Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Long Story short: This game is absolutely wonderful! This (according to many board game review sites) is set to be the top game of 2017, and I 100% recommend getting yourself a copy, though it will likely be difficult/take some time. Its definitely a HOT selling item and I was lucky enough to pre-order mine a month ago before other folks started seeing it listed on Amazon. This is definitely worth getting and will make a huge hit to your gaming nights! A more detailed breakdown is below. (Note relating to pictures: The game does NOT come with painted miniatures. As I enjoy paining them, I did so, but my wife and I played several games before they were painted without any issues/confusion. They just look cooler/it's more immersive in my opinion when they are painted.) Legacy Mechanics: (A legacy game is a game that does not reset from one playthrough to another. But rather, like reading a story, each game played builds on the next, in an overall 100+ hour 'campaign'. Note unlike other campaign/legacy games, this does not require a single playgroup, but rather you can start a new party with just about anyone, anytime, and you just 'drop' into your already existing world to plunder dungeons and kill baddies) The game comes with 17 playable characters, but you only start with 6. As you play through the game you 'unlock' new characters/races/classes to play as. Additionally as you play through, you will be able to "level up" the prosperity of the town of Gloomhaven, which is where your party will travel between adventures to level up, buy/sell gear, get your grog (or mead) on, and perform random town events. As Gloomhaven levels up, new items become available to purchase, and any new characters can start their quests at higher levels. As you play through, and eventually retire characters, you will gain additional permanent 'stat' boosts that apply to all your characters going forward. Like many other Legacy game this game includes a bunch of sealed envelopes, unlockables, and high quality stickers, that go on the area map, as well as on character cards. UNLIKE many legacy games, I feel like this can easily be played through again, without having to buy another copy of the game. You don’t need to rip up cards or anything in this game, and other than the character card upgrades, the experience wouldn’t necessarily be ruined by having all the locations already on the map. I imagine it would be like playing Skyrim a second time through; less surprises, but allows you to fully explore character/class types you didn’t previously and allows you to take separate paths than you took the first time. Story: Don't worry, I won’t spoil anything. The game has tons of missions (90+). You start with just one, but similar to all those RPG video games we love, you begin unlocking more and more. Then pretty soon you find yourself with branching and interweaving stories. Some have consequences that have an impacts on others. For example, will you go and work for this shady contact you meet who is obviously up to no good? Or will you take up a mission to hunt down and kill the shady contact, preventing them from unleashing havoc. Whatever choice you make, it 'locks off' other missions; you can't work for someone if you brought their head to the city guard ;) Of course you can always enter "casual mode" and play through these missions, its your game afterall, but I personally won’t be doing this until I complete the full game a month or so down the line. Map: The game comes with a wonderful looking board map of Gloomhaven's surrounding area. Overall the map is fairly blank to start with, and you begin the game by applying a sticker in a specific location, representing the available missions you can travel to. While I am not even close to completing it yet, it already looks great and will undoubtedly look amazing after your adventures are complete. Gameplay: This is a semi-cooperative game. Overall each character has a personal goal (the reason why they choose to risk their lives fighting monsters) that they are trying to achieve. After you achieve this your character retires from the game (though you can start a new character with the same class) and you unlock various things, including new characters. Of course using team work to assist each other and actually beat dungeons is essential, overall you are trying to complete your own goals while others are simultaneously doing theirs. When you aren't visiting town/traveling you will be spending a vast majority of the game delving into dungeons, crypts, forest encampments, ancient temples, etc. (You know, all the classics!) Setup/tile placement is VERY similar to games like Decent or Shadows of Brimstone. However there are NO dice in this game, not 1! Instead, movement/combat is performed via playing from a hand of cards. You begin every dungeon with a set amount of maximum cards (~10). And each round you play 2 cards, performing 2 actions (typically a move type action and one that centers around attacks of some sort). After this the cards go to your discard pile, and can be recovered via a rest action. However, when you rest (as well as take damage) you begin to 'lose' cards for the rest of the scenario. After you have completely run out of cards, your character becomes exhausted and can no longer