Starlight Stage Review – The Anime Elephant in the Room

Disclaimer: Starlight Stage was provided for free by Japanime Games, although the writing and opinions of this article are my own.

Japanese Idol culture is having a moment. It entered the video game mainstream already with Tokyo Mirage Sessions and has several popular anime such as Oshi No Ko, and Zombieland Saga. So it’s no surprise it’s reached board gaming in the form of Starlight Stage.

How to play

In the game, you take on the role of a talent agency on the rise. It’s your goal to turn your idols into stars, and by making them popular, you become popular as well. Which is what everyone in this industry wants.

You start with three impressionable young ladies looking to follow their dreams. Each has their specialty as either a model, a singer, or an actress. Throughout, you’ll play these idols and use their talents to buy more powerful cards.

Idols’ talent and talent tokens are the main currency of the game. They can be earned by spending a turn to give an idol a lesson or sending out your idols to events found in the marketplace.

This marketplace consists of three rows of cards that represent the actions you can take:

• Event Cards: Send one or more idols to an event netting you more talent tokens.
• Fame Cards: Play one of your idols, and several talent tokens, to gain a fame card. Giving you popularity points in the process.
• Idol Cards: Exchange one of your idols, and spend your talent tokens, with one of the more powerful idols in the market.

However, before you buy anything from this market, you must first add to it. By picking a row and adding a card from its deck to it.

Play continues until the last card of the fame deck is added to the market. At that point, everyone counts their popularity points to find out who takes centre stage, and who’s relegated to understudy.

The anime-looking elephant in the room

Anime fans are in for a treat. The art is fantastic and captures the essence of Japanese idol culture, in a familiar style not far removed from what’s on TV. For everyone else though, the art in Starlight Stage may be a deal-breaker. Particularly because of how young some of the girls are, and how scantily clad some others can be.

Now I’m not saying Starlight Stage isn’t for everyone. I’m just saying I wouldn’t play it with my grandma.

However, if you can get passed this barrier to entry, you’ll find a satisfying gameplay loop within. One of figuring out the best and fastest way to gain talent tokens. Whether that’s by sending your idols to a series of events or reinventing them to be more powerful.

Whatever you decide, it’s never a straight line between your current hand and your goal. Meaning, you’re going to have to get creative and think strategically, if you’re to beat everyone else at the table.

However, the highlight of the game is when it’s time to reinvent your idol. There’s this weird sense of pride that comes with it. By forcing you to give up one of your cards, it feels like they’ve grown from a talentless idol into a pro.

It’s a brilliant meeting of mechanics and theme and gets you a little emotionally invested. Something you wouldn’t normally say about most of these recipe fulfilment type games.

Unfortunately, this reinvention, while great, isn’t enough to cover Starlight Stage’s flaws. Most of the cards in the market do the same thing or have no ongoing effects. So they aren’t exciting enough to get your brain juices flowing on a turn-by-turn basis.

In a shorter game, this would be fine. But Starlight Stage doesn’t know when it’s being played off the stage. There comes a point after everyone has upgraded all of the idols, and you’re just taking turns cleaning up the fame cards. This lasts longer than it should and, with the powered-up idols, removes a lot of the cleverness and finagling you needed in the first half of the game.

With nothing to look forward to but the end of the game. The back half of Starlight Stage loses the exciting reputation the first half built faster than a K-Pop star’s fashion faux pa.

Tip the scales in your favour

Starlight Stage is as balanced as a drunk, one-eyed sailor. There are cards within the market where if one player gets them, then it’s curtains for everyone else. As they run away with the game.

One example is the Super Idol Saori. She grants 1 popularity point per fame card you buy. So by the end of the game, she may be worth 8-10 points. Given scores generally fall between 20-40, eight points is a significant amount.

Then there are the event cards allowing you to recruit extra idols, effectively giving you an extra turn each round. That’s awesome! But, because of the randomness of them coming out of the deck, you might not end up with any of them. Meanwhile, another player ends up with so many they might have to open a second agency.

Not to get sidetracked, but having powerful cards or giving players extra idols isn’t the issue. It’s that not everyone has an equal chance of getting these cards. Like, at all. This is frustrating, as you lose games of Starlight Stage purely from getting a bad draw of cards.

To flip the script though, Starlight Stage acts the part of a gateway game for an extreme niche of players. Those who like board games, anime, and Japanese idol culture. Taking that into perspective, Starlight Stage succeeds at being a decent entry board game. One where if the art appeals, you’ll have a good time. For everyone else though, you’re better off waiting for the next show in town.