Dark Souls: The Board Game Review - with Tom Vasel

Tom Vasel takes a look at Dark Souls: The Board Game, a cooperative dice driven combat game set in the Dark Souls mythos!
00:00 - Introduction
01:33 - Game Overview
13:00 - Final Thoughts
BGG link: boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1...
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[@Atlasfilms08]

"I'm no stranger to grinding." - Tom Vasel (2017)

[@Aldenwar]

Equipment with the class symbols are not limited to certain characters, you just need the stats like all other items. The symbol means those treasures are included in the treasure deck if that character is being played by a player. (That is, if they didn't change the actual printed rules from the PDF available for download earlier).

[@pandolfocazzodiferro]

i like how the guy who's never played the game knows as much about the story as the average souls gamer

[@DobbzTheCat]

yes but can i do a soul level one run?

[@dixonfong6869]

dagget0 can't wait to try

[@blastvader]

dagget0 well, you can always choose not to spend your souls on levelling. The depraved will also be coming out in the character pack that's out later this year. He'd be the best for that challenge I think.

[@Frantic_BK]

With some house rules, probably. Without them, it might be possible with insane RNG luck but I doubt it even then.

[@vipergecko03]

muuahahahahahahaha naked sl1 lol let the deaths begin

[@blastvader]

The thing is; Only the black die have a 'miss' on them, and there's only a 1/6 chance of getting it. You will almost always do damage when making a roll. The idea that there's 'insane' RNG in this game is a bit hyperbolic. Especially as, if you're not doing some kind of challenge run, you're pretty likely to be in a position where you have multiple blue, or even orange dice where you literally can't fail to do damage with every role.

[@naterrs]

I have a feeling a lot of DS fans who aren't as familiar with board games are gonna praise this game because they haven't played any better dungeon crawlers before.

[@garesonc9672]

This. I love Diablo III. If it were translated into a boardgame I could see it being grindy and repetitive as well. I could also see myself being more forgiving because I love the IP...I would hope that I'd be rational and see beyond the theme to the gameplay/fun factor. One thing is for sure, I'd want the opinion of a neutral reviewer...not a Diablo videogame fanboy.

[@NotTheStinkyCheese]

+Naterrs : DS fans also haven't playeed better computer games ;-) They (like any other fan boy circle) get very upset if you dare to suggest that. +William Smith : There once was a DIablo 2 expansion for D&D if I remember correctly. Ok, not quite a boardgame, but still ...

[@Stroggoii]

Love Diablo too and would really enjoy a board game that gives you the Diablo experience but I don't think we're ever getting any closer than the D&D Adventure System games because video games just do too much math we don't even notice to give us those expansive semi-random dungeons filled with countless monsters and treasure. It's also why there'll never be a light skirmish game as deep as Final Fantasy Tactics. You'd need a computer to play your board game and at that point, why not just play a video game?

[@BananaGeekLord]

So I've recently gotten into board games from a couple that I've been hanging out with. Could you recommend some good dungeon crawler board games? Things like this seem fun since I'm a big fan of the DS game series, but it seems like without it being DS, the board game itself is average at best.

[@Stroggoii]

Personal opionion but I really like Claustrophobia, Castle Ravenloft, Zombiecide: Black Plague and Level 7: Omega Protocol if you like self-contained quests. Myth (will need to download a fixed PDF of the rulebook because it's a grammatical massacre), Descent 2e and Shadows of Brimstone if you expect to be able to play long multi-session campaigns with your group.

[@ChromeDrakeGaming]

I just very much want to point out that just because an item has a particular character's symbol on it, it doesn't mean other characters can't use it. It just denotes which items are shuffled into the deck... this is every bit a manual formatting problem. A good review, Tom! Personally from test plays and the boss demo, and as someone who get's the same thrill out of the video game, I'm going to love this. A shame that you don't, but variety is the spice of life etc. Thanks for the vid.

[@garesonc9672]

Nice comment...people can disagree with Tom's review as a matter of preference without saying he is "wrong". Wish more people could make mature comments such as yours. I've read hundreds of "you win the internet" comments over the years...your post was the first time I felt compelled to post that comment myself...you win the internet today.

[@p0ck3tp3ar]

In case anyone is wondering: This is likely a game you will not enjoy. Games take 3-5 hours assuming you don't die. House rules make it a lot better. The base game is "good" and has some nice elements, but most people hate this game. If you love the minis and find value in them, they may be worth the box price and the game is a bonus.

