I've been playing games for a very long time. I played (and owned) every bit of Talisman when it was first published. That was along time go (but I have played a few times in the last several years). Now I have 3 daughters - budding gamers - aged 9, 10 and 11. They were pestering me for a game to play today and I directed them toward Prophecy. Now the reason this isn't just a session report (although it could be) is the session wasn't really that interesting nor that long. But it was pretty fun - we laughed alot and the girls stayed very much on target while playing. That made me think about the game itself a bit. Why did it work for them?
Starting with the components - the first daunting part is the number of cards. A game like this probably needs alot of cards to be sure - cards for quests, cards for items, cards for encounters, cards for monsters. Prophecy has alot of cards. One important deck is the 'chance' deck which you'll burn through several times while playing. I'm kinda wondering if that could lead to a bit of strategy - counting on certain cards coming up eventually, like the one that restores magic. There's a nice board to organize the cards - spots on the board itself to stack them and even discard spots. That's all very nice. But when the board is filled, there are cards a plenty and the tend to slip about while playing. The board of course also serves as the place to move around (move on movement below).
The players are represented by stiff character cards in stands. They are large and handy and easy to move. So it's serviceable. Characters by the way are just a little different from each other. They don't have special abilities or anything that truly sets them apart. They do have guilds the belong to (usually 2) and differ in strength/health and will/magic. Most center around a score of 4 in each. Although the rules have a rather elaborate way to choose characters (deal each player 2, pick one, pass to your player on the left), we just choose the ones we want. I'm not sure one character is indeed all that much better than another although admittedly, having a high strength/health seems the better choice. But playing with my girls, they often choose girl characters in this sort of game. And we did want to get right down to play.
As for some other components, there's one I especially don't like. 386
There are these little gems in red (for health), blue (for magic), yellow (for gold) and green (for experience). I'm color-blind and the yellow and green blend in a bit for me. But it's not so much that. It's that there are two sizes for green and yellow. Large ones are worth 5 and small worth 1. But in a dish (which seemed like a reasonable place to collect these tiny bits), they kinda mix together. Yes, I could be more studious and separate them, but really, I'd just prefer one size. In the game, you can't have more than 8 health, 10 magic, 15 experience and 15 gold anyhow. Why not just include enough to let that happen? And for chubby fingers, these small gems will drive you nuts. Thankfully my girls were happy to help out their dad by fishing them out of the dish - in the right quantity and color.
So components in general: certainly pretty good. Needs some work. The girls made fun of the board at first, but it didn't matter at all in the end. They got into it.
The rules come in two versions. A basic game and a full game. We had played the basic game before. But in my opinion, there's no need for it. The full game is really pretty easy to grasp and gives account of all parts in the game. So I'd recommend jumping right to the full game. Thankfully, the opening paragraph on page two encourages you to just jump into the game and start playing. Really, you can - after you catch the turn sequence - and then just reference what 'opportunities' are and how combat is resolved. Somehow, the rules hide those answers somewhat. They rules are very text heavy and are written in a conversational style (but not nearly as bad as say, Return of the Heroes). I think they could stand some significant improvement. The game isn't that difficult, but again, the rules don't leave you at first glance with that impression. Apparently, the designers knew this for they freely admit that fact in the rules themselves.
So rules in general: not too bad, but could be cleaner. Dad got through them quickly enough to get the game going.
So. Let's get into the game mechanics themselves. First, I believe (if you read other reviews) it stands apart with a very nice move mechanic. 386