ISS Vanguard | Review | With Mike

[@OneStopCoopShop]

COMPONENTS - Excellent all around (but it's a pricey game, of course). The minis are solid, the cards and books of good quality, and the sleeves in the ship book work well. 0:00 - Introduction 0:30 - Grind and Repetition 1:27 - Story and Writing 2:05 - Ship Management 3:07 - Exploration 3:55 - Dice Action Tests 5:20 - Final Thoughts

[@dayoltay]

My number one go to reviewer. I really appreciate the 5 5 format, thank you!

[@OneStopCoopShop]

That's awesome, David. Thanks!

[@tmcd5049]

Me too! Thanks Mike.

[@sebastiang.5032]

Great review! My wife and I have just started the campaign and are about 4 planets in. Loving the game so far!

[@OneStopCoopShop]

Awesome! I hope to play through my kids and/or wife after I finish my solo campaign.

[@justicebolt5293]

My favorite reviewer! Thanks Mike for your opinion.

[@OneStopCoopShop]

Thank you!

[@MinosDaedalus]

Let me start by saying how much I appreciate this format. I don't want to wathc +30 minutes of excessive rule explanation for a review like so many KZbinrs do. Thank you! Question though: My wife and I are looking for an exploration game with a good gameplay flow and good exploration/interesting things happening. We've been eying Sleeping Gods now for a while and I just encountered ISS:V. How does it compare to Sleeping Gods? Both look excellent are in the same ballpark cost-wise.

[@OneStopCoopShop]

My first recommendation is to watch my top 20 adventure game video from earlier this year. That’ll discuss a ton of options including ISS Vanguard. Another option that I like even more than ISS for exploration is 7th Citadel

[@JoseAMorais]

Great Review! About the Crew I'm thinking about having fixed crew members at each station to facilitate the ship management and to reduce the number of team members to choose from on each step. But I have to try it a bit to see how it works

[@OneStopCoopShop]

I could see that simplifying things for sure.

[@LenLindsay]

Nice overview of the pros and cons!!!

[@OneStopCoopShop]

Thanks!

[@beakerkell]

Great review! Looking forward to playing my copy!

[@OneStopCoopShop]

Hope you have a blast!

[@Moxnzl]

Always good to see a one stop review :D I was pretty hesitant before getting this, but I have been LOVING it. It's by far my favorite out of any of the story driven games I own (eg Tainted Grail/Sleeping Gods/7th Continent etc etc etc) I suspect most people will know pretty fast if they like this game or not, as it has some of the "Busy Work" (Eg base building) that people might find a choir, while some people will adore it for that.

[@OneStopCoopShop]

I've been loving it too, but like you said, some people are going to bounce off. Hopefully this review helps some of those people before they buy it :)

[@sandrabasel1545]

@@OneStopCoopShop that is the great thing about your reviews, you explain and reason so well that it really helps me know if a game is good for me or not, independent of the point being a pro or con for you. So as always: thank you!

[@tonybowers9490]

Thanks for sharing. Great review.

[@OneStopCoopShop]

Thanks Tony!

[@claystauffer5344]

Great review Mike! Yeah I thought the ship phase, while super fun and interesting looking, could be fiddly but I'm still excited to lug around a binder with my ship stuff and see how it grows throughout the campaign. As far as the con, I've played a ton of Gloomhaven so am used to the grind a bit so I don't think it will be that bad, at least for me. And hey, at least it's still moving forward albeit in a small and grindy way and not "You failed this super hard mission now do it again or you are stuck..."

[@OneStopCoopShop]

Yes, good point. You don't have to straight up repeat a mission... though a failed mission can kill your crew, so that has its own consequences :)

[@Sajatzsiraf]

We are now maybe 7-8-9 missions in, just after kind of a big event in the game and: I am completely sold. I did not mind the grind in TG, and it is indeed much less present here, so don't even notice it at all... story, art, design, components all excellent, also enjoy the mechanisms, even if the "roll and allocate dice" I feel has been done better elsewhere. What else can I say, Awaken Realms is now 3/3 for me, so TG Vol.2 here I com, I guess :D

[@OneStopCoopShop]

It was a hit for me too. I agree with all your points :)

[@Hisokegon88]

Thanks for the review. Will sell for sure without opening.

