What do you think of the new review format? Still need to work on it some and streamline where I can but hopefully this is better than just me talking with no props :)
Thank you, and your paetrons, for the video! I'm happy you did your review with the game set up! Helps to "feel" it more! Really sounds like an interesting one!
Some public service info for you and your viewers. I went all-in minus the art book which I didn't know had scenarios. (Hoping that gets offered in the new Kickstarter) Out of the 5 scenario books you can get with expansions, only 2 of them have a branching campaign option. To be clear, "Dens of the Pennagolan" and " The Secret of the Mayumoto Scrolls" along with the core box, "Mysteries at the Palace of the Mists" have branching campaigns. "The Palace of Puppets", "The Sect of Twilight's Ink", and "The House of Jade Pleasures just have Simple Campaign style scenarios. In case the branching storyline thing was what you were excited about.
A very good point! That being said they also aren't just single campaigns, puppets has 2 campaigns for instance (so 6 scenarios). How do you like the game?
Hi, thanks for video. I just bpught the game. Is Red Joker Productions still around? I can't find a web site to check on errata/FAQs, production schedules, or expansion purchasing directly. Thanks for any direction!
You are very welcome! And yeah it's not super rules heavy which I like. I much prefer complexity within systems vs complexity by many systems :) The hand management is very versatile which is nice and is more "complex" or nuanced than many dungeon crawlers. For instance the special ability from each card is equivalent to a skill in Descent, except in this game you have 7 of them available along with potentially pairing them with other cards to buff your stats and then wound/weakness cards.
oh shoot I have no idea what BGG uses and I typically do comparisons more than numbers. I don't really view options as heavy. I tend to count heaviness as having many game mechanics that area ll at play within a game. For instance, Shadows of Brimstone or Kingdom Death Monster are both heavy games to me because they have rule after rule after rule after mechanic after mechanic for everything. This, in the end, is just picking which of the 7 optional moves (pehaps you can charge up to someone and attack with on action, perhaps you can attack someone adjacent and then move and attack another person, perhaps you can re-roll a guile test, perhaps you can buff your party's defense, etc. It's not really introducing new mechanics or complexity and is instead adding nuance and options. It is a lot of options to go over though! Especially when you can take into account that to use one of those abilities, you lose the potential that the card has for straight buffs instead. Also taking into account your hand size, wounds, and combining a second card's buffs (and therefore losing the option to use that special move). Mechanics are fairly simple, but how they interact with each other is sufficiently complex for me to enjoy the interplay between them. - Hope that helps!
How good are the story elements in the campaign? My gf and I love story driven games and also enjoy a good dungeon crawler. Also, any idea of the length of a campaign? Or number of scenarios in a campaign to be exact. If each expansion’s campaign length would be similar? Good job on the review! You definitely got me more interested in this game!
Good question! I kind of eluded to it but there are 3 scenarios that make up a single campaign, Act 1, 2 and 3. Act 1 will always be the same, with two options for act 2 and 3 (so 5 scenarios total in a campaign but you'll only play 3 of them). You choose between the 2 options for Act 2 and 3 based on who won the previous Act. There are also 2 scenarios included that you can just play on their own outside of a campaign. As far as story goes, the scenarios flow really well but are not "story heavy" in the sense that you don't have conversations with NPCS mid-game, and it doesn't tell you about the journey bewteen destinations and such. There is an introductory paragraph to read before each mission, and items you get from one mission lead to the other (like if you stole the documents needed, stuff like that). That's for branching campaigns. Non branching campaigns just have a straight act 1,2 and 3 scenarios. The expansion The Palace of Puppets for instance has 2 campaigns, so 6 scenarios included. While I like the campaign system, it's not super story driven like say, Descent.
So the campaign system is a shorter one. I would definitely purchase the character progression especially if we can use it across all the campaigns. Thanks for the response!
