YOUnmatched is a brawl in which a bookcase full of literary heroes from the nineteenth century has come to life. A mishmash of mythical warriors compete against each other. Our first game was King Arthur versus Alice from Wonderland. And in the second, Sinbad the Sailor and contortionist Medusa battled against each other. In English there are already sets with Robin Hood and Bigfoot, with Little Red Riding Hood and Beowulf and with Dracula and Sherlock Holmes.
It takes some getting used to these old acquaintances in an unexpected composition. But it works! Each character is represented by a plastic miniature on the game board and a set of cards. Those cards yield unique fighting styles. The hulking Arthur fights with the mighty sword Excalibur and wizard Merlin at his side. Alice can switch between large size (for extra attack power) and small (for extra defense). Medusa’s petrifying gaze is likely to be devastating. And the more travel cards the mobile Sinbad plays, the more powerful it becomes.
The beautifully illustrated cards are like a new lick of paint on a yellowed painting. Alice is a pink-blue punk. And Sinbad a muscular scimitar fighter in a sand-orange and sea-blue universe.
Unmatched is quick to learn, but offers a depth of tactics. Only two actions are possible per turn. Or you play a card that (usually) inflicts damage on an opponent. Or you take a card and move around the game board. That link between taking cards and moving them is crucial and brilliant. Do you take a card and withdraw? Or do you struggle and get exhausted? As a result, the players move back and forth in a deadly dance.
unmatched is a must for anyone who wants to fight tactically one against one or two against two. But one piece of advice: take the English edition if possible, because the Dutch one is poorly translated. At home it started with amazement about the card ‘Fainting’. This allows you to neutralize your opponent’s card. But in which fight is fainting a good tactic? Until we thought that fine and faint sound the same. Only they mean something completely different: feint versus fainting. And indeed. In English this card is called feint. So fake move.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC in the morning of November 10, 2021
#Brawl #mishmash #fighters