Riftforce Review IGN

Reiner Knizia, the famed game designer, invented a simple two-player Poker variation that you could play with a deck. Rather than a betting game, it saw players trying to complete several poker-style hands on their side of the table, trying to get a better result than their opponent’s opposite. It was a sort of area control game with a standard deck and it proved so good it spawned an entire genre, the best known of which is Knizia’s customized design Schotten Totten.

Riftforce is the latest twist on the tug-of-war formula. Underneath a tiresome and generic fantasy setting, its twist is that rather than trying to make groups of cards, you’re using your plays to attack those on your opponent’s side. Although it might not sound like much to make this stand out, the appearances of things can sometimes be deceiving.

What’s in the Box

This game is card-only, so it comes packaged in a neat, compact box with cards and a single sheet tokens to punch out. There’s nothing in particular to praise or condemn about the contents: they’re functional, with good, evocative art.

Rules and How to Play

Riftforce starts with a simple, yet powerful deck-building round. There are ten sets each of elemental cards in the game, all with the same 5-6 and 7 health. What’s different about them is their special powers. Lightning elementals can deal 2 damage to the card opposite them and can repeat the effect if they kill the target. Fire elementals do 3 damage and also deal 1 damage to friendly cards behind them. Each player chooses a set to add to their deck and takes turns.

Five regions are located in the middle of your table. You can choose one of the following options for your turn: First, you can play as many cards as you like from your hand to your side. That’s what you’ll want to do on your first turn. The second is to discard a card to activate the special powers of cards you’ve played matching the number or elemental type of your discard. The third action allows you to score points for any area where you only have cards on your side. After that, you can fill up your hand with seven cards.

These are essentially the entire rules to Riftforce: it’s simple to learn and fast to play. The only thing that’ll trip you up is remembering the special power each set of elementals has, but there are reference cards for that. Yet you’d never imagine such a straightforward set of obstacles could tie you in so many tactical knots.

Like all games in this genre, that’s partly because you’re having to balance what’s in your hand with what you’ve got on the board. It might be tempting to dump out three 7-health elementals on your very first turn if you have them: experience will demonstrate they’re very hard to defeat. However, if you don’t have any matching cards to activate them further, you might just be feeding cannon for your opponent.

The dance begins as you move around one another, jostling for positions on opposite sides of each area, trying to not give your plans away and hoping that luck will provide what you need the next day. The tactical play is full of excitement and anticipation, despite the fact that you have to refill your hand every now and again.

While some of this can be attributed to the genre itself, a large part of it is due to these elemental powers. While you may not believe that Riftforce can do so much with such simple concepts, it does a lot of heavy lifting. Air is one example of an elemental that can move but does relatively little damage. It only gives one point to the card opposite and any adjacent regions. This can be extremely valuable as it can help you to protect an area or keep your elemental safe.

Between the damage dealing and the moving and managing your hand, there’s a lot to keep you busy here. And as you’ll discover over your first few games, the special powers also bring a new dimension to the card draft that starts the game. There are no bad elementals, but some tribes work better together. Once understood, it’s a race not only to try and get the pairings you favor but to stop your opponent from doing the same. And all the different combinations ensure there’s a lot of variety across games.

It’s also worth noting the effect that splitting the playing of cards from activating them has on the game. One of the elementals does a point of damage when played; the rest need to be activated, and it’s a testament to this mechanic that that single immediate point can be quite powerful. Having to wait to power up your cards on the board keeps the tension high as you wait to see what your opponent can do with their cards, and what you’ll have left to respond.

It can be difficult to maintain the core rhythm of activating, refilling, and playing. Victory is the first 12 points. These points can be scored by either contesting empty regions, or by killing enemy cards. As long as both players manage their decks well, close games are not uncommon. And when it’s close, the question of who creeps over that line first sometimes feels like it comes down to who has to give up momentum and refill. That’s a consequence of player choice, of course, but it’s not one you can foresee, and it can feel frustrating as a result.

That said, the game is so quick and easy to learn and play that the occasional flat hand isn’t a major issue. It’s easy to accumulate your cards and then start over again.

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