My understanding is the character progression is only between acts, so will take place before Act 2 and before Act 3 where you can swap cards in your action deck, track how many wounds you have to discard, and evolve the Oni player's stuff. Note that I only have access to the core game and 2 of the expansions, other expansions might have a longer campaign. At the back of the campaign book is instructions on how to make your own scenarios so there might be some longer player made ones as well, not sure. Considering I've never actually completed a Descent campaign, shorter isn't so bad for me personally :P
Thank you for this. You are getting better at the review thing. Knowing nothing about the game, I was still a little lost on card draw for both sides when you explained it, I thought I missed something and went to scan the main kickstarter page, so I am assuming you start with your whole hand, so then why shuffle when you retake your hand? Anyways, my favorite part is always your personal informed opinion, so the second half of the video. A how to play overview is useful but really I am here for what you think of it because you seem down to earth and in the same vein with how I experience gaming. Minis look good, but when could you have too much detail I wonder? ;) It is a bit pricey and no Canada friendly shipping (an epidemic with the french publishers) but I think I will back this, specially if you say the campaign is good. I got The Others but never fell in love because I like progression in a campaign style and well, I misunderstood the type of beast The Others was.
Thank you very much for the feedback! I'm certainly trying to improve so glad that's coming across :) As for shuffling, that'd not done on action cards. The only time you shuffle is when putting stuff away (so you don't draw stuff you discarded last game session for instance) or a very few times based on a card that lets you search for something. Heroes start with their 8 action cards including their weakness and have access to all of them at the beginning. As you play the cards (1 or 2 each round) you have less and less in your hand. Eventually you will have none in your hand and may then take all of your discarded cards next round. Wound cards are added to your hand, meaning they will need to be played before your hand is "empty" and can take your whole deck back. This leads to a lot of hand management. For instance that wound card I showed that hurts your attack won't matter as much if you strategically play it when you are going to try and investigate or something instead of fight. Of course you still miss out on whatever buff or special skill you could have used, but that's part of the strategy :) I'll continue to try and ensure I properly explain the fundamentals better :) As for too much detail, see HATE by CMON. They look great and look great painted, but they aren't so much fun to paint as a chore because of the details layered on details. As a painter I find having the "just right" amount of detail to be ideal :) Only played the Others once so couldn't comment too much on that, but I like this one :) The campaign isn't as branching as say, Rise of Moloch where sub-tasks can affect the next mission and not just a win/lose, but is still enjoyable none-the-less. The expansion I mentioned adds even more, with extra weakness cards if you took on too many wounds in a previous game, the ability to upgrade your action cards, and evolution and plot twist cards for the Oni player so you have the short-term upgrades and long-term, campaign level upgrades as well.
@@TheKingofAverage I understand better now, thank you for the clarification on the card management..seeing how I really like that aspect of Gloomhaven, I think I am going to like this one. I mentioned the Others because the dynamic between the Oni player and the Heroes reminded me of the dynamic between the Sin player and the heroes, but Iwould need to actually Play Okko to make a better comparison. Backing this will also mean now I have to go read the comics, maybe I'll add that to my b-day wish list.
Ohh yeah okay gotcha. From what I remember of my one play of The Others that makes sense. Word of warning about the comics: Amazon has it used for $2,000+ in physical form :D Best luck would be digital ;)
@@TheKingofAverage oh wow, well, to the library! I've found some pretty obscure stuff in my public library system, otherwise digital is not a problem if we are talking 2k for the physical stuff whaaaaat?
oooh best of luck! And yes the price on Amazon was just silly :D That was for the complete edition. The individual acts in hard cover are all there and available except for Act 3 which seems to only be available from individual sellers for about $55. Looks around $130 for all 4 acts individually (a lot for these but at least it's not $2k! haha)
Yeah the wound mechanism in general is nice. I like that (for the most part) attacks just deal 1 wound and that you have the possibility of getting rid of them before they become a wound card that you are stuck with, but to do that you play your weakness card. In the second KS they actually introduced a new hero that has no weakness card. That's nice that he doesn't have to play a bad card before getting his hand back, but also means he cannot recover wounds which is dangerous. He's ranged as well so playing him would be way different from most other heroes where you try to stay back because if you don't you're not in for a good time :D
@@TheKingofAverage interesting ... Legolas returns My last merp session we had such a character... and he had an haste spell even tough he was a ranger. He spoke (a lot) swinged his sword and throwed arrows at the same time.