[@OneStopCoopShop]

Oh geez, really? It’s one of my favorites of the year, despite the points in the review. Which parts made you want to sell?

[@Hisokegon88]

@@OneStopCoopShop mechanically weak, too much story, fiddly and grind. Tainted Grail was a huge flop due to the weak mechanics. I was hoping for stronger mechanics. Like xcom part and building und upgrading but the rest sounds terrible.

[@OneStopCoopShop]

@@Hisokegon88 oh then yes, this is very similar to Tainted Grail in a lot of ways, so probably not for you :)

[@Merkowitz]

@@Hisokegon88 Can only recommend you give it a go. Personally hated Tainted Grail and Etherfields due to useless grind and fluff. ISS has surprised me and I love the game so far.

[@Hisokegon88]

@@Merkowitz interesting... Yeah tainted Grail and etherfield were bad due to grind, no real progression and too much luck. No real feel of accomplishment because you played well. No tough decisions to make...or if you made decisions you had no idea about the outcome. What is it you like better about ISS?

[@JasonSmithPsychedelicTherapist]

You got this down. You are good at delivering succinct reviews. I'm a fan of your process. Thanks. On another note, I'm glad this game is good. Since it will be delivered at my door in the next week or so. Excited! Even though I have Etherfields which just showed up and Oathsworn to play though as well!

[@OneStopCoopShop]

Yikes, Jason, that's a lot of campaign-based goodness! Glad you enjoy the format :)

[@Sayuiv]

Hi Mike, thank you for the review and playthrough! I have a question regarding visiting an already visited planet: how do you keep track of all the things you jave already done in the planet? Does the planet start "blank" again and is up to you to remember? Thabk you again for your amazing work.

[@OneStopCoopShop]

Each time you leave a planet, you fill out a little piece of paper with the threats that are there and the locations and those sorts of things. If you visit again you use the paper to set the planet up correctly. Also, the app (or the logbook) keeps track of events you've seen and places you've visited, to make sure you don't repeat key moments and events. It all adds some to fiddliness I mentioned, but it's not too bad.

[@Sayuiv]

@@OneStopCoopShop thanks a lot for the information! I am really thinking to do the late pledge! :)

[@grimmy1903]

Isn't grind and repetitive nature of second landings are controlled by the fact that you ve got no mission on a planet, so... take few resources from known POIs (or even don't) and leave a planet back to a fun stuff?

[@OneStopCoopShop]

Sort of? Whenever you land on a planet, whether you've been there before or not, you get a mission to complete. If you don't complete it, you get penalized fairly harshly. So it's not as simple as just landing, grabbing some ore, and leaving, unless you houserule out missions on repeat landings. That said, some of the missions are as simple as "move to this spot and back", so if you really want to rush a planet to get back to the ship you can often do so.

[@grimmy1903]

@@OneStopCoopShop ah, got it( Sooo seems like another AR campaign game with antigrind houseruling. Just hope it's not as bad as TG grind.

[@BoardGamesBooksAndWhat]

Great review. Will you do another playthru?

[@OneStopCoopShop]

Not any time soon, unfortunately. I have a pile of 15+ games for review, and I'm trying to hopefully cover them all before the year ends!

[@pencilpauli9442]

Thanks Mike, as always love the concise informative reviews I think Ship Management is a negative for me, but only because I'm rubbish at deck building cos I can never decide what to choose...and why can't I have EVERYTHING when there is so much to choose from? 🤔🤔 Definitely very much a "me" problem and not really something I could blame the game for! lol

[@OneStopCoopShop]

There actually aren’t that many choices usually, and I was often able to afford most of them, so it might be easier than you think :)

[@k.p.636]

I struggle with it too but not in this game though. Recommended.

[@Hungry4Apples2892]

I’m currently deciding between this and Unsettled to scratch my space exploration itch… which was a better experience for you Mike? (Thanks for the awesome content as always!)

