Boom Street Review

With Nintendo officially ceasing production of the Wii console in 2013, I had the intention of creating a comprehensive list of what I believe to be the best games on the system.

In the process of tracking down and playing a few titles that I’d missed, I got so caught up in one of them that it delayed said feature by three months. And counting.

The game in question; Boom Street – a.k.a. Fortune Street to those in the North America – a fiendishly addictive virtual property management board game.

Building An Empire

Despite this solitary console release in the West, the series has had a long history in its native Japan. Conjured up by Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii, Itadaki Street, as it’s known over there, began life as a mini-game in 1988′s Dragon Quest III for the Famicom (that’s the NES to us gaijin) before being spun off into its own fully-fledged title. Since then, it’s seen sequels grace many platforms, sometimes incorporating characters from the Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy and Super Mario franchises.

Much like Monopoly, players take turns moving around the board via dice rolls, buying and managing properties in order to make the most money. When an opponent lands on one of your properties they have to pay you a set amount depending on that property and how much you’ve upgraded it. You earn a salary each time you make it back to the bank with the four suit tokens. There’s even a chance card equivalent called venture cards that cause a range of different effects and events to occur. The game ends and scores are totalled when either someone reaches the target worth and makes it back to the bank or a certain number of players go bankrupt.

Boom Street manages to improve on the Monopoly template through its increased breadth and depth. The most obvious difference its numerous varied boards compared to Monopoly‘s single, linear course, many of which allow you to change paths and direction. Some even have completely separate areas that can be reached via warp tiles and other unconventional methods. This freedom greatly broadens the potential strategy, giving you more choice and forcing you to put more thought into your every move.

However, Boom Street‘s single biggest difference is its stock market mechanic which is loosely based around real life stock trading. During a game, players have the ability to buy stocks in the different districts on the board. Raising stock prices in the places where you own stock will increase your overall worth, bringing you closer to the target total. The main way to do this is to upgrade properties in the same districts that you own stock in. The more stocks you own and the greater the upgrades, the more money you make.

Players are also free to manipulate their opponents’ worth through sabotaging their stocks. This can be done by tactically buying out properties, selling your stock or deploying certain venture cards in the districts in which you wish to devalue the stocks of.

Each player can hold stocks in any given district so you’ve always got to be mindful of who owns stock and where. Generally, you want to avoid raising prices in areas that you don’t hold the majority of stocks in as this is benefiting your opponents more than yourself. Thankfully, the game’s menus and map are pretty slick, so reviewing both stock and property prices and ownership is quick and easy.

The number one rule for stock trading, as in real life, is to buy low and sell high. While there might be the odd occasion where you buy high-priced stock to piggyback on an opponent’s property improvements, your money will go further purchasing cheaper stocks and have a higher potential for profit in the long run.

If this aspect sounds too complex for you, this version of Boom Street can be played with ‘Easy Rules’ which removes stocks and districts, simplifying it down so it might as well be Monopoly. While this is useful for breaking in both Boom Street and Monopoly newcomers, I strongly encourage everyone who plays to learn the complete rule set. It’s not the full, strategic experience otherwise.

As you’d expect, the game can be enjoyed with up to four people. It can even be played online via the Nintendo Wi-Fi connection but good luck finding any random strangers to play with at this point. The single player is pretty straightforward, giving you ten boards to play across with five more to be unlocked through beating them.

The A.I. is worth mentioning as it does a really good job of standing in for real people. Due to the range of difficulties and personality types available, if you’re playing alone you don’t feel like you missing out on much besides the real life smack talk. There’s a robust trading system in the game too, so the player-to-player bargaining inherent to Monopoly and other similar games is maintained.

Star Wolf of Wall Street

I should probably address the Mario and Dragon Quest elements to the game. Obviously, they add a certain fan-service appeal and make the experience a little bit more welcoming.

Though it’s not as packed with nostalgia as something like the Super Smash Bros. games, the references are both well-chosen and well done. The graphics and animations are great and representative of their games and characters, and the arrangements of classic songs are brilliant. I particularly enjoyed the reappearance of elements from older games such as Super Mario World and Yoshi’s Island on the Super NES. There’s even a remixed theme from Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, a classic joint venture from Nintendo and Square Enix that rarely gets referenced in other games likely because both companies share the rights.

My problem with the Mario and Dragon Quest dressings is that once you’re fully absorbed in game’s mechanics, you’ll probably be mentally tuning them out. You’ll likely have the NPC banter switched off to speed up proceedings and the audio turned down because you’re getting bored of the single, short piece of music on each board. It’s better that the Mario and Dragon Quest stuff is in here as opposed to generic characters, worlds and music but they ultimately don’t impact the game play at all. Don’t fool yourself going in that this is anything other than a property and stock management game.

Taking Stock

That minor concern aside, why is Boom Street not better regarded and remembered? Anecdotally speaking, I don’t remember it being marketed at all back in 2011 and it probably got lost among the stacks of sub-par mini-games collections and other assorted shovelware taking up Wii’s shelf space.

Critical reception was mixed to positive, with the game holding a 70% average on GameRankings, if you’re into these aggregate scoring sites. Reviewers almost universally dubbed the game’s pace ‘too slow’, a point that I can see both sides to the argument on.

A single game can take between anywhere between half an hour to three hours depending on the board, the win conditions and the players, so there’s no arguing that it requires a decent time investment per session. However, I don’t understand why this is inherently a negative thing – after all, a lot of board games, virtual or otherwise, also take this long to play.

Some reviews also criticised it for not being a good party game, which I take particular issue with. While Boom Street does have a few mini-games tucked away in the Arcade tile, they are clearly not its focus. To say this is a poor party game is like calling Mass Effect 3 is a poor virtual pet simulator; on the one hand you’re correct but you’re also judging it on completely false grounds.

Most reviews seem to intimate that there’s no market for a long-form, strategic games on the Wii, only quick-hit waggle-based mini-game compilations. To say that there’s no room for titles with higher barriers of entry on the Wii, or any platform for that matter, is ridiculous. If the game’s ultimately worth the time and effort, why should it be penalised for that?

The Pay-Off

On the grounds of it being a management board game, it’s definitely not for everyone. But hey, what game is? If Boom Street sounds like your kind of thing, I strongly recommend tracking down a copy, especially if you have friends to enjoy it with. Be aware though that think it might’ve had a fairly limited print run as its eBay is fairly high and there doesn’t seem to be a huge amount of used copies out there.

If you don’t have a Wii or Wii U but are still eager to try the series, there is one other way to do so without the hassle of importing an older Japanese version. Square Enix has since released Boom Street Smart (Fortune Street Smart in North America) in the West for iOS and Android devices. It doesn’t have any licensed game characters in it and I can’t speak to its quality since I’ve haven’t tried it but it might be an option for you.

Where will Boom Street place on my top Wii games article? Well, that would be telling.