One look at the components on the table made my eyes roll out of my head. Minis, multiple sets of dice, tons and tons of tokens, multiple varieties of cards, player mats, modular board tiles... What a complete mess. Imagining setting this up and putting it away is enough for me to never want to buy it.
I was sure you were going to be far more harsh. Amazed you got it played as fast as you did to that degree. Are you playing with family members or do you have an insta-call group?
Have you played it? What would you be harsh on or what did you expect me to not like (besides the rulebook which I spoke negatively about for several minutes :D ) As for my gaming group, yeah I play a lot of board games :) My family enjoys them which helps a TON but I have a few friends I can call on as well that are typically willing to come over and play a few games for an evening :)
I have. Not as much as you and i think I've had it longer. So far I've just played the 3 intro missions and all of them with different players. I don't feel like I've played the full game with all the bits in motion. I'm suspecting that's what scenario 4 will bring. I like it a lot, but it's one of those games you have to sink time into to fully grok. And with the speed of new things coming that may steal time away, I'm worried about getting it to the table enough. My abandoned HATE campaign knows what I'm talking about. Another slightly questionable tactic is how this game was clearly designed with all the parts as a whole and then carved up to make expansions. There's one that has all the extra scrolls and another that has most of the ranged weapons. There's another that has minion cards for the heroes and suddenly rules about giving the Oni player cards when a randomly picked follower turns out to be a player character start to make sense. This is one I'd have hated to get retail. Much like Hellboy.
Ah yeah the first 3 intro ones stink gameplay wise lol. They actually came out and said it wasn't playtested heavily because it's just meant to teach you the rules, not be highly competitve. Playing additional games to that really help a lot! As for the expansions, I hadn't really thought of it that way (for the most part) but think you are right, at least for some of them. I think they always try to add something new and fun mechanic wise which I appreciate, like the Puppeteer expansion adding mechs you can fight in :D Other times they improve what's lacking in the base game (like the campaign expansion I mentioned that lets your characters grow from 1 act to the other). I wish that was just in the base game personally, even if it slightly increased the cost of the core box. Also wish more dice were provided by default, this is one where more dice are pretty much necessary. I didn't see too much problem with the lack of ranged attacks as there were enough times where a follower could use range, or a weapon allowed attacks for the whole area. I was running 2 HATE campaigns at the same time, haven't finished either :D After playing most of the main scenarios (inner/outer) once or twice it stopped hitting the table as often.
Wow, the expectations for storage really have shifted, it feels. I guess today you wouldn't call a storage system with just one major compartment for all the tokens to be stored together unsorted and card slots that don't fit all cards, let alone sleeved, "really really good" 😅 looks serviceable, but no more than that.
Hah! Yes and no I suppose. Hopefully we are progressing in the industry so expectations should progress as well. As for the tokens though, I actually don't personally mind. I HATE when they are all separated, I feel it adds a ton of time to pickup and even some time to setup. Earth Under Siege prototype for instance came in like 20 different baggies, each card type and token on its own. When I packed it up I just threw it all into 2 baggies and left the rest empty :D
@@TheKingofAverage Hopefully we will progress to a point where a token tray with compartments for all components that you can just take out and put on the table is the new norm 😁 you can dream..
I'm surprised you said nothing about how broken campaign mode is. We played the first scenario and it almost ruined the game for us: Secundary objectives which can't be achieved (no investigation and no lieutenants), No extra gear to upgrade/evolve characters. If players want to acomplish the first objective dark lord only has to block the only corridor giving acces to the second objetive with units and it can't be achieved, but if players just avoid first objective and turtle on the first tile darklord can get the second objetive done. Around 1/2 of the map is useless cause there's no reason to go there... overall, it was a pain and some people didn't want to play the game anymore. Testing of that part had to be 0 during creation of the campaign. As a one shot experience the game is quite good, but that scenario, oh my, that scenario...
