Daitoshi – First Impressions from a Steampunk Yokai City

When I posted a picture of Daitoshi on my Instagram, one of my viewers commented, “This is one of those times when Amator pretends he knows what he’s talking about.” Thanks, Kamil — always a confidence booster before tackling behemoths like this. And honestly… he wasn’t entirely wrong. So, welcome to my non-review of Daitoshi.

Reviewed copy: Polish edition by Portal Games (thanks for the review unit!)

Original publisher: Devir Games (international release)

I don’t usually feature heavy eurogames on my blog — mostly because I rarely play them. But sometimes I get a chance to wrestle with something more substantial. That doesn’t make me an expert, so take this more as a collection of thoughts and a record of my experience with Daitoshi, rather than a deep strategic breakdown.

The game grabbed my attention thanks to its theme: steampunk Japan with yokai (nature spirits) and giant insect buses or moth-driven airships. I was sold… or so I thought. In my opinion, the theme stumbles along the way — but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Also, credit where it’s due: the photos in this article are courtesy of BialikArt.

The Daitoshi Rulebook Nearly Defeated Me

I’ll admit it — the rulebook almost broke me. Not because it’s poorly written or edited, but simply because there’s so much information, and a flood of micro-rules. I think I only made it to the end on my third attempt; the first two times, I tapped out from exhaustion before the finish line. This is all the funnier because at its core, the rules sound straightforward.

On your turn, you either:

Production Phase – Trigger production for all players (with extra bonuses for being the one who starts it), or

City Phase – Move your magnate pawn around the city’s action rondel, place workers in a workshop, exploit a resource area, and then perform that district’s action.

After either phase, you check for conflicts with yokai, then pass the turn.

Sounds simple? Well, these two phases stretch across pages of rules, packed with exceptions, dependencies, and extra systems. On top of the districts, there’s the mega-machine that circles the city, offering special actions. There are environment tracks for gathering tiles — which might anger the yokai — and pilgrims who move along those tracks independently. Yokai affect your factories, factories run on inventions, inventions expand your city with more workshops, and those workshops need workers. Workers come in different colors, earned from exploiting different environment tracks. Workshop spaces are limited, so magnates can pay steam to clear a district — steam that’s also used for production. You can trade with other cities, support the university for better inventions, ride insect-buses, or rack up prestige.

And I’ve barely scratched the surface.

Teaching Daitoshi is a challenge. Playing it eventually clicks — the flow starts to feel intuitive — but it takes a long time before you (or your group) hit that stride. And yes, that affects first impressions.

Daitoshi is Huge

The box is heavy. Inside you’ll find a massive main board, four dual-layer player boards, textured tiles for customizing factories, and 15 district tiles forming the city rondel. Add to that wooden pieces for up to four players, a sack of acrylic resource tokens, additional boards for the mega-machine, scaling components, screens, and several stacks of inventions.

The designer clearly wanted each playthrough to feel different despite following the same overall structure. Components are randomized each game: city layout, starting inventions, market options, city expansion tiles, even which mega-machine board you use — each with unique actions. Starting locations for magnates? Random too.

It’s impressive how varied the setup can be. Unfortunately, setup itself is a nightmare. Sorting, shuffling, stacking, and filling the environment tracks is painfully slow. And there’s no insert. For a game this big, an organizer isn’t a luxury — it’s a necessity. Without it, you’re looking at serious frustration before you even start playing.

Gorgeous but Problematic

First impressions are stellar: the huge board, pastel wooden pieces, dual-layer boards, chunky acrylic tokens that look like little gems… The cardboard tiles are thick and satisfying to handle. The magnate pawns come in both male and female designs, as do smaller character tokens. Pilgrim pieces are cute, while the insect-buses, smokestacks, and mega-machine tokens are strikingly large.

The art style — a mix of Japanese animation, steampunk flair, and nature-fantasy elements — is fantastic. But… the visual abundance also makes parts of the board hard to read. Oversized pawns obscure spaces. The electrification track confuses newcomers. District borders aren’t clearly marked, and the icon overload can cause “board blindness,” where you need a moment just to figure out where you are and what you just did.

The Gameplay Experience

Getting into the flow is tough. The sheer number of micro-rules and dependencies is overwhelming — especially since players start the game already drained from the setup. But once you do get going, the puzzle of chaining actions and maximizing returns is very satisfying. Every decision carries weight, and you have to stay focused: a moment’s distraction can leave you lost and floundering.

Daitoshi shines brightest with a group that already knows it well. For newer or less experienced players, the gap in understanding can be brutal — and I suspect that catching up after falling behind is extremely difficult.

The Theme and Scoring

Here’s where the game falters for me. The theme promises an interplay between industrial growth, environmental exploitation, and the wrath of yokai… but it feels underdeveloped. The yokai can hinder your factories, but removing them has little depth. There’s no real sense of struggle or consequence — just “industrialize, nature suffers, then it’s fine again.”

Scoring also feels disconnected from gameplay. Environment tracks both trigger yokai and determine end-game points — yet the points aren’t tied to the same effects yokai have during the game. That disconnect meant I often wasn’t even thinking about final scoring until the game was over.

Final Thoughts

I didn’t have a bad time with Daitoshi, but the scoring system and the undercooked theme left me with mixed feelings. This is a game that demands full commitment. If you invest the time and mental energy, the rewards are there — but for many, its sheer scope may be more exhausting than enjoyable. Advanced eurogamers may well disagree.

Thanks to Portal Games for providing the Polish edition for review. Original edition by Devir Games.