Black Clover: Star Festival

I picked up Black Clover: Star Festival for reasons I cannot entirely defend even myself. I do not know the manga it is based on, but hidden squad placement was enough bait: after the unforgettable Mechanisburgo, anything that hides teams and intentions beneath that kind of system immediately gets my attention.

Each player takes charge of a team of magical knights at the annual magic festival, aiming to complete missions. Your team moves between different locations, while a rudimentary bit of deck building along the way adds some development to your choices without making the game especially heavy.

Then come the missions, where the luck of the dice gets a say, alongside a rather polite form of conflict with the other players. Character powers can affect other players, so there is theoretically room for interference and little reversals; in practice, though, this side of the game feels like it needed more care.

Overall, it is a light game with something to say, and it brought the also very good Argent: the Consortium to mind, only in a noticeably lighter form. Still, the powers that reach over to affect other players did not convince me that they have been developed enough. If the friction between players does not kick in, the festival can very easily turn into dice-gambling solitaire — at which point the magical knights are left doing their own thing, merely at the same table.