Sakura Arms

About the game

What is Sakura Arms?

Sakura Duel — known in Japanese as 桜降る代に決闘を and also released as Sakura Arms — is a two-player dueling game in which players first choose two of seven megami (Japanese goddesses), each of which has a different keyword that empowers some of their cards. Players then see what the opponent chose before assembling a deck of ten out of 22 cards, with the players choosing cards both to take advantage of their own megami powers and to exploit their opponent's weaknesses. Players then duel to see who will be victorious. The game uses a single kind of token to represent life, distance, aura (defense), and flare (special energy) based on the zone these tokens occupy. By moving tokens between zones, you attempt to gain the ideal position and set up as many attacks as possible — or be prepared to avoid attacks. The gameplay at its core is simple, and due to its limited environment, it is relatively easy to learn the cards for a deck-building game. Building a deck and playing normally takes less than 20 minutes. This is the first release for the second version of the Sakura Arms game system. A third version, with system changes and balance updates, has since been released.

How it plays

Mechanics

On the shelf

Categories

Questions players ask

Questions to bring to BoardGameBrain

• How do setup and the first turn work in Sakura Arms?
• When does scoring happen and what ends the game?
• How should the table resolve an unusual timing or rules interaction?