[@luciddre4m]

"An overwhelming sense of despair... all the time." Welcome to Dark Souls, my friend.

[@Sammo212]

yeah but I had fun playing the video game...not so much the same with the board game. Not everything is translatable.

[@stevenkennett8694]

This.

[@professorchaos9171]

This guy needs to GIT GUD

[@EdwardCBurton]

@@professorchaos9171 And this guy needs to learn how to spell.

[@professorchaos9171]

@@EdwardCBurton GIT GUD

[@Ashaira]

"This game is so full of despair and i would like to see some hope" Welcome to dark souls.

[@NoPunIncluded]

If you're getting rid of your copy, I'll have the minis :P You can keep the rulebook tho...

[@LuisAcuarioX]

Hello, could anyone recommend another cooperative game with better combat system. Thanks

[@CriticallyThoroughDM]

You can equip another class's transposed cards. They're just only in the game if that character is playing. There is nothing other than the stat requirements preventing you from wielding any equipment in the game.

[@Hailtothegun]

I wonder if house ruling the turn orders so your whole party goes and then the enemies go would make it more fun without making it too easy

[@ThisOneGoes211]

That component drop made me anxious, because I was worried about the plastic figures AND because it looks like it would take ages to clean and sort.

[@brandon7540]

I'm pretty sure the symbol on the item card Partizan is still equipable for any character. My understanding is as long as a character has the correct stats they can equip anything. I'll double check though.

[@LoremasterRyan]

That's correct

[@cybergolem7724]

Thanks for the review Tom, def ebaying my copy!!

[@nicklei369]

So is this just an inferior version of Massive Darkness?

[@user-ie1ny4vq7x]

Appropriate what you said and how you went through the game play. The cons were lengthy at the end, so how would you 'house rule' this to be more playable in your eyes? I may have similar issues (I just bought it) so anyone's input will be considered, and appropriated.

[@calebmuir1250]

My group added a house rule to make getting souls feel more accurate. Being that we would get 2 souls per character and per enemy killed it plays like the dark souls video game, which is what im looking for in a dark souls board game. so i love it. Played plenty of dungeon crawlers. Descent is my DC of choice. Sometimes Doom or Brimstone depending on what kind of theme im wanting

[@johna6108]

Nice review. Prepare for the flaming! Maybe for difficulty, it is difficult without agency. Maybe the time per game is assuming you don't grind and get smacked by the boss until game over?

[@MrJankTv]

This video is hilarious, BEST LINE: "Someone's been fibbing" hahaha

[@Claudethechiefsfan]

Your felt table, is it something someone can make? :O It looks fantastic!

[@maxtaylor7256]

I've thought about picking this up (huge fan of the game series), but it looks extremely complicated--like they tried to replicate every mechanic of the game series faithfully at the expense of making an approachable board game. Is this accurate? How friendly is this for board gaming neophytes--I'm a relative newcomer to board games, so far I have the first three of the "Castle Ravenloft" adventure system games. Thanks for any replies!

[@savangray]

I guess you could always shorten the grinding aspect by making all enemies drop souls that way you might only have to play through a few times for when you have only a short amount of time.

[@deyacht5224]

Having backed this game and having followed the development, I always had this uneasy sense that it would come up lacking. I loved some of the concepts and disliked others. And I settled on the fact that for this game to be enjoyed by a group, even a group of people who enjoy the Dark Souls series, it will require house rules. And that's the biggest disappointment to me. Steamforged took a lot of community feedback to things that should be changed but never did so with the rules and mechanics, so now we, the community, have to integrate the things we thought should have been implemented ourselves, which brings up the question of why play this when we have to alter it to be enjoyable.

[@VaSoapman]

Any hero can use any Item as long as they have the stats to use it. The symbol in the top just tells you when and how you can add those items to the item deck.

[@jiezhangjzmobee8102]

Gee! I really thought you were smashing the hammer dude on the exit. LOL

[@lieutenantlettuce8306]

I knew that was going to be the first thing you pulled out of the box

[@Lord_Aba]

I really like the AI card mechanic, based on that alone is the game decent? Kingdom Death almost got it right, it seems like this almost gets it right... anything in that vein that I am missing?

