Given the chance, I will sing the praises of the Yomi series every chance I get. Compared to anything else on the marketplace that is trying to replicate the Street Fighter experience in tabletop form, Yomi crushes them all. I love the core concept of Rock Paper Scissors combat, which is an accurate analogy for how fighting game combat works. I love being able to manage all of the different maneuvers that each character has and the nuances that make them different. For the hardest of hardcore fighting game fans, there are so many nods to how a real fighting game plays that it scratches the exact same itch for me.
Despite that, this marquee title from Sirlin Games suffers from a steep pricing challenge. The complete first edition, packed with 10 characters and two playmats, will set you back about $100 if you’re lucky enough to find it nowadays. I’m certainly glad to have it, but it’s a very difficult proposition for even the most enthusiastic customers. Instead of anchoring the series down with a complete big box – and potentially an even bigger box with the additional 10 expansion characters on the way – Sirlin Games is moving in a different direction.
In Third Person 