Daitoshi Board Game Review

I generally get a lot of plays of a board game prior to providing my thoughts on the game, but Daitoshi grabbed me so much I had to get writing after two plays. So take that for what it is! Daitoshi is another big box game from DEVIR, and one of my favourite games of 2024 even after just a few plays. I find the decision making space here really good, and love the theme and how it is portrayed across the boards and tiles a lot. Although it might not be for everyone, here is why I love Daitoshi so much!\

In Daitoshi, players will be expanding their factories, contributing to the mega machine, and attempting to not make the Yo-Kai TOO upset. The city is expanding, and with expansion comes costs. As the city grows and more and more factories pop-up, the Yo-Kai of the land and sea are not going to be overly thrilled. Players will need to balance their relationship with the Yo-Kai while also expanding their own factories to earn points and come out on top.

The game is played over a series of turns, and on their turn a player can choose between a production action or a city action. Let’s quickly highlight those two available actions.

Production – a production turn allows all players to produce resources at their factories. Each factory has three buildings, each with their own steam cost to pay. Each factory has a number of different machines, and these can be levelled up as the game progresses. Above or below each machine is a series of check marks and “X’s which will denote what resources a player will get. The lead player will recieve everything with a pink AND blue checkmark, while the passive players will get everything associated with the blue checkmarks only.

City Turn – this is where most of the games major point scoring will occur. These actions vary, but you might expand your factory with new tiles, contribute to the mega machine, expand the city, trade with other cities, and more. Each action will generally impact the local Yo-Kai, and doing so will require you to grab Yo-Kai tiles from the board and add them to your factory. Having one of each tile is perfectly OK, and you’ll even get good benefits when you collect them. Once you have more than one of a specific tile, however, and you will have to endure the wrath of the Yo-Kai and will have some negative consequences as a result.

For me, Daitoshi comes down to balancing the need for resources, the need to take those key city actions that score you big points, and a MAJOR need to keep the local Yo-Kai happy and healthy. Doing all of these things is a bit of work, and sometimes pissing off some Yo-Kai is unavoidable. As we noted, doing so will result in some negative impacts on your factory – upgrading less when taking production actions, or only have slots for a couple workers as opposed to 6, and so on – but you can shed these Yo-Kai tiles as well to restore harmony to your workshop.

Balance. Balance is the name of the game here, and I think that is why it works so well. There is no strategy that I’ve seen where rushing up one way is going to win you the game. Each action is generally tied to a different group of Yo-Kai, which means taking that action too often will result and worse and worse consequences. This will especially bite you in the backside at the game’s end where you may earn negative points for each Yo-Kai tile you have, especially if you end up on the wrong side of one of the four tracks.

The image above is to show the various components of Daitoshi – the Folded Spaces insert is NOT included with the game.

There is a ton going on in this game, which means it’s not likely going to be for everyone. There might only be a handful of city actions to think about, but how those actions unfold, where you take them, and what workers you might have will give you options upon options, and this can become overwhelming, even for me. I do feel that too often I was taking an action HOPING the outcome would be beneficial down the road. With more play time, perhaps, I’ll be able to pinpoint better opportunities, but for your first few games, it might be like throwing pasta on a wall and seeing what sticks.

Nothing here, though, feels unlikely or unfair. My choice dictate what happens in my factories. Where you end up during your city action on the central board is determined by free movement and additional movement paid for with steam. Balancing your actions will balance the Yo-Kai that flock to your board, and shedding those tiles before picking up new ones is a delicate strategy that’s fun to figure out and pull off.

If you read my components overview and impressions article, you know how much I think this game oozes theme! I have no issue with abstract games or games that have a slightly poor production, but a solid theme and a solid production just make playing a board game objectively more fun. And Daitoshi does both of these things well. If you love a well produced game with a ton of steam, and are OK thinking through a lot of things to pull out the best score, I think Daitoshi could be your hit game of this holiday season.