Are you talking about the tutorial missions? I asked them about that and they confirmed it's meant to teach rules, not necessarily be balanced. You can sprint to the objective in the first mission in like, 3 turns :D Does really suck that the mission is everyone's first experience with the game though. Ideally in any future iteration of the game they go back and make a better tutorial. The further ones I did find better and did play through the whole campaign. We then played through another with the optional add-on that allows you to upgrade your cards and stuff and that was nice. While not perfect, we still had a lot of fun with it.
@@TheKingofAverage Unluckily it was not the tutorial, it was the first mission of "Scourge of Jigoku" one of the campaigns. :( I just hope they fix that for the reprint or give solution to the problems, game is fun, but I guess campaign was not tested enough.
Didn't see everything as you lost me when you went into detail of explaining the characters when I have no idea what the stats are good for. Perhaps explain the game first then details?
Hmm, sorry about that! First time explaining the game before doing my review. What exactly what the issue? I recall going over the stats, but explaining "might is how many die you roll" and stuff like that? Perhaps I glazed over the rest too much? Will continue to try and improve this segment for sure :)
Thanks a ton Jay, glad to hear you enjoy the videos :) I'm celebrating my 1 millionth view soon and hope to have some game giveaways to help put the word out more (and so I can give back to the best community ever) :D
Oh I can see this working pretty much exactly as-is but with the Hellboy theme put on. Keep the comic book artstyle (but update to be Hellboy's version of that) and then you can just move around, investigating and whatnot. Would be great!
this Chronicles system could be used for many themes like Victorian monster hunters investigating a mansion or medieval monks investigating a haunted abbey or something.
haha :D Component list is awesome and it's translated quite well (in that it reads as if it wasn't translated). Lots of good call-outs too but not even a Table of Contents?! >.
haha yep :D Literally their 2nd printing has an FAQ section that is based on some points I bring up here. Which is good they did that, but sucks for those still with the 1st one. Great game though I feel :)
yeah its good they did that, but again like you said if they got it right TO BEGIN WITH they wouldnt have to do this! This isnt new for Red Joker. They make great games but their rulebooks suck. Chronicles Heroes board game rulebook also is shit @@TheKingofAverage
What do you think of the new review format? Still need to work on it some and streamline where I can but hopefully this is better than just me talking with no props :)
The visual examples and closeups did a great job of contextualizing your commentary.
And conclusion talking over a fully set-up game is also a great idea to give a feel of footprint and grand-view of a game in play.
Hmm, perhaps including a bullet point summary of my pro's and cons that I discussed?
@@TheKingofAverage Can't hurt to keep them listed as you bring them up.
@A Online - I might fill up the screen if I'm SUPER opinionated :D @LarkinVB will definitely do that in the next one and see how it goes :)
Thank you, and your paetrons, for the video!
I'm happy you did your review with the game set up! Helps to "feel" it more! Really sounds like an interesting one!
Really glad to hear you enjoyed the format more! Will continue to try and streamline it more and get it to the quality I'm wanting :)
Some public service info for you and your viewers. I went all-in minus the art book which I didn't know had scenarios. (Hoping that gets offered in the new Kickstarter) Out of the 5 scenario books you can get with expansions, only 2 of them have a branching campaign option. To be clear, "Dens of the Pennagolan" and " The Secret of the Mayumoto Scrolls" along with the core box, "Mysteries at the Palace of the Mists" have branching campaigns.
"The Palace of Puppets", "The Sect of Twilight's Ink", and "The House of Jade Pleasures just have Simple Campaign style scenarios. In case the branching storyline thing was what you were excited about.
A very good point! That being said they also aren't just single campaigns, puppets has 2 campaigns for instance (so 6 scenarios).
How do you like the game?
I'm investing the time. Printing out the cards for a solo game as I type. Got to play more, but I love what I've played so far.
