Developer: CMGE, East Asiasoft Limited
Publisher: East Asiasoft Limited
Platform: PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
Tested on: PS5
Richman 11 – Review
Even though Mario Party, the ultimate friendship destroyer, always appealed to its own Nintendo-exclusive audience for years, titles such as Overcooked! put the cooperative party game genre on the map. We have seen so many clones over the years that it’s actually hard to keep track of them all, let alone figure out which ones are actually any good. We were then surprised to see a more traditional Monopoly-like experience localized for our entertainment, namely the 11th main installment of the Richman series. This franchise has been around since the late 80s and has spawned 11 main entries as well as a few spin-off titles. We were curious to see what this cute-looking board game had to offer us. We mainly wondered if this title would be just as frustrating as an actual evening of Monopoly or if it had a few tricks up its sleeve.
Story
If you’re looking for a story in Richman 11, you’ll be sorely disappointed. As this title is a digital board game first and foremost, you’ll just play the game offline or online against different players or AI. The cast comprises quite a few wacky figures, but they don’t even have a bio or short description of who they actually are. Then again, we absolutely didn’t miss the lack of a story, as we were just looking for a fun party game experience with family, friends, or other online players.
Graphics
The cutesy visuals of Richman 11 are basically what drew us to the game in the first place. The colorful characters all look like they have been designed with care, and even though many of these characters adhere to real-life stereotypes, we still loved the varied cast. The boards themselves also look colorful and detailed, even though there’s not that much background action compared to a title such as Mario Party. The animations are also decent, as well as the actions you trigger with your special cards. That being said, we did notice quite a few awkwardly translated lines of text, and a few errors were present too.
Sound
The sound design isn’t too bad. You’ll have jazzy music playing in the background, which never overstays its welcome. Every character also has a few voiced lines, which sound fitting for the character. Richman 11 doesn’t do anything too special with its soundtrack or SFX, but it all sounds very decent. You won’t be bopping your head along with the music, but it’s a relaxing score nonetheless.
Gameplay
Richman 11 is essentially a digital board game in the same vein as Monopoly, albeit with some extra twists. You’ll always have to roll a die to move spaces on the board, and then you might trigger an action depending on what tile you land on. These actions can range from buying property, upgrading properties, paying fellow players, withdrawing or depositing money at the bank, and so on. The general offset is fairly straightforward, and thanks to this, the game is also quite accessible.
Of course, the game is still a bit more complex than described above, as you also have action cards and other obstacles. The action cards can be freely used during your turn, and these may aid you or foil your opponents. You can also encounter so-called gods on the board, which can give you enormous advantages or extreme disadvantages. For example, it’s possible that fortune smiles down on you, allowing you to purchase properties for free for a few turns, or you may give yourself losing nearly all your money in one turn. Some of these effects felt a bit unbalanced and could already decide which player would never recover at the start of a session.
As mentioned above, you can withdraw or deposit money at the bank. This mechanic is actually quite interesting. You can only buy or upgrade properties with the cash on hand but the more money in your bank account the higher your income from interest will be. This adds a bit of tactical thinking to the equation. You can also play the stock market in the hopes of making some extra money. You can buy and sell stock when it’s your turn.
We could handle the game’s somewhat slow placing, but we were often under the impression that the game itself actually cheats. We could predict negative rolls almost every time, and AI players would even avoid every single property of ours for the full duration of a game. Keep in mind that without a predetermined timer, a session can take well over an hour. This more than often caused a lot of frustration, and ultimately it caused us to find the game unfair.
Conclusion
Richman 11 has a lot of interesting components for a great board game, but sadly it failed to impress due to unfair and dodgy RNG, awkward translations, and its overall slow pacing. On the other hand, however, the game also has a lot to like, such as its colorful design, an overall interesting concept, and likable characters. If you can muster up some friends and family, this one could be interesting to play from time to time. If you’re stuck playing online or against AI, however, we reckon it’s best to skip this one or wait for a sale.
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