[@KZsZs]

"Now listen! This is important! Because I know some people are watching and saying >>That's just like the video game!

[@ruleaus7664]

I'm still waiting for Call of Duty: The Board Game.

[@chadwilkinson7065]

Had so much fun playing this! Due to the modular board and the way in which encounters work, we would just bring the bonfire tile and one encounter tile at a time over to the coffee table and casually work through it. Once you have all the rules down, the game really flows. I love how dynamic the combat is, and having that tactile interaction with the miniatures as you navigate them really brings the theme alive. This interaction with the miniatures is something that I believe is missing from many dungeon crawl style miniatures games, where they often near enough just serve as set-pieces. In this game they're alive!

[@Nick-um1pi]

By far the best description of the soul's games I have ever heard.

[@6x6Majin]

The randomness of the dice rolls is fine to me because, yeah, getting a bum roll always sucks, but the big point of the gameplay is about risk mitigation and how you position the player's to take as few hits as possible and set up proper positioning for a counter-attack. It feels odd at first that the game leaves so much up to the players to decide but in practice, I think it works out well in keeping the spirit of the video games. When player pieces get pushed by enemies, you often get to choose where you get pushed to and that's where the strategy comes in. Knowing what the enemy is going to do next, how do you position yourself to best set up the next player's move but also keep everybody out of danger? That's the part I think is pretty fun. The only thing I think was really done poorly with the luck element is equipment draws. I feel like there needs to be a more balanced system in place for doling out gear. The three playthroughs my group has done so far have all had the problem of us drawing gear that was way too far out of our league to be helpful at the time which resulted in a bit of grinding just to get one person to be able to equip it. We'd now have one person who is far better than everybody else and makes everybody else seem useless by comparison and practically a liability. Not to mention, we'd end up spending so many souls just trying to get useful gear (because there is a lot of really garbage equipment in that deck) that was within the realm of obtainability at our current stats that we'd end up with this big pile of gear cards that were effectively useless. It's not insurmountable because gear is so cheap to get but I think it's the only time luck actively hurts the game. The treasure deck could really use some streamlining and then I think you'd end up with a much faster game with less need to grind that can still be punishing but more fair. I think my group and I are going to go through and trim it a bit ourselves and adjust how gear is obtained. What they could have done was have tiers of treasure (dictated by the average amount of souls characters would need to spend on stat increases or something like that) with different soul costs for each tier. As far as the enemies all taking their turns after one player takes their turn, that's kinda of the only way that system can work. Players are significantly bulkier than most of the enemies so if all players got to take their turns before the enemies could, it would fall apart quickly as the players would absolutely decimate rooms before enemies could even act. It's not really a defense for the game but you could always come up with house rules to adjust when players and enemies move but keeping it fairly balanced would be difficult.

[@Thortsen117]

kinda just want to use the figures for D&D

[@solidcumbyhaha702]

My copy of the board game didn't come with a way to make the boss dials or the bonfire

[@frogridge]

got it solely for the miniatures. after listening to this review glad thats the only reason Ipurchased this. having the Enemy Go 3 or 4 times after you went doesnt seem like alot of fun. and the video games are based on how you react to enemies attacks and use there mechanics to your advantage. Im not doing alot of reacting when im standing around for 4 turns

[@Rocketingroflcopter2]

For People interested... as a fan which wants to enjoy a bit of dark souls and a great boardgame as well... I have made some custom changes to the rules. making it in my opinion More enjoyable. First change is not really needed but simply felt good. 1) in a co-op game start with 4 souls.(because from 16 to 0 seems weird) Second and third rule counters the unusable loot problem 2) Instead of drawing 1 random loot card for 1 soul.. Check the top 3 loot cards, pick 1 and send the others to discard for 1 soul. 3) You may discard 2 owned items to gain 1 soul. fourth and fifth rule make combat a bit less luck based and a bit more fair. 4) When rolling a blank with the Black dice you may pay 1 Stamina to raise the result of that Dice by 1. 5) Instead of taking any other Action in your turn you may rest. Aside from your normal Stamina Regen, you regain 2 Stamina and Heal 1 damage. After this the enemies activate as normal. Played it This way with a friend who did not know the boardgame that well yet, it was fun, the Boss challenging and the game still takes Long to Beat. no item irritations and glad I have the game :). Hope it helps!

