That's exactly what I wish to know, I do love the comics and the japanese setting but am reluctant to start another new game. At the moment I play Anima Tactics, Warmachine and Dead walk again, but the current scenery is ideal for another japanese themed game
edit:
found a review on boardgamegeek
I finally got Okko to the board today with a friend and wanted to share my impressions with others who are considering picking up this game.
Okko, Era of the Asagiri is a tactical board game for two players, using cardboard cutouts, cards and dice. The game is inspired by the comic book of the same name and allows you, for the length of a game, to lead a band of Demon Hunters or to control Evil Creatures.
http://www.okko-thegame.comOkko was initially designed as a collectible miniatures skirmish game. Instead, the publishers decided to box up 20 characters and a modular board and turn it into a board game. They didn't do away with miniatures completely, a player can still purchase them for €23 a piece. Currently there are 6 models available.
PLAYERS: 2 (EXPANDABLE? With the characters you get in the box, it doesn't seem like it would work for more than two players. There are only 2 factions (so far) in Okko so more than two players wouldn't really work. The planned expansions may allow for more teams to participate in each skirmish, if new factions are created.)
PLAYING TIME: Roughly 30-45 minutes per skirmish, maybe shorter if your rolling poorly.
COMPONENTS
The Okko board is made up of 6 double sided maps. The map illustrations are very nice and the boards are thick and appear sturdy. The character cards and items cards look very nice too, with attractive illustrations and made of good quality material. In lieu of miniatures, Okko comes with 20 Cardboard cutouts which sit in plastic stands. Although these are also of good quality there are a couple concerns potential buyers should be made aware of:
First, if you are used to playing miniature games the 2d cardboard cutouts may be less than impressive. Even non-collectible miniature games like Tannhauser make a good use of their miniatures which adds to the realism of the game. However, these cardboard characters keep production costs of the game much lower than Tannhauser, making it a worthy trade-off for "budget" gamers.
Secondly, as anybody familiar with miniatures games will know, character facing is often an important aspect. In Okko, this is also the case. So, to illustrate character facing only one side of the cardboard cutout contains an image of the character. On the opposing side, which shows the direction the character's back is facing, the cardboard pices is black with the faction symbol indicating which team the character belongs to. The issue I have with this is that some character models look very similar in size and shape. When a character is facing away from you it is sometimes hard to determine which character you are looking at. It may have been a better idea to have an image of the characters back OR to use the plastic stand to show facing.
Finally, a couple of the characters are very small. When these characters are placed into the plastic holder the holder covers a lot of the character art.
None of these concerns are game-breaking, however, and if you NEED to have models, check your FLGS for miniatures that will work or purchase the official miniatures as they become available.
MANUAL
The Okko manual is very short, especially if you are used to more complex miniatures games like Warmachine. However, the manual sufficiently identifies the goals of the game and covers all of the information you need to play a skirmish. We didn't come across any situations where the manual was unable to help us determine what we could or couldn't do.
GAMEPLAY
DRAFTING YOUR BAND
Okko contains two primary factions: Demon Hunters and Evil Creatures. There is also a third faction of mercenaries from which both players may draw their units. As is the case with many miniatures games, players are given a budget to purchase characters and items to participate in the battle. One situation that we experienced made me realize the manual has no guidelines for determining who can buy which mercenaries. For instance, if both players planned to draft the same mercanary into their army, there are no guidelines in the manual for how to determine who gets that character. In our game we decided the second player would choose any mercanaries first, since the first player gets to deploy and act first.
MOVEMENT
Movement in Okko is handled in a way that I thought was very interesting and very effective. The basics are standard miniatures fare: Characters spend movement points to move and difficult terrain is harder to move through or over than normal terrain. The difference in Okko movement system has to do with how the movement points are spent. Each character has a CONTROL ZONE which consists of the three squares directly in front of him. Moving into any of these quares costs 1 MOVE. Moving into any other square, for instance the square directly behind you or directly to your left or right, costs 2 MOVE. Changing the direction your character is facing costs 1 MOVE per quarter rotation (so, 1 MOVE to face to your left or right, 2 MOVE to face the opposite direction you started). So if an enemy is beind you it will take 2 MOVE to actually face that enemy. In the three games we played the movement system seemed to make sense and was laid out in a logical manner.
COMBAT
Combat in Okko is done using a combination of a combat stats, die roll (1d6) and any bonuses applied. Attackers can gain bonuses by aproacing a character from behind or attacking a character while another teammate is close enough to support the attack. Characters also have certain skills that can be used to boost an attack or defensive action. Characters do not have Hit Points. Instead, they have two states they can be in while in the game: VIGILANT or SHAKEN. A successful attack can turn a VIGILANT character into a SHAKEN character (which for most characters lowers their stats). Depending on how much the loser was beaten by, they may be forced to retreat or forced to become SHAKEN and then retreat. retreated into certain squares can also cause the character to become SHAKEN, so its important to not put your characters into a place they cannot retreat from if necessary. It takes another successful attack to remove that character completely from the game. On the other hand, characters who are SHAKEN can use their actions to try to become VIGILANT again (using their WILL stat), so characters with a low defense but a high WILL stat are harder to remove from the game than they might initially seem.
An interesting thing to note about Okko is that the attacking character is not the only character that can do any damage. If the attacker rolls low enough and the defender beats their roll, the attacker suffers the same fate he was trying to force onto his target.
I enjoyed the combat mechanics of this game, although all of our games were VERY short compared to a 2-3 hour Warmachine battle.
INSPIRATION
The inspiration dice in Okko are another interesting gameplay mechanic. At the beginning of your turn you roll 4-5 dice. Each side of the dice contains images denoting elements that can be used by your team. Your dice pool is available to every player while it is your turn, and inspiration dice can be used to boost certain stats or to perform certain special ACTIONS. Once your turn is complete you can also place any remaining inspiration dice in reserve for character to use in their defense round. The inspiration dice add another stroke of luck to the game, but they also add some very good tension. Nothing sucks more than rolling 5 inspiration dice and not getting the ONE symbol you needed to wreck shop in that round.
IMPRESSIONS:
I've played a couple miniatures games before and have played many board games. I found Okko to be a fun, quick miniatures game with well thought-out mechanics and interesting characters and abilities. It's definitely a LIGHT miniature skirmish game and plays much quicker than a round of HORDES or WARMACHINE. I bought the game hoping it would fill the role of a close quarters combat game and am pleasantly surprised with how well the mechanics are put together. The game components do not suffer in quality due to the game's low cost, although many people will prefer the game with miniatures instead of using the cardboard cut-outs.
All in all a great game with a good atmosphere, cool characters with cooler character powers, and a nicely detailed game board. Recommended. "
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