Resident Evil 3: The Board Game Solo: This Place is Crawling with Zombies! (Commercial 1)

[@SoloPlaythroughs]

Sorry for getting this out a couple days later than planned! Know that "Sunday" on my Patreon schedule will likely be Monday or Tuesday a lot this summer. :) Love to hear what people think of this one! Happy Gaming! Greg

[@KniaziuM]

Cool game, nice to see some good dungeon crawler not focused on killing everything. I like the IP and it represents it quite well, so I got myself RE 1 on most recent crowfunding. If I didn't I would probably get it after watching you play it. I wonder if it fits on your next year's top something something.

[@SoloPlaythroughs]

Thanks, Marcin! Glad you liked the playthrough and I’d be curious to see the changes made from the earlier two board games. This game was #10 this year - doubt it goes up but I expect it’ll be knocking around in my top 20 or so for another year at least. 🙂

[@Semicolon42]

Nice playthrough! It's a bit too fiddly for my taste, but it looks like it does a cool job of translating RE:3 into a campaign dungeon-crawly boardgame!

[@SoloPlaythroughs]

Thanks, Semicolon! Yeah - I’ve never played the video game but I’ve heard that the tabletop implementation really does try to stick to the source material. One criticism I’ve seen is that perhaps they would have been better off being a bit more creative with the boardgame as some of mechanics don’t translate all that well in a different medium. But I like it as it is. 🙂

[@ophirgonen1772]

Was nice to view you play this game. Hadn't heard of it (of course, the franchise is familiar). Hmm.. this one did not grab me. I love the way the rule book is full of blood stains. Adds a lot to immersion. Though the "board" feels a bit messy. Many non square tiles and spaces gives me a hard time to grasp the map. Could be the zoom out of your camera but it's also a bit dark toned. Which is fine for an urban zombie horror game, but that's too much for me, if I'm trying to understand what's what on the map. There's also a dissonance between "all clear, wind is blowing, monsters chasing their echo" and the zombies which are literally one step from you shuffling towards you to take a bite. Dice mechanics are nice, I guess, but the 4 actions mechanics in which a small step (or opening a door) costs one action in your turn is quickly over by just moving is.. I don't know. Disappointing. Didn't get the feel of stealth and 'don't wake the zombies' that you described on Patreon. Didn't feel the dread, the tension. Seems a bit like this dungeon crawler is a bit.. not up to date with modern crawlers, maybe? Walk, pick up, evade, roll, spawn. walk, evade, heal, go to point B.. Glad I could watch that playthrough, and enjoyed watching you play and explain the game and your thoughts as you go. It's just not for me. Yesterday I got the OTHER zombie game you love - yep, you hooked me with Dawn of the Zeds. Since I learned how to play levels 1-5 through your vids, I started at level 3 just to stretch my legs. Wow. That was embarrassing. Really need to practice more. Expansions will arrive soon.

[@SoloPlaythroughs]

Hey, Ophir! All reasonable thoughts. Yeah - the tiles are really dark, and they're especially not the greatest for video. The art is fine but not important, with only the shape of the pieces mattering for the most part (in other words, for example, the game tells you to get a 3x3 grid square, and ANY square will tell) - so I feel like they just darkened the art out a bit so it kind of fades into the background of the game while still capturing the theme. It was an interesting design choice that I'm pretty neutral on. Ultimately, I like Resident Evil 3 because I find it refreshingly different. It kind of reminds me of Arkham scenarios in which you are playing with investigators that all suck at fighting and so you have to be a bit crafty in finding another way to win the scenarios - I don't normally play Arkham that way, but it can be really fun. I also really like the way the campaign progresses, including some very cool narrative twists that I thought were decently clever. All that said, I admit it's an odd inclusion in my Top 10, and I don't think it stays there by this time next year. But I'm really enjoying it for now! As for Zeds, EVERY level kicked my ass the first few times I played it. That game is so good. :)