Copied from the old forums. Still considering to grab more decks at SPIEL!
A while ago Pegasus, a big German publisher of international board games, released German editions of Puzzle Strike and Yomi.
I’ve found the Yomi starter set on Amazon for cheap and decided to give in to my curiosity (+I only own the physical English Shadows characters).
Let’s take a look, shall we?
Business Model
So far, I have found 5 different products: Single decks for Grave, Jaina, Rook and DeGrey, as well as a “Starter Set” that includes the Grave and Jaina decks, rules and life dials.
Like I’ve said before, I’ve bought the starter set.
Starter Set Content
Like the English Round X boxes, the decks inside the box are themselves contained in single boxes that reflect their single retail counterparts.
The dials look nice and feel pretty sturdy. Not sure whether I prefer them or the board+counters from the round boxes, but I wouldn’t mind relying on these. At the very least, they are pretty portable.
I have not actually read the rulebook but it appears to be split in two sections: “Your first match of Yomi” and a reference guide á la newer FFG rules. Jokers are not introduced until after the first game.
Cards
I am very bad at recognizing card quality but the cards feel roughly like the English ones. A cute addition to every deck is a card that contains some lore information on the character on one side, and a large knockdown symbol on the other one. Seems handy and helps Pegasus establish the universe.
Boxes
The single deck boxes have some very slight differences that may not be interesting to everybody. I’ll post some pictures in spoilers. Notable changes:
- No Sirlin Games logo (this one kind of makes sense) and no Fantasy Strike Logo (this one surprises me)
- More art on the side with the portrait
- The other side describes the character theme instead of the game. Seems a little odd on a retail product
- Fewer boxes covering the cardback art on the front
- Super art on the back completely unobstructed
- A disclaimer about requiring a second deck to play
[details=Box pictures]
English BBB deck for comparison
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Translation
I haven’t read the rules but a quick skim did reveal that dodges are Konter (counters) now. Which does not make 100% sense since you still need to play the actual attack follow up.
In general I feel like some fighting game references were dropped, probably because of obscurity. A Gold Burst is an Energieschub (energy boost).
Character names were kept the way they were (much appreciated!) except for a typo on the Starter Set’s back that calls Grave “Graves” 
As expected from Germany, the move translations are pretty literal (and work well). Let’s look at them anyway:
Grave
- Knowing the Opponent: “Kenne deinen Gegner”, lit. “Know your opponent”
- The grammatical structure of a literal translation, “Den Gegner kennen” is not incorrect but sounds a little off isolated like this.
- Martial Mastery: “Kampfkunstmeister”, lit. “Martial-arts master”
- “Meisterschaft” would have made for an even longer word and is ambigious because it also means championship (and more commonly so)
- Mental Toughness: “Mentale Belastbarkeit”; literal translation
- “Belastbarkeit” has a hint of “capacity” to it. So Grave can take a lot of bullshit before stuff happens.
- Lightning Cloud: “Blitzwolke”; literal translation
- Dragonheart: “Drachenherz”; literal translation;
- same as Jaina’s
- Whirlwind: “Wirbelwind”; literal translation
- True-Spark Arc: “Funkenbogen”; lit. “spark arc”.
- Seems to be an actual term for something relating to discharge. I think there would have been some ways to translate the “True” but I don’t think it would have contributed anything to the name.
- True Power of Storms: “Auge des Sturms”, lit. “Eye of the Storm”
- A literal translation would have probably been to long. The German version sounds pretty good and super move-y to me. The “True” isn’t dearly missed because it was dropped from the other A side too.
Jaina
- Burning Vigor: “Brennende Kraft”, lit. “Burning Power”.
- German doesn’t really have a good word for “vigor”. This is a little uninspired and doesn’t sound too great to me to be honest.
- Burning Desperation: “Brennende Verzweiflung”, lit. “Burning Despair”
- Instable Power: “Instabile Energie”, lit. “Unstable Energy”
- Using Energie/energy instead of Kraft/power suggests that it’s her power source that is unstable; or might refer to energy-based attacks. The wording doesn’t invoke images of physical attacks (same like energy in English, really)
- Smoldering Embers: “Schwelende Glut”; literal translation
- Flame Arrow: “Flammenpfeil”; literal translation
- Charged Shot: “Wuchtiger Schuss”; lit. “Forceful Shot” in the sense of the shot having a lot of weight/force to it.
- Does not suggest any of fighting game input which is a missed opportunity.
- Dragonheart: “Drachenherz”; literal translation
- same as Grave’s
- Crossfire Kick: “Kreuzfeuerkick”; literal translation
- It’s worth pointing out that “Kreuzfeuer” is made up of equivalent component words and has the some unique combined meaning as crossfire.
- Red Dragon: “Roter Drache”; literal translation
- Letter J: “Madame J”
- Yup, this is French. I have as much of an idea about this as you. But here are some points that may have factored into this:
- The German word for “letter” is "Buchstabe which sounds a little silly and not like super move material.
- I think most of us never really understood the whole Letter J thing. I think it’s a reference to an actual fighting game move? I’ve already established that those were mostly dropped.
- I believe Madame J kind of invokes the same image: A showy signature move (literally) that Jaina uses to SHOW WHO THE OPPONENT IS DEALING WITH!
Rook
- Rock Armor: “Steinpanzer”; lit. “Stone armor” or “Stone carapace”
- The literal word for “rock”, “Fels” refers to a formation, and is rarely used to describe the material.
- “Panzer” is more frequently used to describe an animal’s carapace (turtles, insects) but can refer to medieval armor.
- Defense Mastery: “Meister der Verteidigung”, lit. “Master of Defense”
- “Meisterschaft” (“Mastery”) has the same problem as in Martial Mastery. It would be super long and the intended meaning would be overshadowed by its second meaning, “championship”
- Entangling Vines: “Schlingranken”
- This is a compound word of “(Um-)Schlingen” (“to entangle”) and “Ranken” (“Vines”). It is also reminiscent of “Schlingpflanzen” which is a common word for climbing plants. I actually thought this was a dictionary word but apparently it’s a neologism. Good job on this IMO.
- Stone Wall: “Steinmauer”, literal translation
- Thunder Clap: “Donnerklatscher”, pretty literal translation
- “-klatscheN” would have been slightly more literal, but is not very evocative of a martial arts move.
- Rolling Stone: “Rollender Stein”, literal translation
- Unfortunately loses the reference to the Rolling Stones.
- Hammer Fist: “Hammerfaust”, literal translation
- Windmill Crusher: “Windmühlen-Crusher”
- “Windmühlen” is a literal translation of “Windmills”
- “Crusher” has no meaning in German and is Pegasus simply using the move’s original term. This strikes me as a little lazy. Jaina’s K did the same thing with “Kick” but that word is a little more coomonly used to describe Cool Video Game Martial Arts Moves™. It works but I wonder if there would have been a better option.
- Wall of Vines: “Rankenwall”, lit. “vine rampart”; sounds pretty cool
- Checkmate Buster: “Schachmattschlag”, lit. “Checkmate Blow”
- I don’t really like the “-schlag” part. It does not sound exciting and is evocative of a punch, while AAAA is actually a throw. There isn’t really a translation for “buster”, but that just means that the translators were granted the flexibility to come up with anycool finishing move name…