[@mahmoodalmahmood7014]

I have finished all the adventures except one in Dungeons and dragons: Castle ravenloft. I love that game so much. Will I have the same fun from this game? What really made me scared to buy it is the grinding part. Because I am a big hater of grinding. Even in video games. Please give me a suggestion wheather the game can be appealing for me or not.

[@cadiboy04]

I'm a souls' fans and I don't found this review offended. Great review!

[@cbaratz]

i was hoping you were gonna smash the mini

[@Jawsofhana]

It's not that much grinding. Every rest, basically takes one of your lives. So with two campfires, you can do the rooms twice, unless you die, before meeting the boss.

[@areshseptango9619]

I just realised that smough's hammer is a japanese rice smashing hammer, must be what he uses to mulch bones as per his cannibalism backstory

[@raziye9242]

Where can I buy this

[@DocHollidayGames]

If you don't like the game, are you looking to sell the figurines? Two of mine broke, and this is my favorite board game off all time, next to Feast for Odin and Robinson Crusoe.

[@juanovo89]

I tried the game last weekend, and although i liked it (fan of dark souls here) I completely understand what Tom says here, and for the most part he is right. Fans of Dark Souls are going to love it, but some mechanics didnt translate that well from the video game to the board game. As always, awesome review Tom.

[@ykl1277]

You died is the screen you get when you lose.

[@AbsurdandFantastical]

Can I please have that T-Rex in the background :D

[@besaidblitzboi3430]

Can I just have the minis, plz?

[@AshRaf-to5gu]

I'm a hardcore Souls player and I agree with Tom. Its all the tediousness of the video game multiplied by how many player you decide to play it with without the majestic scenery, lore, exploration and the sense of wonder of the game.

[@loki665zx9]

Totally Agree - I did review it the same from the demo they have shown. It was really obvious back then that the game won't be any good and that's a shame since they got so much money on kickstarted and had a great potencial. They could have made it an amazing game yet they simply didn't know how to do it. Thanks for the review Tom! It's a great one.

[@metafixi]

19:07 I think Tom just made it very clear he would not appreciate the mechanics of the actual Souls video games :P My simplest description of Souls-games are that they're rewarding but not necessarily fun. The crux here is that time commitment is viewed differently (and works quite differently) in video games and board games. For example, in video games you often have the option to Save progress in (controlled/manageable) incremental steps while in board games it's often an All or Nothing situation. It'd be interesting to see adventure board games introduce some sort of auto-save feature to replicate the experience of video games.

[@daniel_subramaniam]

Great and honest review

[@eriksjogren800]

Thanks

[@breadzify]

Honestly, Tom's final thoughts on the board game are really similar to criticism I've heard about the video game series. This game looks interesting to me as a Souls fan, but I feel like this game would be much better if they incorporated the lore aspects of Dark Souls.

[@TheRobGraves]

Praise the Sun! \[T]/

[@TheAthenaum]

Honestly when I backed this game I said to myself. "Is this price worth getting some beautiful Dark Souls Miniatures even if the game is bad?" So I'm still glad I backed it. The Miniatures look beautiful and I'm very excited to get them and paint them. Honestly it looks like they were trying pretty hard to emulate what the game feels like to play. they nailed the overwhelming odds and dispair but completely forgot about the most important part. The sense of progress, discovery and unbelievable relief and satisfaction at achieving the impossible.

[@whothennow24]

This game looks soooo fun. I love the video game too. But holy crap, it's $210 on Amazon. Why is it so expensive?

[@randomcrusader5632]

There’s a lot in the board game, the whole box is 3kg and the miniatures are very detailed and there’s quite a few of them

[@claytonhelme1735]

Thanks for the review Tom! I'm glad you were able to provide a different (and valuable) perspective by having not played the video games. As a fan of the video games, I will probably look past the shortcomings, but I think it is important that designers and publishers don't lean too heavily on their ip. Especially with so many games coming out these days. Thanks again!

[@garesonc9672]

Well said.

[@CB-yh3db]

I was on the fence about this game when I saw it on KS. Gameplay seemed shallow with just rolling dice. I did not back it and I'm glad I did not but it seems like it is very similar to the video game so perhaps fans of the video game will enjoy this immensely.

[@Marth70]

as he is showing the boss figures Im over here suffering from PTSD from the game, having flash backs n shit.

