Been playing a lot of Swords and Sorcery since it came in. There are some things I really like, and some things I wish were different. My list to follow, but what are your Pros and Cons for the game? If you would rather listen to my thoughts (along with my design partner <PERSON>) here is a link to our podcast: https://soundcloud.com/user-318456537/co-op-cast-episode-4-s...
Pros:
Map Setup - Don't get me wrong this is no walk in the park. But compared to other games of it's ilk (Descent, Gloomhaven, Imperial Assault, etc) it is pretty easy. There are only 20 double sided tokens and they are all numbered (I am looking at you Gloomhaven and Mansions of Madness). Also when you build the maps they show the printed number in the correct corner of the map. This seems line such a simple thing, but I don't remember it in other games. Or maybe to keep the emersion they make the numbers small in other games. Either way it is easy to see how to orient the tile. You don't have to guess based on clues in the art. Also, there aren't 100 overlays, the amount of stuff you add isn't that bad for the amount of variety the game provides.
Variety - The heroes feel different. The weapons feel different. The enemies feel different. Even if you get the same enemy they may have a power which will make them play/ feel different. Maybe two dexterity characters will eventually end up feeling similar if you level up the same, but that is your choice.
Feeling of Progress - Everything you kill is giving you soul gems and gold. Gold can buy you all kinds if things including temporary boosts like upgrading your items for one mission or getting consumable potions. In most games I don't buy these things, but this game throws enough money at you that it feels cool to get those temporary boosts and I can still buy all I want/ need. Leveling up is fun and I always look forward to it, and because you share soul gems it feels line the team is always leveling even if it isn't you personally. And I want to see what cool things my buddies can do too.
Cool/ Powerful Items - Right from the very start we were upgrading our weapons. But even your early weapons are pretty cool/ effective. Maybe you need to temporary boost them for the next mission to make them better until you find a better weapon so you can spend your coin on something else, but all weapons and equipment seems good, just different. Even the legendary items aren't that much better than stuff you find in the wild. 366
But they are all different in the skills they possess. So if your skills knock them down, you don't need the weapon that also knocks them down. Cool choices without someone becoming way more powerful than their teammates (looking at you Zombicide and Gloomhaven).
Difficulty Scaling - The difficulty and complexity ramp up and you play along. Nothing really telly you that, but they introduce it slowly and steadily. You only learn a few new enemies at a time so that is good too. And there aren't that many enemies in the board that it is hard to keep track of what is going on. Although you will miss things as noted below.
Cons:
Fiddly - With all the variety there comes a cost. Every enemy has lots of special powers and text. Lots if modifiers to your attacks. You will miss something. You will probably miss a lot of powers/ modifiers throughout the game. In 2 player there aren't a lot of enemies on the board, so it isn't that big a deal, bit I can imagine it would be very hard to keep track if everything in higher player count game.
Setup - While they made the map setup very clean compared to other similar games setup still takes a while. The cost of variety here is that you have to pull out different enemies for to add to the enemy deck. Then get their big cards to reference them. You also need to set up the story deck and find the correct enemy tokens and other tokens to add to the board. It isn't as overwhelming as other, similar games, but it still is long and tedious.
Skill Power Levels - This is a problem with almost every one of these games, and is true here too. Maybe even more so in some cases. When you level up there is almost always a "best choice". If you build a character, there isn't a whole lot pushing you to build them differently the next time you play. There are 5 characters, so you have choices to play something different, but you will probably build them similarly to everyone else building that character.
Both:
Story - the story is good and is keeping me wanting more. There are a lot of references in there though which breaks immersion a bit. Feels like I am watching a cheesy B movie. 884