[@OneStopCoopShop]

The planet exploration hits a lot of the same notes for both, so it's all about whether you want a big connected epic campaign (ISS Vanguard), or one-off planet experiences with more of a puzzly feel and humorous writing (Unsettled). I enjoy both a ton.

[@DVCBear]

Thanks for the review. Do you think the grind / repetition can be solved with a few house rules?

[@OneStopCoopShop]

Depending on the upgrade choices you make you might never even encounter it. But sure, you could house rule that you can “skip” a planet phase at zero cost. Currently they DO let you skip, but it’s a pretty harsh penalty to do so

[@phk975]

Thanks so much for the review! Beyond the campaign vs one-shot differences to Unsettled, how does the _feel_ of the game compare? How does it compare in terms of content value?

[@OneStopCoopShop]

ISS has the stronger sense of discovery in planets, with every new location potentially hiding something cool. Unsettled has more discovery with each new quest/major event, so feels less frequent. The Unsettled planets are more varied for me by a good bit, but ISS comes with close to 20 planets in just the base set, but Unsettled has 3 quests per planet... so I'd say the value proposition is fairly comparable. Unsettled feels more like a puzzle game, where actions are SUPER tight and you need to leverage your shared upgrades intelligently. ISS is a bit less tight, so feels more like a narrative exploratory adventure. Not sure if that helps :)

[@phk975]

@@OneStopCoopShop That was super helpful, thank you!

[@ptitbass]

You mention you can have bad luck with dice. Is there a way to better prepare for a mission to counter this ?

[@OneStopCoopShop]

There is somewhat. If you've been to a planet before (or if you spend more time scanning it) you'll know which types of die results are most valuable there. You can then bring crew members who have conversion abilities to earn those results, as well as items that can help with those types of tests. It doesn't remove the dice luck, but certainly it can mitigate it.

[@ptitbass]

@@OneStopCoopShop Interesting concept. Thank!

[@aquaginger49]

Is it worth to get miniatures expansion based on how frequent miniatures are used throughout the campaign?

[@OneStopCoopShop]

I'm not much of a miniatures person, so take this with a grain of salt, but I don't need the minis at all :). The player minis are used in every mission, of course, but threats and such come up pretty infrequently.

[@Filthyanimal9]

And the character minis come with the base game, I believe, so you don’t need to spend extra for the additional minis box ( at least i think so - i am weak and got minis anyway!)

[@OneStopCoopShop]

@@Filthyanimal9 Oh they definitely do. Sorry, I realize now my reply made it sound like they don't!

[@Dragonnox]

How replayable do you think the campaign is?

[@OneStopCoopShop]

I can't answer that fully yet, since I'm only about halfway. But so far I would say it would be fun to replay, because the upgrade paths and unlock will come in a different order, but the general order is still pretty linear. Similarly with the planets, you can sort of tackle them in different orders, and they have some splitting choices and scenarios, but as a whole you will basically always do the 3-4 group 1 planets before the 3-4 group 2 planets... etc. So replay will be... okay? My plan is to play through it all again with a group, so I can experience the story anew through their eyes. I'm not sure I'd want to play the whole campaign solo a second time. But that's true of almost all of these narrative-focused games. Hope that helps!

[@Dragonnox]

@@OneStopCoopShop Thanks Mike, yes that does help. My gaming group plans to play it together, but my personal copy is coming in wave 2, whenever that will be, with the expansion, which I plan to play solo. Sounds like there is enough options there that playing it once multiplayer won't ruin a solo playthrough later (especially with the time gap between).

[@OneStopCoopShop]

@@Dragonnox yes, I expect to fully enjoy old story beats and new choices once I let some time pass :) And things I've seen hinted for the second half makes me THINK there will be even more branching, but that's just a guess.

[@kevinerskine3299]

Well I traded for this. Just started, seems fun so far. A question Mike. You playing solo with 2 away chars? I’m doing 4, is that nuts?

[@OneStopCoopShop]

I think it works either way. I’ll bring 3 or 4 when there’s a boss to fight or other big challenge

[@figgin8251]

Mike, are you basing this review primarily on solo play? This game seems particularly suited to it. I'm wondering if it would be fun for two, three, and four..... thanks as always for the valuable insight!

