![]() I like this structure, as it puts the pressure on for players to be flexible with strategy, and really master every character class, rather than rely on any one trick and combination for too long. Once retired you’ll need to recruit a new character into your party. They are mercenaries rather than true heroes, after all. ![]() Thankfully, the variety in the quests is adequate, and there’s an additional mechanic thrown in that will keep you on your toes each hero has a personal goal to achieve, and when they do that, they ride off into the subset, never to put their necks on the line again. While it’s not necessary to complete every quest within the campaigns, when you consider that each can take around an hour to play through, you’d be looking at around 200 hours of raw time required to play through every quest built into this thing. When you’re playing by yourself, the developers have implemented a ridiculous amount of content into this thing. ![]() You’re not going to have to pour over a thousand details to make a decision, which can slow down the pacing (and enjoyment) of the more complex board games out there, but at the same time, success does rest on making the right decisions, so Gloomhaven isn’t one of those experiences that feels like it plays itself. Once you are comefortable with the systems, you’ll come to appreciate just how well designed Gloomhaven is, and how perfectly it strikes the balance between streamlined gameplay and tactical depth. Just go in being aware that the early going and even the easiest quests will be touch-and-go as you acclimatise yourself to Gloomhaven’s systems. The game has got a good tutorial built into it, but characters each have dozens of skills available to them, and there’s a “refresh vs discard” system at play with these skills that I’m not going to explain in-depth here, but the crux of it is that if you’re not careful about how you manage your resources, you could run out of abilities before reaching the end of a quest. Gloomhaven is pitched at experienced board game fans and takes some learning. To be clear: while I am making the comparison to Hero Quest, that classic was a super-streamlined and introductory board game. Success in getting through those dungeons rests with how well you use the combinations of skills that are available to your party, because the challenge level with the game’s systems themselves are baked towards “difficult,” and most heroes are far outclassed, if not useless, if you can’t successfully tag team their abilities with the skills of other heroes. You take control of one (or multiple) heroes, as they delve into dungeons filled with enemies, and are armed only with a handful of skills, unique to each hero. In many ways, it hearkens back to the philosophy of Hero’s Quest from the youth of just about anyone who grew up in the 80’s and 90’s. Because this adaptation makes Gloomhaven about as accessible as it is ever going to be, if it helps introduce some people to the game, then so much the better, because once you’ve actually wrapped your head around it, it really is a good one. ![]() It’s on-demand in other words, and truly, there are few physical board games that benefit from this as a feature to the extent that Gloomhaven does. Here Gloomhaven will teach you how to play within its tutorial, and then you can either jump online or challenge yourself with your own party, and the AI taking on the role of being the game master. Additionally, you can enjoy the full experience without having to get a group together and no one needs to learn the rules first. Gloomhaven on PC is worthwhile if for no other reason than it gives you the Gloomhaven experience without needing the labour to set up and get playing. Especially if one of them hasn’t played before. If you’re going to play Gloomhaven, get your friends around for the full day (or make a weekend of it). It’s also designed to be a stiff challenge, and while it’s not necessarily complex (though it’s also not a board game for beginners), it’s still a big, bulky thing, with a lot of pieces and some substantial set-up and pack-away time involved. Gloomhaven is one of the more celebrated board games of recent years, but it’s also an absolute beast to deal with the base game itself will set you back around $200, and you will need a big table to play this one.
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