The One Hundred Torii Review : Pass Through Many Torii Gates
Intent: Inspire you to play The One Hundred Torii
Choosing the ideal path? Traveling and enjoying the beauty of a Japanese garden? The One Hundred Torii is a set collection and tile placement game published by Pencil First Games, designed by Scott Caputo with the art done by Vincent Dutrait. This game plays 1-4 players and takes about 45-60 minutes to play. You will competitively place tiles in order to form strategic paths between landmarks to collect the most tokens by travelling through various Torii gates. Will your path be long and illustrious? Or short and uneventful?
Overview
You are a visitor to a beautiful Japanese garden. Each turn you’ll be expanding the garden, visiting various landmarks and characters in order to gather the most journey points by the end of the game.
You will first have an option to use your landmark (or coin) tokens to utilize one character’s power. Each character provides a unique benefit, for example if you ask for help from the Vendor, you are able to discard one tile from your hand and draw two tiles, which gives you more options when it comes to placing tiles. You will then proceed to place a tile on the collective board and claim rewards if applicable by connecting the landmark you placed to the nearest one on the board. As you trace your path to the matching landmark, every red gate you pass through grants you an additional landmark token, and every blue gate you pass through, gets a different landmark token of your choice from the one your path is on. Landmark tokens are a significant way of obtaining points in this game.
Collecting landmarks is not the only way to get points; you can also collect points from getting help from various characters and obtaining various conditions within the board as well. How many Torii gates will you walk through?
First Game Impression
Tile placement, nature, and beautiful illustrations? Yes please. Opening this game and setting up for the first time was such a treat. We admired tokens for various landmarks and character tokens of all sorts, the experience was inviting right from the start. I’ll also have to commend the rulebook, learning this game was a great experience!
As we began to play, we saw the magic of this game instantly! Placing tiles and observing how the various torii gates interact with the paths was such a thrilling experience. Setting up a path that allows you to walk through four red gates and three blue ones is so thrilling, I didn’t know gardens could spark so much joy. As we continued to play, we began to see how our tile placement affected each other as well and began strategizing on how we could obtain the most points.
I ended up winning the first game, utilizing characters was essential for those extra points and having obtained some of the goals first really pushed me over the edge. Both of us were thrilled by this experience and were happy to revisit the game almost instantly.
Thoughts After Five Games
The replayability certainly impressed us, the various tiles really provide a different game each time. It was super interesting to attempt to prevent each other from scoring long paths by closing paths off and creating new ones. The competition for using characters first is riveting, strategically placing the Poet and the Samurai can have significant advantages. This game for being quite light has quite a depth of strategy.
It was nice to see a spread of points as well, some games we were just a couple of points away from each other while others we had a significant difference in points. It certainly made our decisions feel meaningful, as I know some games are close regardless of what you do. You can certainly play this poorly and the points will reflect that. I personally really enjoy that about games as there is a lot of room for growth and you really get to see yourself grow over time.
The one thing that bothered me slightly is the mass amount of tokens and scoring components, setting this game up seemed like an entire spectacle and slightly messy, it didn’t bother me at first but after five games it was a deterrent to playing this game. Although once the game hit the table, we were always excited to play. The box and how the components are organized definitely makes it better though.
MERIT Report Card
Overall Letter Grade: B+
Strengths: Beautiful tile placement game with a really interesting pathing mechanic. The replayability is wonderful. You learn and get better at this game and it certainly is reflected in the points you scored. Many big moments as well as you can have a significant turn pathing through many Torii gates and acquiring a variety of landmarks.
Areas of Improvement: Slightly too many components and tokens, I think a deck of cards could have sufficed for scoring and would have cleaned up the game and made it easier to set up.
Memorability: B+
How often do I think about the game?
I love games with grand moments, setting up a turn where you are able to walk through many various gates is SO REWARDING. The experience really sticks with you too, super fun and certainly memorable moments.
How often is the game brought up by the individuals I play with?
We unfortunately only played this with just the two of us but are eager to bring this game out once COVID-19 restrictions lighten up a bit. We will attempt to play this virtually as well soon so will certainly update this section when that happens.
How many memories can be built from this game?
Grand moments all around! I mentioned earlier, there are certainly really significant moves you can make in this game, it requires some luck and setting up but getting that ideal path through many gates just feels so good! There’s also moments where you give your opponents a big move, which is always filled with a dramatic “No!” and some laughter to go alongside.