[@tomimononen4897]

They should just make Dark Souls with Gloomhaven-like system. That could work

[@DanGalarzaCyber]

The reviews are either love it or hate it. I backed it, I'm glad I backed it, but I respect Tom Vasel's concerns. I'm personally exited for the combat: its a far better representation of the combat than Bloodborne's card game. Also, the dice sides are friendly to the player. Tom should still KZbin some boss fights to get the flavor of the weighty combat: every shuffle of your feet and swing of your weapon is life or death. Also, if the equipment is giving you junk I'd say "eff it" and pull what is meant for my character to make it more enjoyable.

[@vipergecko03]

Dan Feanor some above mentioned that all equipment is open to everyone. the character indicators on the card mean you add them in to the treasure pile when using that character, but again anyone can use the item.

[@aherosquest4536]

Wait.... what? Gloomhaven in the background in a Dark Souls review? I thought Gloomhaven came out way after Dark Souls? Am I missing something?

[@doughllama1827]

Damn this is really sad, I really wanted the minis, but wasn’t gonna spend $160 on a bad game with some good minis. I really wanted this to be good too

[@PencilCase6B]

The best thing in the video game is the skill required to defeat enemies. When you die, you feel it's your fault. But in this board game you.... roll dice and hope to get a good result. Seems like the video game's most important aspect was left out.

[@marco9044]

Could you make a review of kingdom death monster ?

[@2Jackrabbit]

This is where house rules come to play. We've only played 3 games me and my gf, already i realise the biggest problem of the games is the grinding. All you need is tweak the values a bit to keep it challenging, but lessen a lot of the grind burden. Our next game we'll probably try to start with 8 souls and change the earned values per encounter. Overrall i enjoy this game mechanic it is afterall a dice board game so it does not bother me too much that it all revolve around dice cuz in anyway you can always find your fun by tweaking house rules ;p

[@jonolsen8912]

Thank you for the review. Sound exactly like how I envisioned it during the KS and therefore didn't back it.

[@CapBeefjpcg]

Haven't played it yet but, based upon what other reviewers have been saying, your assessment of the (supposedly) new mechanisms the game brings to the table seems hasty. I would have liked the review to say more about them and why you think they're not innovative.

[@JPWestmas]

The Dark Souls III video game (which is what this is based on) is fun because it is a third person melee and magic game with great game mechanics present within a hand controller context. Like an arcade fighter it is the real time fight controls and mechanisms that make the game at all successful, where you are constantly dodging blocking, hacking and premeditating the enemies' moves. It's a non stop battle of dying repeatedly in order to "save up to level up" in order to get to the final boss. That's what makes the grind bearable to any fan. . .It's not surprising that when you take the real time hand control away from the fight and rely on simplistic dice rules and grid-like mechanics the fun is not present.

[@steveg7000]

This is that video game where enemies make big, slow, heavy-damage attacks so the player's success hinges on memorizing those big attack patterns and jumping out of the way so you're constantly stabbing them in the back?

[@AllyStevenSeveri]

Conclusion: This game has no soul?

[@simonmtkwong]

It's crazy why they put farming in the game, this is fine perhaps for the first play thru but once you learn the ropes it becomes tedious to fight the minions over and over again...

[@aaron.debattista]

Difficulty should be the chance to win against overwhelming odds, not the requirement to lose repeatedly until the game has spared you enough of its mercy to proceed. And any game that lasts more than 2.5 hours - 3 hours, gives me nightmares. Good review.

[@GRex7777]

I weep for Vasel getting the wrath of the fans of the Souls series XD While I'm VERY impressed with how much this translates the video game into a board game, even down to pattern memorization of the bosses and how things revive when you rest at the bonfire. My only "issue" would simply be the fact that..... video games and board games are very different things, so these mechanics just won't fit the people who play board games as well. (Even for as long of a slog as D&D is, you still don't end up grinding ((unless you have a terrible DM))) I'm sure a few house variants could easily fix that though, or just play it normally if you're in a group with video gamers.

[@ilgonlineandy]

I'm sure this is fun to a certain point. The thing about the grind in the Dark Souls game is that I'm doing it myself, I'm not beholden to another person. I don't mind spending 3 hours playing a video game, getting my stats up and then moving forward. Ask me to do that with 3 other people and I think I'd rather tear out my eyeballs.

