Try as I might, I haven’t really paid attention to new boardgames since I’ve stopped actively playing them. Even so, I managed to hear about this boardgame adaptation of the popular Pathfinder RPG and many posters on Broken Forum had good things to say about it. So I was very pleased when a videogame version of it was released on Steam. I knew that there are multiple DLCs out for this and so I didn’t expect much content in the base game itself but was pleasantly surprised by how long and involved even the main campaign is.
Like any other RPG, you control a group of adventures who embark on a grand adventure. Unlike other RPGs, each character in your party is represented by both a character sheet listing stats and special powers plus a deck of cards. The cards represent both hit points and actions available during play. As such there are cards representing weapons, pieces of armor, spells, allies including a druid’s companion animals and miscellaneous magical items. One special type of card are blessings, which can be used to enhance any skill check. Combat is handled exactly like any other skill check. Roll all of the dice that you are entitled to and you win if your total result beats the difficulty number. Some harder bosses may require you to beat two checks but that’s it.
Each scenario takes place on a map with various locations. The adventurers travel to these locations to flush out the enemy boss and his or her henchmen. When you beat one of them, you can close off a location. You only beat the scenario when you defeat a boss and the boss has nowhere else to run to. Of course each location also has special rules attached to it and you can encounter random enemies or obstacles there or gain boon cards which you can use to fill out your deck. There are more normal character progression stuff as well in the form of increased stats, better powers and larger hand sizes as rewards for completing adventures.
The game plays out very well indeed, complete with snippets of dialogue and story here and there. The plot is meh and so forgettable that I doubt anyone can recount what happened but it does take you to a variety of places and has you face off against a nice diversity of foes. I like how the game provides a probability of success calculator because figuring out the odds manually with so many dice in play would be a huge headache. I also like how each character plays very differently although I do note that they don’t seem all that balanced. Some characters are definitely better than others.
If you read through the reviews, you’ll see plenty of complaints about bugs and it’s true that they’re still prevalent. Some are just annoying like the picture of a card being stuck on screen without any other effects except blocking the view. Sometimes things are so hectic that it’s hard to be sure that something is wrong but there are times when I swear I had to fight an enemy twice even though it isn’t one of those with two checks to beat. Some items like the Revelation Quill consistently fail to work under certain conditions like in the final battle of the main campaign where it would have been extremely useful for example. You can beat the game fine by just powering through the bugs but they can be very frustrating in a game in which chance is already so important.
Overall I liked this game quite a lot even if I did get burned out by the end due to the randomness and the bugs. I had a go at replaying at higher difficulties but I didn’t find that much fun. Starting a brand new party with different characters is kind of cool however. Using gold to buy treasure chests to get more cards is addictive and adds a nice meta layer to the gameplay. I find the game to be very well balanced at normal difficulty so it shouldn’t be too difficult to beat. If things look too hard, just remember that you are allowed to have a character hand a card to another character. Knowing this rule makes all the difference in the final battle which would be pure torture otherwise.