@@ChrisRichardsonwtfgamer ooooh nice! Let us know what you think of it - I'm not much of a solo player so only try to comment a bit on it :)
Hi, thanks for video. I just bpught the game. Is Red Joker Productions still around? I can't find a web site to check on errata/FAQs, production schedules, or expansion purchasing directly. Thanks for any direction!
Interesting. Doesnt look complex, but more fiddly than I expected. Thanks for the upload as usual.
You are very welcome! And yeah it's not super rules heavy which I like. I much prefer complexity within systems vs complexity by many systems :) The hand management is very versatile which is nice and is more "complex" or nuanced than many dungeon crawlers. For instance the special ability from each card is equivalent to a skill in Descent, except in this game you have 7 of them available along with potentially pairing them with other cards to buff your stats and then wound/weakness cards.
@@TheKingofAverage That's interesting. On a BGG scale, how would you rate the heaviness of this game?
oh shoot I have no idea what BGG uses and I typically do comparisons more than numbers. I don't really view options as heavy. I tend to count heaviness as having many game mechanics that area ll at play within a game. For instance, Shadows of Brimstone or Kingdom Death Monster are both heavy games to me because they have rule after rule after rule after mechanic after mechanic for everything. This, in the end, is just picking which of the 7 optional moves (pehaps you can charge up to someone and attack with on action, perhaps you can attack someone adjacent and then move and attack another person, perhaps you can re-roll a guile test, perhaps you can buff your party's defense, etc. It's not really introducing new mechanics or complexity and is instead adding nuance and options.
It is a lot of options to go over though! Especially when you can take into account that to use one of those abilities, you lose the potential that the card has for straight buffs instead. Also taking into account your hand size, wounds, and combining a second card's buffs (and therefore losing the option to use that special move).
Mechanics are fairly simple, but how they interact with each other is sufficiently complex for me to enjoy the interplay between them. - Hope that helps!
@@TheKingofAverage Thanks for the details, that helps a lot. :)
@@flex2themax Okay great really glad that helped then :)
In general I appreciate nuance and dislike over complexity :)
Just got my Kickstarter pledge for this. Can't wait to play it!
And what are your thoughts after playing?
Did the game survive in your collection?
Does it meets the table?
Thx for the review helped a lot, but I am not looking for a 1vs many. Did you do any tests with the full cooperative mode?
37:26 hearing that list is like stepping into a time machine lol
HAH! It gets worse the farther back you go :D
5:27 魔法使い Mahōtsukai means the magician 😊
Hi! What’s the name of the expansion for solo mode? 😬
Oni Hunters
Masterful rundown of the game sir!
Thanks Chris! Really glad to hear you liked it!
How good are the story elements in the campaign? My gf and I love story driven games and also enjoy a good dungeon crawler. Also, any idea of the length of a campaign? Or number of scenarios in a campaign to be exact. If each expansion’s campaign length would be similar?
Good job on the review! You definitely got me more interested in this game!
I would be interested too
Good question! I kind of eluded to it but there are 3 scenarios that make up a single campaign, Act 1, 2 and 3. Act 1 will always be the same, with two options for act 2 and 3 (so 5 scenarios total in a campaign but you'll only play 3 of them). You choose between the 2 options for Act 2 and 3 based on who won the previous Act. There are also 2 scenarios included that you can just play on their own outside of a campaign.
As far as story goes, the scenarios flow really well but are not "story heavy" in the sense that you don't have conversations with NPCS mid-game, and it doesn't tell you about the journey bewteen destinations and such. There is an introductory paragraph to read before each mission, and items you get from one mission lead to the other (like if you stole the documents needed, stuff like that).
That's for branching campaigns. Non branching campaigns just have a straight act 1,2 and 3 scenarios. The expansion The Palace of Puppets for instance has 2 campaigns, so 6 scenarios included.
While I like the campaign system, it's not super story driven like say, Descent.
So the campaign system is a shorter one. I would definitely purchase the character progression especially if we can use it across all the campaigns. Thanks for the response!
