Vagrantsong

Board Game Geek Reviews

1. 6 out of 10

   bogman

   9/39/23 Rating 6 So far this game is a bit of a disappointment. It is not a bad game, and the idea and artwork are cute, and the lure of improving one's character is strong, but in the end I'd say it was a bold, creative, swing-and-a-miss: 1) The idea of dealing in "Humanity" is nice but so weakly applied that I have no real idea what it means. I can use my fists or a song to give the haints humanity. OK...excuse my lack of creativity...please explain or just call it Hit Points... 2) Very related to my problem with dealing Humanity is my lack of understanding of the skills. They have fun names, like Twist and Shout, but I don't know what Twist and Shout means. OK, it dishes out Humanity, but how? I know what a shotgun does, I know what a chainsaw does, but Twist and Shout requires me to imagine a mechanism. If this was a role playing game, that would be fine, but in a boardgame where you are frequently gaining new skills with abstract unclear titles, ones disconnect from the theme widens. 3) This is the fist boss battler I've played where you do not fight the same boss over and over (as in KDM and ATO). So there is not a prolonged process of discovery and adaptation. You can go in blind and discover the mechanics, or you can study them in depth before battle, or anything in between, but either way this is a Discover and Move On battler. I love variation, but I think this game has too much variation. I don't really want every battle to be novel. I want to come to an understanding of how to battle and then execute my plan. 4) Speaking of executing a plan, this game suffers from a bit too much unpredictable chaos during battle, in large part through the events. The Haint activations are somewhat consistent and predicable (unlike Adventure Tactics, where the enemy actions can be so frustratingly unpredictable it breaks the game for me). But the events are very unpredictable the first time you play a scenario, and it puts you on a bit too much of a Mister Toad's Wild Ride where your plans can suddently be completely scuttled due to an event. So the second play-through, either you remember the events and the unpredictable is now mostly predictable (a completely different experience), or you've forgotten and your replay will be much like the first go-around...neither case is ideal in my mind. P.S. Item 4 leads me to a new insight that playtesting for a game like this is much more difficult than playtesting a game that is not trying to provide you with event-driven surprises. To properly playtest, I think ideally you would use new player for every test...which I'm sure is not practical in most cases.

2. 7 out of 10

   cogstockeros

   It is the art that makes this game. After the first intro scenario, the gameplay seems fine. I'm curious as to where this goes, and if it becomes varied, it's going to be awesome. It remains fun, but it is really fiddly. There are many rules, tile flips, and edge cases that are missed. But it remains a good time in spite of that.

3. 6 out of 10

   adel9591

   Way too many things to keep track of, and no easy way of doing so. Lots of scenario book referencing, rulebook itself is pretty bad. The ghost movement is fuzzy with a 7 tier priority order. Art/theme are cool, and hoping this gets better with more familiarity.