Disclosure: Meeple Mountain received a free copy of this product in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement.
The first board game review I ever wrote was a review of Star Realms, and I published it to BoardGameGeek with the breathless enthusiasm of someone who had just returned to hobby board gaming. I knew so little; yet, I still possessed the unshakeable certainty that my opinions were undoubtedly the right ones. Some things never change.
Now, it’s a million (8) years later, and I’m crusty, covered in barnacles, and still think that I know everything there is to know about what makes games good. I still think Star Realms is a fun time, though Shards of Infinity is more my cup of tea for the money.
That said, Star Trek: Star Realms is a shameless cash grab that doesn’t even attempt to address some of the issues of the core game, opting to paint STAR TRUNK all over everything instead.
From what I can tell, the game is a near-to-exact replica of the original Star Realms, I can point to you what one of our other writers has already written about it for more in depth writing about the game, but here is what it is in a nutshell:
Star Realms is a deckbuilder from the classical era of the form. It’s pretty simple: stomp your opponent into dust. You start with eight cards that generate 2 dollars and two cards that do 2 damage to your opponent. You draw a five card hand, and on your turn, you play your cards, doing damage to your opponent, healing yourself, and using your dollary-doos to buy new cards from a 5-card market, which are added to your discard pile. The cards are suited into categories that do slightly different things and also synergize with other cards of their category. There are cards that remain in play to perform abilities and protect you from damage, and the game has a clever trashing mechanic where you can slim down your deck by using an enhanced ability and tossing away the card.
That’s pretty much it. I haven’t played Star Realms in years, but playing this was a reminder of how clean and simple the game system is. It’s a fun time, far more confrontational than the critical path puzzle of Dominion. Star Trek: Star Realms allows multiplayer play out of the box, which is a nice improvement from the 2-player restriction of the Star Realms sets of the time I was playing.
Ok, now for the meat:
Resistance to the demands of capital is futile
I’ve written about some other Star Trek games for Meeple Mountain, and you know I’m a big fan of the property. I know my Darmoks from my Jalads. My high critical bar is lowered significantly if I get to hang out with my guys Sisko and Garak.
This particular cash grab is so shameless and ill-conceived even I wasn’t able to suspend my disappointment. Like I mentioned before, as far as I can tell, it’s almost an exact re-skin of its predecessor, but instead of bespoke made-up sci-fi, we are butchering existing canon.
I could rant about this for days, but I’ll just make this little nerd fan point. The faction categories, which are the suits I mentioned earlier, are Romulan, Federation, Klingon, and Dominion. As far as I can tell, the Federation contains all the healing cards with less attack capability, and the other three contain all the attack stuff. Yee-haw. By Grapthar’s Hammer, what a nuanced use of the lore.
Just go play Star Realms.
STAR TREK: Star Realms details
- Designer: Darwin Kastle
- Artists: N/A
- Publishers: UVS Games, Wise Wizard Games
- Release Date: 2024
- Player count : 2 - 4
- Age range : 14+
- Time range : 20 minutes
- Mechanism(s): Deck, Bag, and Pool Building, Delayed Purchase
- BGG Geek Rating: 7.37893 - converted to Meeple Mountain scale: 3.5.
- More articles about STAR TREK: Star Realms.
