The Legend of Korra: Pro-Bending Arena
A review by Nathan
Gardner
Legend of Korra: Pro-bending Arena is a board game
pitting 2 people against each other in a competitive sport of throwing Earth
Discs, Fireballs and Water Blasts at each other.
Each person has a team of 3 miniatures and the goal is to
knock your opponents miniatures back off the arena into a pool of water… aka
the drink.
Theme 5/5
If you’re a fan of the show, it goes without saying that the
game captures the essence of the show's Pro-Bending sport.
Gameplay 5/5
The game is fast paced
You’re not sitting there falling asleep while
waiting for your turn to come back. Turns are short and engaging; watching your
opponent’s moves and planning your next steps.
Rules are simple and easy to teach new players
I’ve been able to play and teach a dozen different
people so far, from beginners to experienced gamers and everyone was able to
play without hesitation.
Tactics and Strategy
Each playable character has their own deck that can be
custom built every match. Each team can take 3 different tricks with them and there’s
over 50 of those. You can play any of the 6 theme teams, or do a
fantasy team, mixing and matching the 18 benders. Replay ability feels endless.
Game Components 3/5
Miniatures look amazing. The kickstarter box comes with 21 figures and each is uniquely and dynamically posed. Plenty of detail for anyone like myself wanting to paint them.
The cardboard tokens nicely reflect everything they need to represent in the game. The tokens are all double sided so each player can keep track of their own markers. Some of the tokens do this well like the Hold token. One side blue and the other orange. Other tokens, like the 3 element tokens are just a little bit lighter in color. Those tokens are not easy to differentiate from each other. If you got the kickstarter box, you also got some plastic element tokens and it fixes the issue. One person uses the plastic, the other cardboard.
Card Sizes
Why did they make the card sizes so big? It’s not like they
are trying to make extra room for cool art work. What’s worse is the back of
each card shows the team symbol that character belongs to. So if you make a
fantasy team, you will know which cards are coming up in your deck during the
game. That’s a really big deal if you’re trying to play competitively. I was able to try the game at Gen Con before
the kickstarter. The two designers where in presence and they were the ones to
teach me the game. I made comments right away about the card sizes and the
backs regarding needing sleeves to do a fantasy team. The designers felt down
to earth and seemed to take my input seriously. I wonder how come the cards
still ended up the size they are.
I have seen online that people have found a close enough sleeve
size in Mayday games (61mm x 103mm). But they are sold only in transparent, so they don’t work
either.
Edit: I recently learned that the designer wrote about the
card backs on board game geek.
Q: When mixing and matching benders to create a custom team,
you and your opponent can clearly differentiate which bender's cards are coming
in the main deck because the backs are all different. Is that intentional or
just a side effect? Follow-up question: if it's a side effect (and you were
going to run some sort of semi-official tournament), would you recommend
sleeving the cards with opaque backed sleeves to remove this
advantage/disadvantage?
A: It's part of the 'cost' of creating a custom team.
That said, if all players in your tournament agree to use opaque sleeves, then I see no deep problems with doing so. It would be a problem if only some players are doing it, however.
One thing that's going into the tournament rules on this point, however, is that when using a mixed team after you shuffle your deck you must cut it once (just so no one gets accused of shuffling a specific character's card to the top of the deck because you can see its back).
That said, if all players in your tournament agree to use opaque sleeves, then I see no deep problems with doing so. It would be a problem if only some players are doing it, however.
One thing that's going into the tournament rules on this point, however, is that when using a mixed team after you shuffle your deck you must cut it once (just so no one gets accused of shuffling a specific character's card to the top of the deck because you can see its back).
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Huh?
1: Part of the cost of creating a custom team is gaining advantages
of knowing when that card is coming up in your deck? I don’t like that all.
2: There are very few cards in your deck at any one time, so
the answer of "you must also cut your deck" doesn’t prevent anything.
3: It also doesn’t seem like an actual cost/game mechanic if
it’s okay for everyone to use opaque sleeves.
4: But if it’s truly meant to be a game mechanic cost, with
the option that you could sleeve anyway, why not make the cards a standard
size?
The Rulebook
Just check out this thread below:
Other Thoughts
Single Bender Teams
The kickstarter version of the game comes with 3 more teams,
in the forum of single bender villains from the show. I wish they didn’t do
this at all. The 3 characters had nothing to do with Pro Bending and a match
against one of them doesn’t have that same feeling as playing against a legitimate
team. Taking them out, they could have added a 7th three person
team, which would be great, since there are many teams not made yet from the
show.
Hard to get new people into the game
I’m sure it’s a money thing, but I can still wish on this
next one. I wish the retail version was the kickstarter version. Showing the
game to new players, a lot of them like it and want to buy in, but the retail
version only has 2 teams for $50. Seems like a lot when the kickstarter box has
6 teams (plus the 3 solo benders) and was sold for $65. I was happy to see the
retail version went on sale on a few websites and some friends were able
to buy in for $25.
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Do these bad points make the game bad? Not at all.
Rulebook? One good edit and send out a new PDF.
Game Price? Hopefully they will announce the kickstarter
teams in a separate box sooner or later and at a good price point, to capture the retail
buyers.
Single Bender Teams? Their extra and don’t take away from the
core game. Just please when it comes to expansions down the road, give me a
small box of Platypus Bears vs Rhino Lions, before giving me more
Red Lotus characters.
Card Sizes? The first so many tournaments and leagues my friends and I plan
on will be theme teams anyway, so this doesn’t affect us right away.
Overall I give this game a 4/5
I love playing this game with my friends, family and soon in competitive play of my own making.
I love playing this game with my friends, family and soon in competitive play of my own making.
Can't wait to talk tactics and play new people!
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