Can You Help the Straw Hats?

The Marines have come to Egghead Island and they’re after the Straw Hats! Guide Luffy and Bonney through various routes, facing Marines and Bosses to escape Egghead Island in one piece!

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What Is It?

✨Theme – One Piece
🎯The Goal of the game is to be the first to overcome 3 boss challenge tiles
⚙️Dice Rolling – Players roll each turn to determine which route(s) they can rush and how much food they collect. They will also roll a die to overcome challenge along each route
⚙️Push Your Luck – After successfully completing a challenge, players can choose to place a flag to “hold their place,” or they can continue to the next route tile in an attempt to get farther
⚙️Race – The game isn’t about points, just about getting 3 bosses first. The game also has a timer, to keep things moving, which can cause all players to lose.

Who Is It For?

👥1 to 4 Players – I didn’t find solo that interesting, and for me it’s just a lot of setup for something I’m going to play alone. I think it worked well at any count 2-4, but best at 3-4 because of some of the elements of the game
👥Ages 10 & Up – Pretty approachable ruleset and theme
👥Fans of One Piece, push your luck dice rolls, and who don’t mind randomness with some ability to mitigate their rolls

PROS

🟢Aesthetics – Colorful; nice art – familiar to fans
🟢Components – Nice quality all around, including the box insert
🟢Turns are usually pretty snappy
🟢Rules are clear/well-written
🟢I like that you can (usually) mitigate your dice rolls with food, as well as being able to earn re-rolls and Nika tokens
🟢I like that if you’re doing well and defeating bosses, you then have to gift things to another player based on the Vegapunk tiles

CONS

🔴The luck of the dice can ultimately still come for you and cause some frustrating or flat turns
🔴Seems like earlier players are at a slight disadvantage as they start with more route tiles face down, and as they flip them are just giving more info to later players
🔴I thought a few things were much more punishing that others – i.e. stealing an ally, moving a player’s flag back… and it was weird

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Final Thoughts

If you like push your luck games, this is a solid one. While the allies and route tiles are fun in the theme, I don’t think the theme really adds to or subtracts from the game, so you could be a One Piece fan or not and still enjoy it. I do wish there were more ways to earn re-roll tokens so you could mitigate more rolls, but I also acknowledge that that might make it too easier. I do think, depending on how long it takes players to get to the bosses and start the game timer, it can feel a bit too longer/repetitive for what you’re doing, but overall the game works, and dice rolling is always a fun time.

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Additional Information:
My Final Rating – 6/10

Designer – Caroline Klimek
Publisher – Kess Co.
MSRP – $30.00
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