[@OneStopCoopShop]

I played more solo than multiplayer, yes, and it works great. But multiplayer is fun too (and makes it easier to manage and remember your card abilities and such)

[@patriziopastore9895]

Super! just a quick question, maybe I miss it, did you play alone or with someone? Better to play solo or maybe 2 player? Thanks

[@OneStopCoopShop]

It works fine at different player counts, but for me it's tough to keep a long campaign going with a big group, so I'd prefer 1-2 players.

[@FiletFisch-cb9fq]

Thanks for your great review! Did you play through the hole game? I've heard that the last part of the game is pretty boring...

[@OneStopCoopShop]

I haven’t gotten past the halfway point yet, so you might be right

[@minnwaiyan]

lol.. grind and Awaken Realms.. you just can't separate them.

[@OneStopCoopShop]

I think it's somewhat required when you do big narratives but without stricter railroading and linearity.

[@JoostN86]

Grind and repetition. Exactly what I hated about Tainted Grail and Etherfields. Glad I didn't back this one.

[@OneStopCoopShop]

I haven't played Etherfields, but the grind is WAY less here than in original TG. A few times I had to repeat a planet and it was annoying... but it wasn't like original TG where I would spend so many turns backtracking, grinding to light menhirs, grinding to eat, etc. (that said, the new TG fixes all of that, so they are clearly listening and learning)

[@kevinerskine3299]

Dang. I can't decide. My bias against Sci-fi is keeping me out I think.

[@OneStopCoopShop]

It’s certainly sci-fi as heck :)

[@ramyahoo]

sadly if you didn't back, you can back now, but you'll see it in a year at best.

[@OneStopCoopShop]

Oh so they aren't going to have any in retail?

[@ramyahoo]

@@OneStopCoopShop I think Asmodee will be a distributor eventually, but haven't heard anything solid. There was a release about 4th quarter availability for TG, The Great Wall, and ISS Vanguard, so I do think it's possible, but I have left all expectations for board game availability at the door these days.

[@OneStopCoopShop]

@@ramyahoo for real, such a mess all over the place!

[@ramyahoo]

@@OneStopCoopShop Yes it is!!

[@Tharukan]

Really don't know why AR struggles so much to design a game without including unnecessary grind and padding. There are really great concepts in all of them, but then they pile on useless "game time" and ruin it for many people.

[@batmansmk]

Many of us justifies their game expenses by dividing the price of a game by the playtime. In pure narrative and exploration games, playtime depends on the number of components. So it is an arbitrage between playtime and cost. ISS Vanguard is designed like a video game, but needed to add padding to have the right playtime at the right price for the market.

[@OneStopCoopShop]

I mentioned this in the review, but there is MUCH less of this than in other AR games. Depending on the tech tree choices players make, some players might never encounter any grind at all. But it's still worth mentioning since I encountered it a few times. Compare it to Tainted Grail, where the original version without house rules or 2.0 fixes was full of potential grinding.

[@Tharukan]

@@OneStopCoopShop that's good to hear! But still, it's peculiar that, while the incentives for padding the game time exist for all companies, especially AR seems to fall into this trap again and again. But glad to know they are on the right path regarding this!

[@OneStopCoopShop]

@@Tharukan I think the whole "campaign has to be ____ long" thing might be true. They designed close to 20 planets, so playing through everything even without repeats is probably at least 30-40 hours. But for some players that won't be "enough", so now they can say that it's 50 hours if you grind some 😅 And specifically to this game the grinding comes about because of the awesome tech tree. When you unlock certain techs, you are suddenly able to travel to whole new sectors of the galaxy. That's an awesome moment, feeling your world open up, but it comes at the price of that tech potentially being held off and leading to more grinding... so I'm not sure there's a great solution.

[@rogueninja185]

Is this a paid review?

[@OneStopCoopShop]

No, we don’t take payment for any of our content. But I was sent a review copy. I always specify whether or not that’s the case near the beginning of each review