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Deckbuilding Horror?: Resident Evil Deck Building Game – Alliance Reviewed

Elliott Miller

May 15, 2011

Game Name: Resident Evil Deck Building Game – Alliance

Publisher: Bandai

Designer: Jack L. Haung

Artist: Jak L. Hueng

Year: 2011

Players: One to four players

Ages: 13+

Playing Time: 45 Minutes

Retail Price: $29.99

I have never played the original version of the new deckbuilding Resident Evil game from Bandai. Luckily, the first expansion – Alliance – that has just been released can be played stand alone so you don’t need the original in order to play it.

The game is based upon the video game series from Capcom, and not the movies. I am a fan of the video games, but not like my children who already know all of the characters and monsters.

The rulebook is similar to the rulebooks in all of the video games. For me, I’ve found the small Times New Roman font on top of a blood splattered background hard to read in both the video and board games. I also wish that the cardstock was better. The cards I have are already starting to bend.

This deck building game features:

Character cards – Play as one of your favorite characters from the video game. Your character card has their health and the special abilities they get when they level up. You can actually level your character twice during the course of the game as you kill more monsters.

Action cards – There are piles of action cards that you can buy. Most feature extra actions, buys, ammo, cards, or gold. Additionally, each one has a special action you can use.

Weapon cards – All of your favorite weapons are here also available for purchase. The interesting twist here is that each stack of weapon cards also includes a single special version card of that weapon card you can buy when it comes up. Each weapon card lists the ammo requirements to use it and the damage it can do.

Ammo cards – Every weapon needs ammo, except the combat knife. You use ammo cards to load up your weapons. They also provide the cash you need to buy better gear.

Item cards – There are Green and Red Herbs to help you heal if you need it.

Bonus cards – Earn extra turns or extra decorations (victory points), new to the game in this expansion.

Event cards – There are 5 event cards in Alliance that go into the mansion deck, some are good and some are bad.

Infected cards – These are the monsters that make up the bulk of the mansion deck. You must explore the mansion killing infected to earn decorations and win the game.

The game can be played in three modes, either Story mode, Mercenary mode, or Versus mode. Story mode is the standard game, where you play until one of you faces and defeats infected Albert Wesker. Mercenary mode puts a time limit on the game, giving you only 15 turns to get as many decorations as you can. This version can be played in teams and is faster than story mode. You can earn extra turns by getting bonus cards, which you only use in this mode. Versus mode pits the players against each other, the last one alive wins.

The action cards have a standard array of abilities, +1 card, +1 action, +1 buy, and so on. Some of these seem overpowered to me. I watched one player use a sequence of cards to purchase and draw a huge amount of cards into their hand each turn. They were then able to use their characters ability (Jack Krauser) to gain x times 10 damage, where x is the number of cards in their hand. They were easily doing 100 to 150 points of damage per turn and ran away with the game.

An interesting addition in this expansion is the concept of partners. You can play the game with two characters, one main and one secondary. Your partner can be given a weapon and either sent in to explore the mansion first or second. If they are killed, they are gone for good. It is a nice option to the game, and I usually include them.

Each turn you can perform actions, buy a card, and explore the mansion. The mansion is simply the deck of monsters with either events or bonus cards mixed in depending on what mode of the game you are playing. All of the infected are shuffled together, so the next monster you face can either be simple and only have 20 or so health, or horrible creatures that need 60 damage or more to kill them.

In story mode, the game lasts until one of the players can defeat the Albert Wesker infected card. If you face a monster but cant beat it with your combination of weapons and ammo, you take the damage listed on the infected card and it goes to the bottom of the deck waiting to strike again. The rules say that story mode should only take an hour, but in my experience it has been two each time. Eventually, the players get so many + action, +cards, +buy cards in their hands that it takes a player forever to finish their turn.

We have tried several modifications to shorten the story mode game. The one we have settled on now is shuffling Wesker into the bottom 10 cards of the deck, so he can’t prematurely end the game. Once he does pop up, he stays face up until someone beats him. The game did shorten somewhat, and we had the problem of what to do with the other infected we couldn’t beat. We just followed the rules and placed them on the bottom. It worked because one of the weapons forces you to draw from the bottom of the mansion deck instead of the top, so we still got to see both sides.

I will admit there are some exciting moments. If you are a fan of the games, then you will really like this board game. It is thematic, and you have to cope with the tension of which monster will come up when you enter the mansion. I can’t compare to the original as I haven’t played it, but my research indicates that Alliance addresses many of the concerns players had.

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