Because it's fun, has some rather nice components, it's rather cheap, and it looks pretty on the shelf.
That's it, review over. Nice of you to come by, and remember the green thumb icon on your way out! Cheerio!
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What? You're still here?
OK, even though I said all that needs to be said in a nutshell, I'll elaborate a little bit. I'll even put a picture of the game's cover, to give this review some class.
Gee, this really looks good. I have to do this more often. Do the guys who actually make those images get angry when someone just pastes them in the review? I hope not..oh where was I? Oh, right. Prophecy is a game most commonly compared to Talisman and Runebound. Not having the slightest idea what those games are like, I cannot really comment on that fact. However, having played my share of computer RPG games (and a little AD&D back in the silly days) I believe I am pretty well acquainted with the basic concept.
For the two of you who have just emerged from a cave, I'll elaborate. You choose a character, who is either a scantily-clad pile of muscles with the brain of a dodo, a half-senile bearded old man in a robe and a funny pointed hat, or some stage in between. Your character is initially pretty wimpy, but you will happily lead him on all sorts of adventures where he'll occasionally meat some nice people, but more commonly fight butt-ugly attrocities and amass a truckload of various shiny equipment. He will also gain experience, which interestingly enough will not make him wiser and prudent..er, but will make him fight better. In the end, your now-experienced hero will fight some uber-monster, kill it, gain "sword of awesome awesomeness" or something in that vein and live happily ever after.
Folks dig this concept. In fact, I do too. And Prophecy, well, it implements it pretty darn well.
I don't want to go into rule details, really. Z-Man (the publisher) has provided a downloadable pdf rulebook (just don't look at the "basic rules" one because there's a pun so lame it will put you in a coma), and <PERSON> has made a wonderful tutorial video of how this game plays. I'll just try to be brief and list out why I like this game and what things I think could have been made better.
I like the components. They are pretty and production values are high enough, especially considering the rather low price of the game. 504
The artwork is cartoony and slightly tongue-in-cheek, which works rather nicely (bonus points for the mummy!.. you'll see what I mean, eventually). The layout of the board is really unorthodox, but it works (except for the fact that the seas are yellow for some reason; I guess Prophecy people have some plumbing issues). You have nice cardboard stand-ups for your characters, and you get some large heavy-cardboard character "cards" where you keep track of the usual maintenance stuff - health, magic (ok, ok, "will"), experience and gold. You also get heaps of small but nice-feeling cards. Mmm, smooth.
I like the way the gameplay, well.. plays. You have four basic types of movement, but it all boils down to "either move one space left or right, or pay to move somewhere further". The "adventures" are interesting, especially when you see them for the first time. The monsters are imaginative, their special "abilities" smoothly implemented and the fighting system is light enough so to not bog down the game. All in all it's a neat little package, with perfect balance of light micromanagement and quick turn execution.
I DON'T like the fact that the board very soon gets covered in cards. I know some compromises had to be made, but seriously, look at this picture I also conveniently stole from BGG gallery:
That's a LOT of cards. In fact it doesn't look like a game in play so much as it resembles someone just having a rather large sneeze while shuffling the cards. This leads to another gripe I have: there's too much information on the board. For some this is fun, I find it tedious, especially when there's new folks around. They will either painstakingly read each and every card which will delay the game for some time, or be intimidated and ask for something "lighter".
There's a workaround, though. I've made a few tweaks with the original rules, mostly that I place all the new cards face-down and force the players to actually come to the place to turn them over. 386