Mark: At Star Wars Celebration Europe 2023, Kat and I had our first chance to play Star Wars: Rivals by Funko Pop Games. A two player, team-building game that was just full of charm and goodness from a galaxy far, far away. To say we were impressed would be an understatement – we fell in love with the game! Yet with no UK release, we had only a few options when playing. Having just returned from UKGE where we were able to get some boosters, and because the UK release for the game is tomorrow (June 18, 2023), we thought that this would be the perfect time to revisit Star Wars: Rivals and review how the game now stands up with more plays under our belts, more characters, and more variations.
So, I suppose the first place to start is with the boosters that we have got. Since my first packs, which were Yoda and the TX droid, I managed to acquire a few at UKGE. I was lucky enough to get General Kenobi and Princess Leia for the light side and I ended up with two Stormtrooper Commanders! This gave me more than enough options to play, but what I was really excited about were my other two finds: holographic Ahsoka Tano and holographic Count Dooku. These rarer figures were a thrill to open and find, especially with the addition of another card in your hand, I was excited to see how they would play with the regular models. Kat, what have been your new additions?
Kat: Now I have yet to have a Sabacc hand of holographic figures, however, I still have some pretty cool characters. From Star Wars Celebration Europe 2023 I had Count Dooku and Han Solo, while UKGE saw me add Captain Phasma and General Kenobi to my collection. I am very pleasantly surprised that I haven’t had a duplicate figure yet, so clearly the full retail boxes on display are fairly distributed with the thirty characters. With each character having their own set of power cards and abilities, each one can affect the gameplay. Particularly Dooku! He is ridiculously powerful. I would rather face Vader than Dooku!
Mark: Well, after my initial playthroughs with my son Charlie, it looked like the TX droid was no match for Yoda. Yet the more we have played, I have found that the cards the characters come with really help balance out these characters. TX, timed right, can be absolutely deadly. I even won a game against Yoda, Luke and Commander Cody playing the right cards at the right time. For me, this has been one of the most important lessons I’ve learnt in the game. That although from looking at the influence of a character, they might not look very good, but their cards can even out the score. It’s all about timing and cycling through that deck, of knowing what cards you might have and when to cash in the ones that have victory points. Holographic Dooku seems deadly but I have no doubt that I will be able to crush him (clearly with a couple of lightsabers using force users). Do you think with the right synergy of characters you might be able to stop Dooku Kat?
Kat: I agree that it’s definitely about knowing your deck. Rivals is a game about making your own team and deck, so having knowledge about each card is going to have a huge impact on the gameplay. At the same time though, it’s also about knowing the location cards too. They throw in some abilities that can completely undo your hard-won combos if you’re not careful. General Kenobi could not take the high ground in the games I played against Dooku, even with backup from Han Solo and Commander Cody. So, I clearly need to think about my deck more to gain an edge. For all of Han’s slightly lower influence, (he’s a 3) his abilities are extremely useful, so I don’t want to kick him out of my team for another Force user.
Now, this brings me to an interesting point. For official Rivals tournaments, will there be rules limiting how many Force users can be on a team? Playing against Vader, Dooku, and Asajj Ventress is tough. My next plan is to grab some more boosters so I can have a Light Side team of Jedi to match. Otherwise, it could be that having that many Force users is a little too powerful. Influence on the cards I find matters less – some locations actually give bonuses to characters with lower influence. Yet the action cards of the Force user characters can be absolutely lethal. Case in point Dooku’s doubling of all Dark Side influence. What do you think Mark? Do you think tournaments will put a limit on Force users for teams?
Mark: Now that’s an interesting one, because there is a part of me that sees the beautiful synergy between the Force users and thinks, yikes, sometimes they almost seem unbeatable. In fact, the last few games I’ve played, I haven’t included three Force users for this reason. Yet Dooku with two non-force users was very powerful and now I’m thinking, I need to run a full Force user squad. I think I need to play more, to have even more characters and try a whole non-Force user squad too. Leia is extremely powerful and isn’t a Force user, combined with Han and another, such as Commander Cody, then there could be combos I haven’t even realized. It is what I love so much about this game, there are so many hidden tactics that only really present themselves when playing in a game. Moments when you go, “Oh, isn’t that interesting?” Talk about encouragement to try and get all of the other characters and see how they interact together!
I also think what really balances this out is the dice and which locations you are going to play your characters to. It doesn’t matter how strong your squad is, the dice and how you decide to play your characters makes a huge difference. Your strongest character can be placed in a location that won’t even activate, making it possibly useless for that round. It’s that randomness that really keeps you on edge, that makes even the best laid strategy fall apart in seconds. It’s why I’d be so reluctant to place any limitations on tournaments just yet. You’ve also mentioned the locations themselves. Have you had any new ones with your boosters Kat?
Kat: There is a great range of locations from across the Star Wars galaxy included in Rivals, with something from each part of the saga. It seems that the locations are chosen randomly for the booster boxes, though there can be some interesting coincidences. For example, Captain Phasma did come with the Death Star Trash Compactor card, which is ironic since she was thrown into a Starkiller Base trash compactor by Finn. Han then had a Cloud City Dining Room card, famously where he tried to blast his future father-in-law. While the cards may be relatively random, in each booster you will get a normal location card and then one with an ability.
These abilities can again affect the gameplay! It all depends on the dice roll, which characters are where, and what may occur through the action cards. Rivals is all a gamble! Like the Death Star Trash Compactor states that only 2 characters can be deployed to that location, limiting what either side can do. With each location also being worth differing amounts of points, it makes you question what resources and characters are worth deploying for any location, with the chance that not all are going to be in play after the dice roll. Playing more of Star Wars: Rivals has shown that no two games will ever be the same, and that the options for gameplay feel limitless.
Mark: We said it in our last review, that the artwork is stunning and the more location cards I see, the more I’m in awe of the work that has gone into them. The Alderaan Balcony, the Cloud City Dining Room, they capture perfectly what we see in the movies in this unique style of artwork. Not only that but as both characters get to pick six locations to add, the game play again changes so much. While they boost your team, do they inadvertently help your opponent’s team too? Does the location even get activated when you need them most? As Kat says, there is just so much variability to this game, that on the surface can seem so simple, which is the beauty of a game like this.
With more series to surely be released, and the USA selling out of packs so quickly, fans are going to want to get this game when it’s released in the UK next week. Remember for the first few weeks, it’s exclusively available at GAME stores across the country. I know I want to get several more boosters to add to the collection to increase the variability of the games even further. I also want to try making a non-Force user squad to see how well they can interact with one another. I think I can imagine who you want most, Kat?
Kat: Well, considering the Dyad have been split up, I will have to settle with Rey while I patiently wait for Kylo Ren to come to Rivals. A cool addition would be action cards that allow you to power up certain characters together. Like Rey and BB-8, or General Hux and Kylo Ren. Imagine the variations that would bring!
Series 1 of Star Wars: Rivals already delivers so much though and will appeal to all gaming fans in a galaxy far, far away, no matter whether you’re a seasoned Jedi Master or a Padawan taking your first steps into a wider gaming world.
