Inspired by <PERSON> fun after ten plays? - All reviews, I've decided to adopt his format. (Because why spend tons of time reading when you could be playing? Or at least prowling through Amazon for cheap board games?)
First impressions (before playing my first game)
+ Classic deck-building strategy game, which appeals to the board game snob within me (bought by my board game snob friend straight off kickstarter, no less!)
+ In addition to the beautiful cards, the game now has beautiful boards and character figurines!
- I felt the original Thunderstone was too slow-moving (compared to Dominion, which is still my favourite deck-building game), and this one looked fairly similar, so I wasn't too optimistic
Impressions after the first game
- Seems pretty similar to Thunderstone. It's fine, except that if it isn't that different why make us pay $150 for a new game? Why not just put out an expansion? (All the cards are laid out differently, so you can't merge the cards from Thunderstone and Thunderstone quest.)
+ The game seems to be moving much more quickly. Granted, it still takes over an hour to play, but it feels like you're doing more in each turn, which makes it much more interesting to play.
- What are the figurines for? They seem pretty much useless in terms of gameplay, and we're forgetting to move them most of the time.
Current feelings (after at least 5 plays)
+ After several plays, I'm really appreciating how the small changes have made Thunderstone Quest a very different game from Thunderstone. In fact, I don't think I'll be going back to Thunderstone at all. Quest is MUCH better.
+ The gear tokens mechanic is great! Being able to convert additional gold into bread/light/healing that you can use in subsequent turns really reduces the frustration that comes from a) having leftover gold wasted after you buy an item, b) being just one gold short of a big buy, or c) having enough attack but just not enough light to fight the monster.
+ If you've at least a decent amount of fight (and a lantern!) you can go to the dungeon AFTER going to the village, to upgrade your level 0 heroes for free. 304
This is what is making the beginning gameplay move much more quickly.
+ By far the biggest improvement is that they've merged the XP and VP. This is great in so many ways: now, we can always see how much VP any player has, which allows for better planning and strategising, and the XP are now much more useful because you can use them to level up heroes as well as for victory points.
- It still takes an hour and a half to play, which can be quite fatiguing if you want to play several games in a row to master the game. (But hey, what do you expect from a heavy strategy game?)
- Yeah the figurines are just not getting a lot of use. I get that they're supposed to help you keep track of where you are in the dungeon, but since players tend to move in between village and dungeon most of the time, they really weren't that necessary during actual gameplay. Still, not a big deal.
End conclusion (well, for now):
Thunderstone Quest is a vast improvement over the original Thunderstone, AND a great game in its own right. Its length and complexity make it the type of game you will play once or twice during a gaming session, rather than over and over through the night, which limits replayability, but otherwise it is a great game.
If you'd like to read more of these types of reviews, check out Still fun after ten plays? - All reviews 528