A Balanced Review
This is my first review for BGG, so please take it easy on me if neglect some points or obsess over others. As with many of the reviewers, my view is obviously clouded by personal experience. Luckily, though, that experience seems to be fairly universal on BGG – late 30s gamer who played tons of AD&D (the original Basic, followed by 2nd edition) as a kid and teen, has no time to play these days (and no group if I did) and is looking for some of that old thrill in the form of a board game. Also, I’m looking for something less complex than Descent.
As one recent reviewer pointed out, it’s unfair for gamers to judge CR according to their own hopes and desires – after all, WOTC never lied about the nature of the game. I think this is a valid point. Nevertheless, it is fair to judge the game according to what it’s supposed to be, and frankly, whether the game in front of us is any good.
What finally got me off my keister to write this review is the fact that I did not find enough reviews of CR that I consider to be balanced. Most of the reviews are either obvious paeans (On the lack of art: “I actually prefer the clean look of the cards!”) or extended rants on the real issue – the fact that isn’t the game they’d hoped it would be (“The game has no campaign, so it sucks by definition!”)
I’m not going to review the gameplay mechanics, other than to mention that I’m not entirely sure that anyone out there really knows what the mechanics are, including the designers themselves (but I’ll get there in a minute.) As many others have mentioned, the rules are extremely vague.
To sum up my opinion before I get started, I find this to be a beta version of an excellent game. I’m sure I’ll have tons of fun with it, but it’s a shame the game isn’t even better.
The stuff.
+
First, the production is simply superb. The figures are fantastic – it’s hard to not giggle with glee like a little kid when you spread them out on the table before you. The tiles themselves are also great. They fit excellently together, perfectly balancing the need to have the interlocked pieces stay together versus the need to quickly take them apart. I also love the matte feel of the tiles.
There are tons of cards for various purposes, and though I’ve seen people complain that they are the absolute thinnest cards they’ve ever seen in their lives, that simply is not true – I find them perfectly reasonable (even a quick look through my limited collection located a couple of games with much flimsier cards.)
-
On the other hand, it’s not all rosy. 386
I happen to work in publishing for a living, and I know what unfinished and lazy artwork looks like. There is simply no excuse for the lazy design on the cards (here I’m referring to the two sad little squiggles that apparently comprise the entire design theme of CR) and of the utter lack of artwork on the majority of cards. To be honest, it’s really more perplexing than anything – it’s not like they have to pay $20 a pop on istock for an image; the D&D colossus must have the rights to literally thousands of images they could have used for free. The only scenario that makes sense to me is that this is a cost-cutting issue, that they did not even want to spend money on graphic hours. At any rate, as it looks now, it’s as if all the artwork is at the beta stage – ready to be finished off by real graphic artists.
Ditto for the tiles. Yes, there are a bunch of “special” tiles – the magic circle, etc. But they are utterly bland, with absolutely no flavor. There are no “rooms” filled with beds, cabinets, rugs, etc. Just caverns with square walls. And when you piece the tiles together, you sometimes get the very strange effect of rooms ending abruptly, or missing the part of the room where the tab should be (this is a bit hard to explain, but take a look at some of the pics of the tiles if you want to see what I mean.)
Mechanics.
+
CR has lots to offer in terms of mechanics. The powers are an interesting implementation of D&D, giving the game a sort of World of Warcraft feel. You get certain powers that can be used at will, and others that can only be used once a day (though certain events can reset those powers). 386