My understanding is the character progression is only between acts, so will take place before Act 2 and before Act 3 where you can swap cards in your action deck, track how many wounds you have to discard, and evolve the Oni player's stuff. Note that I only have access to the core game and 2 of the expansions, other expansions might have a longer campaign. At the back of the campaign book is instructions on how to make your own scenarios so there might be some longer player made ones as well, not sure.
Considering I've never actually completed a Descent campaign, shorter isn't so bad for me personally :P
Good review, well done man! 👍🏻
My will power still strong, wallet well guard. 😆
Keep that sucker under lock and key :D
Glad you liked the review anyway though :P
The King of Average sucker what?! Hahaha. Please do continue with the OCD mode review, loving it. 👍🏻
@@siukkiangoh4545 well if you insist 🙂
Thank you for this. You are getting better at the review thing. Knowing nothing about the game, I was still a little lost on card draw for both sides when you explained it, I thought I missed something and went to scan the main kickstarter page, so I am assuming you start with your whole hand, so then why shuffle when you retake your hand? Anyways, my favorite part is always your personal informed opinion, so the second half of the video. A how to play overview is useful but really I am here for what you think of it because you seem down to earth and in the same vein with how I experience gaming. Minis look good, but when could you have too much detail I wonder? ;) It is a bit pricey and no Canada friendly shipping (an epidemic with the french publishers) but I think I will back this, specially if you say the campaign is good. I got The Others but never fell in love because I like progression in a campaign style and well, I misunderstood the type of beast The Others was.
Thank you very much for the feedback! I'm certainly trying to improve so glad that's coming across :)
As for shuffling, that'd not done on action cards. The only time you shuffle is when putting stuff away (so you don't draw stuff you discarded last game session for instance) or a very few times based on a card that lets you search for something. Heroes start with their 8 action cards including their weakness and have access to all of them at the beginning. As you play the cards (1 or 2 each round) you have less and less in your hand. Eventually you will have none in your hand and may then take all of your discarded cards next round. Wound cards are added to your hand, meaning they will need to be played before your hand is "empty" and can take your whole deck back.
This leads to a lot of hand management. For instance that wound card I showed that hurts your attack won't matter as much if you strategically play it when you are going to try and investigate or something instead of fight.
Of course you still miss out on whatever buff or special skill you could have used, but that's part of the strategy :)
I'll continue to try and ensure I properly explain the fundamentals better :)
As for too much detail, see HATE by CMON. They look great and look great painted, but they aren't so much fun to paint as a chore because of the details layered on details. As a painter I find having the "just right" amount of detail to be ideal :)
Only played the Others once so couldn't comment too much on that, but I like this one :) The campaign isn't as branching as say, Rise of Moloch where sub-tasks can affect the next mission and not just a win/lose, but is still enjoyable none-the-less. The expansion I mentioned adds even more, with extra weakness cards if you took on too many wounds in a previous game, the ability to upgrade your action cards, and evolution and plot twist cards for the Oni player so you have the short-term upgrades and long-term, campaign level upgrades as well.
@@TheKingofAverage I understand better now, thank you for the clarification on the card management..seeing how I really like that aspect of Gloomhaven, I think I am going to like this one. I mentioned the Others because the dynamic between the Oni player and the Heroes reminded me of the dynamic between the Sin player and the heroes, but Iwould need to actually Play Okko to make a better comparison. Backing this will also mean now I have to go read the comics, maybe I'll add that to my b-day wish list.
Ohh yeah okay gotcha. From what I remember of my one play of The Others that makes sense. Word of warning about the comics: Amazon has it used for $2,000+ in physical form :D Best luck would be digital ;)
@@TheKingofAverage oh wow, well, to the library! I've found some pretty obscure stuff in my public library system, otherwise digital is not a problem if we are talking 2k for the physical stuff whaaaaat?
oooh best of luck! And yes the price on Amazon was just silly :D That was for the complete edition. The individual acts in hard cover are all there and available except for Act 3 which seems to only be available from individual sellers for about $55. Looks around $130 for all 4 acts individually (a lot for these but at least it's not $2k! haha)
Can you do a solo playthrough with the pnp rules?
They uploaded some trial solo/co-op rules for pnp with the latest update!
