Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Just a quick little spoiler-free review to say my husband and I love to play Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle! I saw it at our local game store and thought it was a gimmick at first -- just another way to make money off a much-loved franchise -- but then I read the back description. Our favorite tabletop games are co-op (Forbidden Island/Desert, Betrayal at House on the Hill, Mansions of Madness, Time Stories, etc.), and we also enjoy card/deck-building games (Dominion, Legendary games, etc.), plus I love the Harry Potter series (my husband is okay with it), so we took a chance and bought it. We now play it every night after we come home from work! The gameplay reminds me of Dominion mixed with any Legendary game, but more fun because you play as specific characters -- Harry, Ron, Hermione, and/or Neville -- and battle though seven increasingly difficult "games", each representing a book/movie in the series. Each game has a set of Locations, Dark Arts, Villains, Hogwarts cards, and other components, such as dice or upgraded character cards. Beat Game 1, then add Game 1 cards to Game 2. Beat Game 2, then add Game 1 AND 2 cards to Game 3, etc. This is a 2-4 player game, so for a two-player game, I recommend each person play two characters to get the full experience. My husband plays Ron and Harry, and I play Hermione and Neville. The basic premise is to work together to protect Locations from Villain Control and defeat all the Villains. You lose if all Locations fall to Villain Control, but you win if you defeat all Villains. Dark Arts and Villain abilities will hurt and hinder characters every step of the way, so building a strong deck of Hogwarts cards and playing to your characters abilities is essential. The first two games are warm-ups, then the real difficulty kicks in on Game 3. By then, your characters WILL get "stunned" (lose all health) at least once per game. But that doesn't mean the fun is over, you just take penalties and keep on fighting, so you don't have to worry about someone sitting out of the game and waiting for everyone else to win. In terms of production, this game is the highest quality of all of our tabletop games. Everything is in full color. Each Game is individually boxed, and each set of Location, Dark Arts, etc. cards inside are sleeved separately to avoid confusion. All cards are clearly marked by Game number or the character they belong to if they're starting cards. In addition to the easy-to-understand 14-page instruction book, each Game has it's own little instruction booklet to easily guide players into setting up the next game and refreshing everyone on rules. The cards are smooth and feature fantastic art from the movies. All the cardboard tokens and components are sturdy and already cut out (except Game-specific tokens), and there are even cool metal skull tokens and four beautiful, clear Hogwarts House die inside. The game box itself is sectioned logically for each game component and even leaves extra space if you want to sleeve your Hogwarts cards. I highly recommend this for anyone who likes co-op tabletop games, deck-building games, and/or the Harry Potter series!