Eldritch Horror

Let's make something clear: this game is not for everyone. It's likely that if you're reading this review, you're already a hobby boardgamer and looking for something a little on the "heavy" side to play. Eldritch Horror fills that roll admirably without becoming cumbersome.Years ago, Fantasy Flight games released "Arkham Horror," a take on Lovecraftian fiction set in the town of Arkham. The premise of the game was simple - monsters spewing through gates, investigators trying to stop them, and a great ancient evil biding its time until it arrived to destroy the world. If the premise was simple, the actual gameplay was the complete opposite. There was very little intuitive about playing the game. In a way, the fact that players were so hapless and helpless fit the theme of Lovecraft very well. A compelling story could be told... in between the hundreds of time one might stop to clarify something in the rulebook.Eldritch Horror is a much better game than that. In fact, it's a great game. The theme still shines, and is in fact helped by taking the adventure to a global scale, rather than just the city of Arkham. Starting with the second time I played the game, it takes me between 20 and 35 minutes to set up the game, depending on how many players I have. Perfectly reasonable for a game of this scope and magnitude; it looks big on the table, but trust me when I say you shouldn't be intimidated. Unlike many heavily themed, hobby-level board games, this one actually makes sense as you play it.Skill checks are handled simplistically through dice rolling. It's a system that works, and is so accessible you can teach even the most casual gamer to play. Here is where I stopped to consider whether I would give this game only four stars, though. While you're working on maximizing your character's stats to roll the maximum number of dice (successes are represented by 5's and 6's), something things just *happen* to your character, things which are inherently unfair, and if they happen too soon in the game, could go as far as to make things feel "unfun". Here's the thing, though... that inherent disparity of power between your investigators and the world fits Lovecraft so well. True horror isn't the capable adventurer staving off every threat with his quick wits and impressive luck. True horror is a powerless victim against an unknowable evil. In most other games, I would have knocked off the star, but Eldritch Horror gets to keep the star for their consistency.The game, however, has a pretty cool mechanic to make up for what happened. Once an investigator is knocked from the game, you can get another character out of the box, place them on the board with their starting goods, and get back to work. The game is not over for any player who was just unlucky, unless of course the team does so poorly that they start losing all the characters in the box. Further, with the exception of a couple methods of death (such as being "devoured" on a few cards) usually the character hangs around the place of their untimely demise as a potential encounter. This is a wonderful mechanic! Characters are killed off, sure, but they receive their final curtain call if you have time to spare for your fallen comrade - often giving their items or other assistance to the new characters.Finally, this game is perfectly playable as a solo adventure. I like solo board game. I'm married to a gamer, but she's quite picky about just which games she'll play and some of these heavier ones aren't her thing. I don't have a local gaming group, either. That's okay! A reasonable twenty minutes to set up, and off I go. While the game does work (and officially supports) using just one character, most solo players prefer playing with two characters. Use as many as you feel like, since this is a cooperative game the decision really is up to you. One warning with this: the game is easy to understand, but after two characters I feel like the normally reasonable amount of detail you need to keep up with for each character suddenly becomes a slog. Playing with four characters was cool, and made a board that was full of action and synergy, but I found myself forgetting about my character's abilities when I needed them.If you have a serious board game hobby, I hope you give Eldritch Horror a try. It's deep enough to keep you coming back for a long time, and easy enough to teach your less experienced friends without scaring them off. Enjoy!

I've got to admit that I was very hesitant to buy Eldritch Horror as I own Arkham Horror with a couple of the expansions and heard this was a watered down version of the original game. I can firmly say that I was wrong and that I would highly recommend this game.Firstly, this game takes place all over the globe versus AH which only takes place in the town of Arkham. Now I've been a fan of Lovecrafts work since I was a teenager which is saying a lot as some of his works can be a challenge to some because of his style of writing. Now if you haven't read any of his work before, that is in no way something to take into consideration since it doesn't hinder any gameplay; this can be played by anyone regardless of knowing the origin of this creature or this place. But in the cthulhu mythos, many different things happen over different areas of the world and not just in one town. I will say a lot does happen in Arkham but not everything.Secondly, this games mechanics and rules are easier to learn. Don't take this for granted though, because it still has a more difficult learning curve than most board games out there. I'm saying opposed to AH, the rules are organized better, the rulebook is not a jumbled mess where one will have to constantly scour the book for this rule or that and that the rulebook goes more in order of the gameplay and doesn't jump around a lot; ie the scouring. There is one massive rulebook in AH and there are two books in EH; one is the primary rulebook and the second is mad for quick references and makes gameplay smoother.Third, gameplay is enhanced and makes the experience better. There's no messing around with stats on character cards as the characters have set stats that can be improved upon as you progress. The monsters aren't constantly moving about the board so the crowd control is easier to handle. Understand that they will move from time to time but that depends on the draw of the mythos cards. Also, there's no sneaking around monsters. Now it's more or less fight or move on. There's also several stages to players turns between moving, fighting monsters, etc.Fourth, the ancients ones seem to fit the mythos better. AH basically had it that if the ancient one awakens you had to fight the monster head on in an impossible battle that more time than not your are going to fail unless you spent the entire game only preparing for the final encounter. In EH, it fit more with the way the ancient ones are supposed to be like according to the Lovecraftian way. One cannot fight nor defeat such an evil in the conventional sense like with weapons and whatnot. Whenever I played AH I basically stated that if the ancient one would wake up, the game was over...period. EH made it so that you didn't fight the ancient one head on, but instead you continued playing and completing mysteries to end the horror and basically have them go away and go back to sleep. However, the conditions would escalate and make it a lot harder to complete this task. I'll leave that for you to see for yourself. Azathoth was my favorite because should he awaken, true with his lore as the destroyer, the game is over as he destroys the universe...basically.While there are other points I could add I'm going to end it with this final point. The expansions are more seemless than with AH. The expansions with AH added to the game and made a very difficult game into a horribly difficult game depending on the circumstances but my issue was that they just didn't blend into the game as easily as with EH. For example, the AH Innsmouth Horror expansion was fun but it felt like what was going on was it's own entity in itself. It was like trying to focus on two separate tasks with one goal being more important than the other, but even to ignore the secondary goal can make everything go to hell and make life miserable for you in an instant. Not to mention reaching the other game boards was more of a hassle than it needed to be where you made your way to a specific spot and had to pay for a ticket to get there and if you had no money left you were stuck there or couldn't even reach the location. With EH, the expansions will add to the gameplay a lot better by melding with the game without sticking out like a sore thumb. Reaching the new game boards is better as they are integrated to the original by just reaching this specific space or another and, look at that, I can just move right on into the new game board. If you do buy this game or already own it, then I do recommend adding an expansion or two at some point.All in all, this game is so much fun, even if I lose I have fun with this. My games last longer too than AH since I've had some conditions almost literally end my game within ten rounds (not kidding). I still love AH for what it is but this has pretty much replaced it when I'm in my Lovecraft mindset. I hope this helps if you're interested and believe me, this isn't a watered down version of AH...it is the refined version that it was always meant to be.