“Halt!” known as out the border guard. I ended my cart, ignoring my horse’s protests.

A guard with “Hello, my name is TONY” sewn into his leather-based jerkin stepped out of the guardhouse. “You are attempting to leave our blessed land of Dicearefunville. I cannot allow it!”

“Why is that?” I queried.

“War has erupted in the neighboring land of Boringcubeopolis! The twin brothers Andrew and Chris cannot agree on the perfect cube size. It is not safe for you to pass!” Before I may ask one other query, he disappeared into the guardhouse, shortly reappearing with an enormous field in his hand.

“What is… Bardsung?” I requested, squinting to learn the identify on the field.

“It is a game that will not only entertain you but will also dissuade you from ever entering Boringcubeopolis again.” He leaned in conspiratorially and whispered, “It is said those that enter fall into an endless dreaming state of converting resources and moving cubes… I would not wish that upon my worst enemy!”

He handed me the large field and stepped again. My cart sunk into the dust.

“So, in the name of Dicearefunville, please accept this gift and return home.” I complied, my horse neighing angrily on the added weight of the cart.

That is the true story of how I obtained my copy of Bardsung.

Gameplay Overview:

Bardsung is a cooperative fantasy marketing campaign dungeon crawler for one to 5 gamers. For this evaluation, I performed video games with three gamers.

The marketing campaign is sprawling, with decisions resulting in totally different Chapters (quests), so all 31 Chapters won’t be skilled in a single playthrough. Chapters take a diversified period of time as a result of they’re made up of Nodes (dungeons) which can be explored non-linearly. Each Node takes about 60 to 90 minutes to finish.

Nodes, of which there are a number of sorts, are made up of a number of rounds, with every spherical made up of turns. Each flip follows the Marching Order (initiative monitor), with gamers or enemies taking their flip. During their flip, gamers will transfer, assault, and take actions whereas monsters will observe their AI and attempt to remove the heroes. If you have got performed dungeon crawlers with an initiative monitor, there’s nothing groundbreaking right here.

This repeats till both the heroes full the Chapter or they die. If they full the Chapter, directions can be given on the subsequent step of their journey.

Game Experience:

I can’t bear in mind reviewing a recreation that had so many nice qualities whereas concurrently having downsides to those self same qualities.

Customization

The choices to customise your character are plentiful. Every character begins with three skills, one weapon, one piece of armor, ten unlearned skills, and 6 traits. ALL of those could be bought/upgraded with XP earned in the course of the marketing campaign. Beyond that, you should purchase the skills of any OTHER character (there are a number of exceptions). There are so many paths to select from—do you purchase a number of skills to increase your choices or do you put money into the skills you have already got, making them stronger? Do you wish to attempt to multiclass or follow your package?

however…

Several of the upgrades are apparent to take. Each character has a attribute that drives their expertise. That attribute must be up to date to +4 (the max), as this straight provides to rolls when utilizing these expertise. You can just about ignore the opposite 5 traits as a result of the one time they’d be utilized can be a) on talent checks exterior of fight, which aren’t practically as prevalent or b) in case you select to multiclass. You must also improve the talent you might be utilizing essentially the most in addition to your weapon to maximise your fight effectivity. After that, you can begin spreading out the xp to new expertise. Unfortunately, you can be a number of Chapters in earlier than beginig to discover the opposite expertise, except you deliberately don’t make the most effective enhancements. I actually want that the 5 non-primary traits had extra affect on the sport, permitting much more decisions.

Random Dungeons

The random dungeons are enjoyable to play by way of. You shouldn’t have the difficulty in Gloomhaven the place you understand the structure firstly of the Node. You draw a card, alternating between a hall and a room, and place the tile that’s on the cardboard. The card will let you know what spawns within the room in addition to which kind of facet card to attract: battle or problem. Battle elements affect the battle that’s about to occur (they are going to be on all tiles that spawn enemies), whereas problem elements current you with a scenario to deal with, like rescuing a trapped NPC or avoiding waking up wounded NPCs. This presents some variability to the quite a few Nodes you can be exploring.

however…

Due to the random nature of those dungeons, the person dungeons shouldn’t have a narrative exterior of the overarching theme of the Chapter you might be enjoying, mixed with the narratives that some nodes reveal as soon as accomplished. You are inserting hall A subsequent to room A, adopted by hall B and room B, and many others. The tiles are generic and might detract from the dungeon. I had rooms that appeared like swamps subsequent to temple tiles subsequent to ones with a mechanical theme. Also, the zones (areas) on every tile are usually not clear. In reality, SFG included a “Tile Reference Sheet” to seek advice from if the zones are usually not apparent.

Combat

There is a LOT of fight in Bardsung, and the fight is totally different than most dungeon crawlers. You roll a d20 (D&D flashbacks incoming) for each assault and when being attacked. Every monster has a Target Number (TN). The TN is utilized for each when your character assaults the monster (to hit a monster, it’s a must to roll greater than the TN) or when the monster assaults you (in case you roll greater than their TN, you keep away from the assault). If you hit, you verify for a crucial hit by rolling the injury die your character makes use of and evaluating it to the monster’s toughness–if it’s a greater, you made a crucial hit. As you get extra expertise and improved expertise your choices open up much more. Finally, there’s the Fate system. You can spend a Fate to activate extra highly effective skills or empower your assaults. In addition, every character has a singular set off to refresh spent Fate. Balancing when to make use of Fate and when to carry onto it in case of emergency is a part of the enjoyable.

however…

Combat can get repetitive. There are many monsters, however every Chapter is restricted to 5 monsters (they’ll change, however RARELY do). Every monster has two or 4 hit factors, aside from bosses. When a monster has two wounds, it’s both killed or flipped to its “heat up” aspect. Once you do two extra injury, THEN the heated-up monster dies. Monsters do have AI, however it’s simplistic and restricted to one in all eleven sorts and these sorts are tied to the monster (i.e. they don’t seem to be random). Again, as a result of the monsters don’t change, you will note the identical conduct from the identical enemies tile after tile, exterior of battle facet card changes. Additionally, they nonetheless will solely have, for essentially the most half, two or 4 hit factors, so one-shotting is commonplace as you progress.

Rules

The guidelines are straightforward to understand when you comprehend them. This is likely one of the best dungeon crawlers I’ve performed. The guidelines are streamlined, however not boring. After a dungeon or two, you’ll hardly must look guidelines up.

however… 

Learning the foundations could be troublesome. Two books are included in Bardsung: a rulebook, which incorporates the fundamental guidelines and two glorious tutorials, and an journey e-book containing largely the Chapters and narrative paragraphs for the marketing campaign. Unfortunately, extra detailed guidelines or exceptions could be unfold between both e-book. Finding these particulars could be irritating (SFG offered an Index on their web site however I didn’t discover this till after I had largely mastered the foundations).

Final Thoughts:

I favored Bardsung. I actually favored the characters and the development choices you have got. I additionally loved the fight and destiny system. I THOUGHT I might LOVE the Node system. And I did… till I performed the sport a number of instances throughout a number of weekends. It grew to become repetitive.

I needed to LOVE Bardsung. But I can solely say I favored it. I like to recommend this as a strive before you purchase earlier than because of its excessive value.

Final Score: 3.5 Stars – An honest dungeon crawler that missed greatness because of repetition

Hits:
• Replay worth excessive because of totally different paths, random dungeons and facet playing cards
• Enjoyable fight/destiny system
• Open ended customization
• Chapter/Node system is sweet however…

Misses:
• Chapter/Node system could be repetitive because of monster limitations
• Loot is underwhelming
• Rules are troublesome to understand at first
• Did I point out it may be repetitive?