Education: A-
I really enjoyed the educational elements of this game. I always love starting this section off with the obvious and shifting into some of the more subtle and subconscious. The obvious education elements here are spatial thinking and planning ahead. As you place tiles you’ll need to connect to the nearest matching landmark and see if it’s worthwhile for you to take that path. I enjoy this as there are many landmarks on the board and this game really requires you to narrow down onto one element, this certainly can be carried over to real life as we are all exposed to so much stimuli, sometimes focusing on a single thing is needed and it isn’t always the easiest.
Like most games, you’ll need to plan ahead. I love this element because it really allows you to strategize and work those brain muscles in the best way possible. The best part about it in this game? You get to see your own growth. You certainly can make bad moves, which will reflect in your scoring in the end, optimizing each move and taking advantage of the circumstances you’ve been dealt with is essential in order to come out victorious in The One Hundred Torii.
One of the most interesting educational elements in this game is resource management and point conversion when it comes to utilizing characters. You will obtain various landmark resources and as you aim to gather points at five and ten landmarks, you also have the option to use the resources to request help from characters, which also gains you points. That trade off is fun to think through and strategize, and utilize in the best manner. This certainly is applicable as a life skill as well, as you’ll find value in a lot of elements of life and sometimes a trade off can be more beneficial, trading assets is always a wonderful way to grow and share your experiences.
I also learned what Torii gates are and what they symbolize in Japanese culture, which was a great piece of knowledge that really elevates this game for me.
Replayability: B+
The replayability here is great! The different tiles have clearly been well thought out as out of all the games we’ve played (six at this point), turned out quite differently as the paths are always different. You can definitely compare it to Carcassonne’s replayability as that game in a similar fashion is quite replayable but primarily due to the the varying tiles.
Sure, you only have two tiles to choose from, but with different orientations and spaces to place them each turn, you have quite a decision to make, which nearly guarantees that you will not have the same game. The pathing and gates always having a unique location makes each playthrough unique and exciting.
One way this game could have been slightly stronger in replayability is varying goal tiles. Currently you’ll receive a bonus for being the first to collect three ten point landmark tokens and points for collecting all six unique five point landmarks. It would have been interesting to see additional goals and having to randomly choose two, to give individuals a push towards a certain direction each game.
Imagination: B-
The art and theme in this game is wonderful. What I respect and value tremendously as well is the team behind The One Hundred Torii did hire a Japanese culture specialist to ensure that their game got every detail historically and culturally correct. Certainly a great example of proactively vetting the game to ensuring it is inclusive and respectful. If you want to learn more about the design process reading through Scott Caputo’s designer diary was a pleasure.
I definitely felt more intrigued by the mechanics and was more focused on the tiles and pathing this game rather than the theme, but it certainly helped that this game was a garden, the pathing made sense, I learned and really enjoyed the implementation of the Torii gates.
This game is fair in creating an immersive setting but at the end of the day the theme wasn’t what drew me into the game, it was certainly the really unique tile placement pathing mechanism.
Target: A-
This game is wonderful for generally any demographic. The game does accommodate colour blindness as the gates are different shapes and the landmarks are unique. There are symbols for generally everything so its fairly easy to teach this game and it is quite accessible. Teaching and learning this game is fairly simple as well as you generally place a tile and draw a tile with some added flavor.
The art on the box is beautiful and overall the game is quite inviting. Genuinely appreciate games that are so accessible and welcoming. You can certainly use this game to introduce individuals to board games but also play it with board game hobbyists as well and have a wonderful time in both scenarios.
Tylor’s Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐
First of all, I am so grateful of how this game was put together. They took the time to consult the culture behind the theme and really put thought into the accuracy and the portrayal.
Tile placing games always make me go into a paralysis because I end up over thinking the placement of my tiles. That is no different with this game. It has me (over) thinking the best possible ways to score as many points as possible… and usually having it not go as planned. All the same, I have had a blast playing through this game and thoroughly enjoy the ability to interact with the board by spending resources and the countless ways to score points.
The goals are fun to push towards and you can really focus in on the resources, the characters or do a combination of both to get yourself the win. I am looking forward to sharing this game with friends and I definitely recommend checking this out!
Final Thoughts: Truly appreciated this game, I can see this being a game we pull out to introduce individuals to board games or enjoy as a fun tile placement with coffee or tea. It’s relaxing and thrilling at the same time, the replayability is wonderful and this game certainly tickles your brain in the best way possible. The slight deterrent to playing this game is the amount of components, but how can you be mad when they’re so delightful to look at?
MERIT Report Card Letter Grade: B+
Note: A copy of this game was provided to us by the publisher.