participate in the rest of the scenario. So the trick is performing your actions in the most efficient way possible so that you can complete the dungeon before running out of cards. For every attack, you will also draw a card from your 'attack modifier deck', which is the element of randomness in this game. You begin with a preset amount of cards that add/subtract (+2 damage, -1 damage, etc) the amount of damage you deal, but this deck can be altered via leveling up. Setting: The game does a bit of a unique twist on the dungeon crawler genre. While still taking place location-wise in the sorta medieval magic laced location setting, It does away with elves, dwarves, goblins and the other classic tropes, to give you a unique world that FEELS very Tolkien-esk but at the same time gives you a VERY fresh look. Starting characters/races include the Vermling (a humanoid mouse/cat type creature), Humans (of course), an Orchid (mage creatures that are somewhat reminiscent of Asari from Mass Effect), Quatryls (small creatures that are great with mechanical machinations), Saavas (sorta rock men/monsters), and Inox (horned bigfoot with a sword). Not sure what is in store for characters I have yet to unlock, but overall just feels far more fresh and unique than the standards we are all used to in these sorts of games. Leveling up: What would an RPG be without leveling up your character?! As you gain experience you will be able to level up your character. Which allows you to add new, more powerful cards to your hand. You are also allowed to modify your 'attack modifier deck' so that it can become more powerful or add new abilities that can synergize with your team/other cards. And of course, there are tons of items/gear that can be purchased/found to further augment/beef up your character. (I just found a sweet necromancer ring that summons a skeleton!) Components: Components in this game are wonderful. AND you get so freakin much! The huge box (see picture next to gallon water jug) weighs over 20 pounds (NOT an exaggeration) and comes with tons of stuff, not to mention a wonderful in-box insert that keeps most of the cards/components fairly organized (GREAT design). All playable characters comes with miniatures that are extremely detailed. I am having a blast painting them if you are into that. All monsters have cardboard standees. But don't let that turn you off, the artwork on them is top notch and it really doesn't detract from gameplay/immersion. Each character comes with their own unique hand of cards to use/upgrades to be added. Hundreds of cards (both the small type and magic sized ones). Really can't make a single complaint about anything component-wise. Difficulty: As the game is cooperative, playthroughs are not a cakewalk and do take some thinking. That being said, the game sets monster difficulty based on an equation determined by your average character level. This can further be adjusted to play the scenario on "easy" or "hard" which affects gold & xp collected. The game doesn't mention this, but I personally say you should start your first few scenarios playing under easy mode, both to get the hang of the game mechanics and so you can get gold to buy gear and such. Otherwise you may find yourself getting stomped around for a bit. I would put this game in a moderate level when it comes to ‘heaviness’ of rules. Definitely NOT something your 6 year old would be able to play. But if you can ‘get’ how to play other dungeon crawling games, you won’t have any issues with this. Rules: The game has a wonderfully set up/thought out rule book. Reading through it was fairly easy, though it is long (50+ pages), the book contains many picture aides that guide you along your playthrough. After our first couple of sessions (as is typical with these moderately heavy games) we got down the mechanics and no longer/rarely needed to actually consult the rulebook. It is refreshing to find a game with very little holes within the rules which require house-ruling specific circumstances due to ambiguity. Final Thoughts: Wow! What a great game! My wife and I can't get enough of it and we have only started to scratch the surface of it. After several play sessions (at least 15 hours of gameplay) we are still just as entranced as when we first started, and it is only getting better as we level up. We still haven't retired any characters (expect probably at least 10 dungeons before you retire, though this is just a wild guess, and depending on your personal mission, may take longer/shorter), though I am getting close. The game feels a lot like a first play through of those ‘classic’ video game RPGs (Elder Scrolls, Dragonage, Witcher, etc) There is just this massive world, all for the exploring. And you quickly find yourself with tons of choices of what to do, what story arcs to explore, etc. There are side quests, loot, leveling up, more side quests, and not to mention an interesting story with branching/intertwining story arcs. My wife and I are always eager to get off on the next mission and the 'choose your own adventure' style of play is very unique, especially when it comes to board games. The game has many unique concepts that I hope future games incorporate. Shadows of Brimstone, I absolutely LOVE YOU, but sorry, won’t be playing you for a few months while I obsess over my new found love; Gloomhaven.