real honeypot.
When you win a clash, you take all the cards involved in the clash, including your opponent’s played card(s). These are what score you points at the end of the bout. The player who collects the most total cards at the end of the Bout is awarded an extra 15 points.
It’s worth noting that there is a significant misprint on the box. Player count is indicated as 1-5, when there is no solo mode available.
Final Thoughts:
At its best, Fight 5 is a fun filler game. Quick, chaotic, tons of points.
At its worst, Fight 5 is a slog. Placing cards on Clashes can feel predetermined or mechanical, especially if you’ve got an awful hand and your opponents don’t.
For the most part, it’s somewhere in the middle. A game I’m happy to play once in between other games.
Final Score: 3 Stars – Fight 5 is an improvement on War and is a fun and chaotic filler game. However, it can suffer from the same obvious-choice-syndrome.
Hits:
• Fabulous component quality
• Quick easy filler
• Five person matches are card chaos in the best way
Misses:
• Some Bouts suffer from lack of decision space
• Can quickly become boring after multiple plays
Editor’s Note: There is a deluxe and retail edition, with the deluxe using PVC cards, and the retail using standard card material. This review was done on the deluxe edition.
Source: Board Game Quest