The King of Average yup, that's what I meant. Can you showcase the solo rules?
Wound cards that give weaknesses is an interestin mechanism
Yeah the wound mechanism in general is nice. I like that (for the most part) attacks just deal 1 wound and that you have the possibility of getting rid of them before they become a wound card that you are stuck with, but to do that you play your weakness card.
In the second KS they actually introduced a new hero that has no weakness card. That's nice that he doesn't have to play a bad card before getting his hand back, but also means he cannot recover wounds which is dangerous. He's ranged as well so playing him would be way different from most other heroes where you try to stay back because if you don't you're not in for a good time :D
@@TheKingofAverage interesting ... Legolas returns My last merp session we had such a character... and he had an haste spell even tough he was a ranger. He spoke (a lot) swinged his sword and throwed arrows at the same time.
One look at the components on the table made my eyes roll out of my head. Minis, multiple sets of dice, tons and tons of tokens, multiple varieties of cards, player mats, modular board tiles... What a complete mess. Imagining setting this up and putting it away is enough for me to never want to buy it.
Actually as far as dungeon crawlers go in this genre this one is actually really "light" for amount of "stuff" needed for setup/teardown. :D
I was sure you were going to be far more harsh. Amazed you got it played as fast as you did to that degree. Are you playing with family members or do you have an insta-call group?
Have you played it? What would you be harsh on or what did you expect me to not like (besides the rulebook which I spoke negatively about for several minutes :D )
As for my gaming group, yeah I play a lot of board games :) My family enjoys them which helps a TON but I have a few friends I can call on as well that are typically willing to come over and play a few games for an evening :)
I have. Not as much as you and i think I've had it longer. So far I've just played the 3 intro missions and all of them with different players. I don't feel like I've played the full game with all the bits in motion. I'm suspecting that's what scenario 4 will bring. I like it a lot, but it's one of those games you have to sink time into to fully grok. And with the speed of new things coming that may steal time away, I'm worried about getting it to the table enough. My abandoned HATE campaign knows what I'm talking about. Another slightly questionable tactic is how this game was clearly designed with all the parts as a whole and then carved up to make expansions. There's one that has all the extra scrolls and another that has most of the ranged weapons. There's another that has minion cards for the heroes and suddenly rules about giving the Oni player cards when a randomly picked follower turns out to be a player character start to make sense. This is one I'd have hated to get retail. Much like Hellboy.
Ah yeah the first 3 intro ones stink gameplay wise lol. They actually came out and said it wasn't playtested heavily because it's just meant to teach you the rules, not be highly competitve. Playing additional games to that really help a lot!
As for the expansions, I hadn't really thought of it that way (for the most part) but think you are right, at least for some of them. I think they always try to add something new and fun mechanic wise which I appreciate, like the Puppeteer expansion adding mechs you can fight in :D Other times they improve what's lacking in the base game (like the campaign expansion I mentioned that lets your characters grow from 1 act to the other). I wish that was just in the base game personally, even if it slightly increased the cost of the core box. Also wish more dice were provided by default, this is one where more dice are pretty much necessary.
I didn't see too much problem with the lack of ranged attacks as there were enough times where a follower could use range, or a weapon allowed attacks for the whole area.
I was running 2 HATE campaigns at the same time, haven't finished either :D After playing most of the main scenarios (inner/outer) once or twice it stopped hitting the table as often.
Wow, the expectations for storage really have shifted, it feels. I guess today you wouldn't call a storage system with just one major compartment for all the tokens to be stored together unsorted and card slots that don't fit all cards, let alone sleeved, "really really good" 😅 looks serviceable, but no more than that.
Hah! Yes and no I suppose. Hopefully we are progressing in the industry so expectations should progress as well. As for the tokens though, I actually don't personally mind. I HATE when they are all separated, I feel it adds a ton of time to pickup and even some time to setup. Earth Under Siege prototype for instance came in like 20 different baggies, each card type and token on its own. When I packed it up I just threw it all into 2 baggies and left the rest empty :D
@@TheKingofAverage Hopefully we will progress to a point where a token tray with compartments for all components that you can just take out and put on the table is the new norm 😁 you can dream..
