• Game: Ikusa
• Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
• Designer: Michael Gray
• Genre: Old School Dudes on a Map
• Players: 2-5
• Playtime: 180-240 minutes



• What's Hot: Classic, fan-favorite “Dudes on a Map” design remade with top-notch production values; richer, slightly more detailed setting than many Risk-derived designs



• What's Not: Tragically outdated design that suffers from a play length that outstrips its content; no meaningful revisions or updating; doesn’t include the plastic samurai swords from previous editions

by: Michael Barnes

Ikusa is the third edition of a Risk/Axis and Allies derived design first published as part of the Milton Bradley Gamemaster series in 1986. In the mid-1990s, the venerable design remembered for its Feudal Japan setting and details like a hirable Ninja figure and masses of Ashigaru spearmen and Ronin straight out of a Kurosawa film would see print again as Samurai Swords. The latest edition is by far the nicest, best looking production of the game to date, filled to bursting with plastic figures, twelve-sided dice, Koku coins, and upgrading the old Styrofoam player trays with injection-molded plastic castles that also hold the player reference cards. The game looks fantastic with a darker red, gold, and brown color palette and all-new artwork.

Rather unfortunately, it is also almost exactly the same game as it has been since 1986. It isn’t that Ikusa is a bad game by any means. It’s an influential design and it remains an example of a very well-made game for its time, but in 2011 it feels its age with dated gameplay concepts and a back-breaking playtime that too often outstrips the game’s appeal. The Gamemaster games were exciting and widely loved in the 1980s because they were bringing forward a core Risk/Axis and Allies model with cool new settings and tweaks such as differentiated units. But with modern games like Nexus Ops, Twilight Imperium, and WotC’s own Conquest of Nerath on the market today that have reduced playtimes, more expansive themes, and far more highly developed gameplay concepts, the design simply feels antiquated.

Ikusa is an old-fashioned “take over the map” game in every sense of the word, but I’ve often wondered if anyone has actually managed to finish a full, 35 province game since the first Bush administration. It isn’t difficult to shorten the game and play to fewer provinces, but the victory condition remains pretty dull and the dice-rolling and territorial tug-of-wars can drag on and on and on without any kind of timing mechanism or alternate goals. It’s the kind of game that gamers of my age relished in the 1980s, when we had endless free time to play in some kid’s parents’ basement, laughing when someone would get eliminated and banished to the NES for the rest of the day. No doubt, Ikusa’s continued appeal today is largely nostalgic. It was one of those “cool games” you played back in the day.

There are qualities about the game- all brought forward in the latest, practically unrevised edition- that were and still are compelling. The resource scheme, although based solely on number of provinces, introduced some neat ideas like pre-planned purchases, hiring Ronin mercenaries in addition to levying troops, and bidding for turn order. I still think that this game does the differentiation of units better than most games in its class, and I’ve always loved the way the game brought a concept of leadership into the Risk family tree. Units need a Daimyo to move, and the Daimyos all gain experience over the course of the game. And a player can hire that Ninja figure to take out a rival Daimyo or to spy on what another player has planned to build on the next turn.

I can’t help but think that Ikusa is something of a missed opportunity to meaningfully update and renovate a design that has demonstrated lasting appeal. This is a game that I think would benefit from even a few slight revisions to control some of its legacy issues such as the lengthy setup, overall duration, and lack of short-term objectives. Given its duration, I can’t reasonably recommend it over similar games with far more content and options available such as Twilight Imperium. Conquest of Nerath in particular presents itself as a far more interesting and current take on similar gameplay processes, yet it plays in half the time or less and more smoothly and with more narrative at that..

Despite the fact that Ikusa is something of a dinosaur, I’m glad it’s in print and I do think that there is an audience for this kind of thing. I’ve played this game only a couple of times over the past decade but every time, including the review sessions for this edition, it’s been one of those things where someone brings it out and everyone gets excited to see an old favorite on the table. Then, two hours later or about a third to halfway through the game, everyone is ready to pack it up and play something else either more timeless or less archaic. And that’s really the problem with Ikusa. In 1986, there wasn’t anything quite like it in its class barring Axis and Allies. In 2011, there are far more interesting and more modern options that do what it does more efficiently and typically with even greater specificity of setting and concepts.