Review: Star Trek: Star Realms (UVS Games, Wise Wizard)

When I first saw Star Trek: Star Realms from UVS Games and Wise Wizard Games, my mental sound effects library immediately pulled up the swoosh-squeak of the original Enterprise’s doors — and, of course,“Engage!” and “Fire!” heard in several actors’ voices.

The Star Trek universe has a deep history in its many incarnations. On the other side of the equation, Star Realms is an evergreen title with quite a few expansions of its own. I couldn’t help but wonder: Would this new version of the long-time favorite Star Realms game do justice to the massive Star Trek franchise?

Let’s find out! Here are the top five things to load into your dataPADD before beaming into a round of Star Trek: Star Realms.

Meeting the Main Factions

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The original Star Realms game organized cards into four factions by colors, plus three types of faction-independent support ships.

Star Trek: Star Realms follows that model, directly connecting it to four major Star Trek factions. The Federation gets the blue color scheme, while Klingons use red. As would be expected, Romulans are on the green cards. The game wraps up the faction decks with purple cards belonging to the Dominion.

The unaligned ships include a Rigelian scout (the starter trade ship), a Maquis raider (the starter combat ship), and a Ferengi marauder (the wonderfully appropriate choice for upgraded trade ship).

Ships and Locations

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Star Trek fans will especially enjoy the details worked into the ship and base cards. Every faction ship card lists the ship’s class, along with that particular ship’s name pulled straight from Star Trek lore. You’ll find ships from the TV shows and movies, such as the U.S.S. Reliant, the I.K.C Bortas, the I.R.W. Gal Gath’thong, and, of course, the U.S.S. Enterprise-D.

Likewise, each faction’s locations and outposts will bring back storyline memories. The base game includes examples such as Station K-7, the penal colony on Aura Penthe, and the repair facilities on Kelvas V. Each one sports abilities that bring the location to life inside the Star Realms game system.

Setting the Stage

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Each player gets a starting hand of 10 non-faction cards, including eight scout ships for trade and two raiders for combat. The remaining starter cards go back into the box.

The unaligned D’Kora Class trade ships are not dealt out, but are put in a separate pile. All remaining cards are shuffled and become the trade deck. The top five cards from the trade deck are laid out face up in a row between the players. These are the first cards available for purchase.

To make setup and play easier, the game includes a handy cardboard play mat that serves as both a quick reference for the game’s icons and an organizer for the trade deck, scrapyard, trade row, and upgraded trade ships.

Finally, players receive cardboard Authority tokens to track their influence. The game ends when one player’s authority is reduced to zero.

Playing a Turn

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The action in Star Trek: Star Realms directly follows the original game’s model. Players shuffle their starting decks and determine who goes first. (The rules don’t specify how to pick the first player, so we used random Star Trek trivia questions because it felt thematically appropriate.) The first player draws three cards; the second player gets a full hand of five cards.

On each turn, the active player puts their cards into play in whatever order they wish. Each card’s text explains what the card does in the game through both icons and text.

Card abilities are resolved in the order cards are played. Some abilities give you trade value to purchase new ships and locations from the trade row, while others add combat value to reduce your opponent’s authority. More advanced ships and locations grant better trade or combat values. Sometimes they add ally abilities which are triggered by playing two cards from the same faction.

Building and Scrapping Your Deck

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The central mechanic in Star Realms involves building and managing your deck to give yourself the most power and flexibility to defeat your opponent.

Since the game begins from an even playing field, players gain the advantage by choosing the best options available to them each turn. Do you enhance your buying power with an upgraded trade ship or add an outpost for protection? Do you try to focus on cards from one or two factions or collect a variety?

Since cards come up randomly in the trade row, you need to make the best decisions at that moment, knowing the situation will change the moment you reveal a new card.

Verdict

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We love how the designers married the Star Trek universe to the balanced system behind Star Realms. The game includes named ships and other content to please the hard-core fans. It does this without disrupting the smooth game play that Star Realms is known for.

To reinforce the Star Trek feel, the cards feature minor graphic design changes. The game’s key terms (faction, trade, combat, and authority, for example) remain the same. This makes Star Trek: Star Realms very easy for current players to pick up.

Given how Wise Wizard expanded the original game, we can expect to see plenty of new cards entering the game over the coming years. The Star Trek franchise offers tremendous opportunities to take Star Realms into new audiences and new strategic directions.

We didn’t see this collaboration coming, but we’re very glad it’s here. Recommended!