Richman is a long-running series of board game-inspired video games, one that had quite a share of popularity in China throughout the years in particular but with little exposure in the West. Richman 11 is yet another installment of a franchise we never really looked into: so let’s check it out, on Xbox Series X!
Breaking the Monopoly
The formula of Richman has a lot in common with one of the most famous board games in the world: Monopoly, that is. The similarities are more than just superficial, too: players move around a board where most squares offer buildings that can be bought and then subsequently upgraded, alongside others where special cards and events happen. When other players land on our property, or vice versa, it’s time to pay! There’s even a prison, so how can this not just be a cheap Monopoly clone?
The answer is in the fact that, in practice, Richman plays quite differently – and from now on, let’s look at 11 in particular. There are many available boards, and they don’t offer the linear rectangle-shaped road of Hasbro’s classics, instead opting for interconnected paths where competitors can often choose where to go themselves, giving an extra dose of strategic options to the players. In some cases, the very direction can be switched on the fly, opening up brand-new possibilities.
The game also puts another spin on the whole “rich men investing” theme – the stock market. Before each turn, players can hop in and buy or sell one of several available stocks, of which value goes up or down randomly every turn. Investing in these options isn’t necessary to win. Still, it can offer a steady income or a decent emergency fund when our other cash cows aren’t generating much in terms of profit.
Let’s throw the dice!
Either way, the actual action always begins with the roll of the dice – usually a single one, though there are ways to obtain up to three throwable dice at the same time, drastically increasing the amount of road the player can do in a single round. As said, landing on free estate slots either allows us to buy the said property or pay a fee to its owner, but there are plenty of other things that can happen on the board. Activating special events, unique Mario Party-esque minigames aimed at gaining more cash, bank squares where we can deposit or withdraw the cash needed to spend, places where lottery tickets can be bought, and even locations with literal Gods that will help or harm us.
Let’s look into some of those things on the list, starting with deities. These special divine characters can be found roaming on the map, and when obtained the player will gain special abilities or a curse, depending on whether it’s a good or evil divinity. The former can give us neat perks such as being immune to paying fees when landing on other players’ properties or getting free building upgrades whenever we land on our estates, the latter can steal coins or cards from us, or even limit our mobility drastically. The Gods themselves or other events can even send the player to prison or a hospital, both of which are specific locations on the map and result in having to skip multiple rounds unless the player’s got a card up their sleeve.
Indeed, there’s a card system in place as well, giving players a bit more agency on the outcome of seemingly random events such as dice rolls. These have all sorts of abilities: they can allow the player to alter the value of the dice itself, steal cash or cards from others, create all sorts of obstacles on the board, or even impact the mobility and actions of other players. Whereas in Monopoly the dice rolls will ultimately decide our fate, luck still plays a huge part in a casual-oriented board game like Richman 11, but there’s still plenty more strategy and options at the player’s disposal.
That took a while!
Richman 11 is one of the most packed games in its genre. There are a dozen different boards, all with their peculiar parts such as an active volcano covering certain squares with lava or entire paths moving via mechanisms. All of this can be played against 3 difficulties of CPU alone or with friends locally, on top of a competently made online mode where we can tackle players from across the globe. The rules of the match are highly customizable too, such as the winning conditions or the length of the match. Players can even tackle gameplay variations such as Brawl maps, where missiles and mines make the game a lot more explosive and, usually, dramatically shorter due to how quickly cash is burnt via these attacks. Even the many available characters already come with a large amount of different cosmetic options from the start. Perhaps the minigames could be a bit deeper and more varied, but this ain’t no Mario Party and indeed these activities play a very small role.
The game even offers a Challenge mode, where players play hand-in-hand with AI players on any of the available boards against a powered-up CPU with certain unique rulesets to boot. These can range from being immune to missiles to attracting all positive gods to their side after each round, creating a unique challenge against cunning bosses. There are even 3 difficulties available for each challenge, though unfortunately, they unlock gradually – so to beat everything, all these challenges have to be cleared 3 times.
It all sounds quite impressive so far, doesn’t it? There is, however, a very subjective catch. At its core, Richman is a solid, casual-oriented board game with a lot of quirks on the classic Monopoly formula, but I wouldn’t say it’s a particularly engaging game long-term. It fixes some of Monopoly’s shortcomings, but it also simplifies the construction element, removes trades between players, and the sheer size of the boards with so much player agency means that landing on other players’ properties can be circumvented extremely often, slowing down the progression a lot – at least in Richman 11. Sure, the multipliers for everything cash-involved go up as the match goes on, and as said the rules can be customized in many ways, but the game has limited strategic variety, with matches usually boiling down to the same couple of beats. It’s a solid, beginner-friendly board game, but not a masterpiece. The presentation of it is good enough, too, with solid cartoonish graphics and good performance, though the audio clips could be better and the translation to English is also a little unprecise at times.
A GREAT VIDEOGAME OF A DECENT BOARD GAME
A great videogame, but only a solid board game
Ultimately, Richman 11 boils down to being a very well-made videogame rendition of a solid, though not particularly original or unmissable virtual board game. With multiple game modes, tons of customization, large amounts of shenanigans happening in the match with cards, deities, and more, plus even a solid online mode, it’s hard to ask more from a videogame of this kind. But the board game itself, underneath it all, is a slightly more varied but also somewhat more monotonous Monopoly, one that I don’t consider to be endlessly replayable like certain classics. Still, with this much content and all sorts of local and online multiplayer options, Richman 11 is easily one of the better board game experiences on Xbox, especially for younger folks who’d prefer something a bit more accessible.
Richman 11
Played on
Xbox Series X
PROS
- A very accessible board game
- Lots of content at launch, including online play
- No content hidden behind ungodly grinds or MTXs
CONS
- The board game itself could be deeper
- Some rules and translations are a bit weird