Thanks for the informative video. BTW, "guile" should be pronounced "ɡaɪl" (like "guy"+l), I think.
Haha, beats me 😄 I mispronounce words all the time
Glad you enjoyed the video regardless :P
Ahh crap. Asked Google Home, you are right....go figure.
Ahh well, won't be the first time I look silly on the internet :)
Roll with it baby. The good outweighs the bad. And now you know for the future.
@@ChrisRichardsonwtfgamer haha yes! Retraining my brain now to say it right.
I'm surprised you said nothing about how broken campaign mode is.
We played the first scenario and it almost ruined the game for us:
Secundary objectives which can't be achieved (no investigation and no lieutenants),
No extra gear to upgrade/evolve characters.
If players want to acomplish the first objective dark lord only has to block the only corridor giving acces to the second objetive with units and it can't be achieved, but if players just avoid first objective and turtle on the first tile darklord can get the second objetive done.
Around 1/2 of the map is useless cause there's no reason to go there... overall, it was a pain and some people didn't want to play the game anymore. Testing of that part had to be 0 during creation of the campaign. As a one shot experience the game is quite good, but that scenario, oh my, that scenario...
Are you talking about the tutorial missions? I asked them about that and they confirmed it's meant to teach rules, not necessarily be balanced. You can sprint to the objective in the first mission in like, 3 turns :D Does really suck that the mission is everyone's first experience with the game though. Ideally in any future iteration of the game they go back and make a better tutorial.
The further ones I did find better and did play through the whole campaign. We then played through another with the optional add-on that allows you to upgrade your cards and stuff and that was nice. While not perfect, we still had a lot of fun with it.
@@TheKingofAverage Unluckily it was not the tutorial, it was the first mission of "Scourge of Jigoku" one of the campaigns. :( I just hope they fix that for the reprint or give solution to the problems, game is fun, but I guess campaign was not tested enough.
Ah bummer. I don't recall the exact name of the scenarios we played (all of the core box ones).
So.. Japanese Descent?
Yeah kind of, but replace the fatigue system with action cards :D
Didn't see everything as you lost me when you went into detail of explaining the characters when I have no idea what the stats are good for. Perhaps explain the game first then details?
Hmm, sorry about that! First time explaining the game before doing my review. What exactly what the issue? I recall going over the stats, but explaining "might is how many die you roll" and stuff like that? Perhaps I glazed over the rest too much? Will continue to try and improve this segment for sure :)
You should have WAY more subscribers.
Thanks a ton Jay, glad to hear you enjoy the videos :) I'm celebrating my 1 millionth view soon and hope to have some game giveaways to help put the word out more (and so I can give back to the best community ever) :D
Honestly, this is the game that I wished Hellboy should have been
Oh I can see this working pretty much exactly as-is but with the Hellboy theme put on. Keep the comic book artstyle (but update to be Hellboy's version of that) and then you can just move around, investigating and whatnot. Would be great!
this Chronicles system could be used for many themes like Victorian monster hunters investigating a mansion or medieval monks investigating a haunted abbey or something.
Oh yeah for sure! SO far they've applied this system to a super hero/villain game and this. Will be cool to see what else they expand into :)
A good rule book?!!! WTF?!!’
But now I watched further....
haha :D Component list is awesome and it's translated quite well (in that it reads as if it wasn't translated). Lots of good call-outs too but not even a Table of Contents?! >.
UGH i got the first edition rulebook and it Succcccccccccccccccccccccccccks so many unaswered questions!
haha yep :D Literally their 2nd printing has an FAQ section that is based on some points I bring up here. Which is good they did that, but sucks for those still with the 1st one. Great game though I feel :)
yeah its good they did that, but again like you said if they got it right TO BEGIN WITH they wouldnt have to do this! This isnt new for Red Joker. They make great games but their rulebooks suck. Chronicles Heroes board game rulebook also is shit
@@TheKingofAverage