[@TheBronf]

i just got this game and did a single play though of it. it took 1 hour and 30 min and it was good. and it was not even that hard to play. the learning curve is not that steep and the progression isn't that bad. i compare it to a different game called kingdom death but a more easier version of it.

[@Chiou404]

A very good review, and it makes me really want to buy it lol. It's ok for people dislike the game, cause be honest, souls game is not for everyone. (Just like COD or BF is not for me) his review reminds me when I play Demon Souls the first time, it's annoying, grinding, some time unfair too. I still remember spend 3 day grinding souls in Dark Souls 1 just to fight twin gargoyle, saving up 30,000 souls and lost by falling off the cliff lol. I hate it, but when I finally gut down that stone bastard, it feels great. Whatever you struggle with the game, is the reason I play souls like game. So for me, I need to preorder it, unless you are selling your copy for me :p

[@JohnyFirst]

Watched a couple of reviews now. Seems like the opinions in the comments just match that of the reviewer. Lots of negative comments about the game here, but on another review everyone is hyped for the game!

[@workingmanmike]

It might have been better if there was a version where the bad guys were controlled by a gamemaster instead of cards.

[@adamkenney6932]

To me, the best parts of the Dark Souls video game series are the exploration, character customization, and Mike Tyson's Punch Out style boss battles (usually requiring some skill). As a fan of the series and a fan of board gaming, it seems, just from looking at the way the game plays, that this game fails in many ways to emulate the feel of the game. Some people seem to think that the best part of Dark Souls is the fact that you die a lot and that it is difficult, but I think that the satisfaction comes from knowing that you've developed your personal strategies well enough to overcome the obstacles. At that point, the game just needs to surprise you with with cool monsters and interesting areas. To me, the design shouldn't have emphasized this idea of a "slog" or "grind" with crappy equipment, but should have developed a much more skill-based battling method, similar to the ones found in many great modern board games, usually emphasizing creative and thoughtful card-play. I almost think that if Dark Souls fans really want a Dark Souls experience, they should look at Gloomhaven.

[@adamkenney6932]

I also think that bringing the respawn mechanic into the board game is perhaps a bit mistaken. I love it in the video game, but with a board game you start to venture into the tedious when you do stuff like that.

[@endgame]

Like Tom said, this game just tries to live off the IP and isn't really a good board game.

[@PacoJGil]

can you please focus well at the cards? my eyes are in pain! x_x

[@garesonc9672]

I noticed that this was an issue in the first part of the video.

[@91jubaku]

35 faith for the Parmesan spear? Whoever designed this knows about the Lightning Parmesan and its A scaling

[@honsou1978dk]

"Heroes are in brown"... no you paint them of course?!

[@garesonc9672]

Bottom Line: If a game can't stand on its own two feet without previous knowledge of the IP...its not a good game. We need reviews like this to inform people who would be approaching the game like Tom did...as non-Dark Souls videogame players. I understand the frustration of people who love the franchise or are heavily invested in the Kickstarter...this is not the review you wanted to hear. That being said, it means even more than Tom has no horse in this race...he's just giving an honest opinion.

[@sorrowsong08]

I agree with this statement, but not about the review. He clearly got the rule about how equipment works wrong, and this added to the perceived negative randomness in this game.

[@thylight6620]

This is a fair call, however I feel like he should have done at least a little research into the IP to provide a more fair and balanced review. He only once commented on how Dark Souls fans may enjoy it and a more comprehensive review would have linked it more to the flavour of the IP and how it emulates this whilst also stating his opinions on it from a pure board gamer perspective. On that note, I feel it is an incredibly poor review and between this and some other reviews I haven't been impressed with, I have unsubscribed. Looking forward to the Drive Thru Review video on this as that will be a much more telling factor in my opinion.

[@TheWillRogers]

I have hated the dice combat system since they demo'd it, and some of my worst fears about this project came true. I would have like to see this game made as some mixture of thunderstone and the bloodborne card game.

[@JTMC93]

This is one of those games that requires campaign setups and routine expansions.

[@alexbiersner3350]

I thought the monsters go first

[@richardoaks8333]

Are there any good house rules you could institute to make this game better?

[@Stroggoii]

Deterministic combat. Drop the dice, use cards, cards make you commit to the move you selected and if the monster AI reacts to fuck you up, it was your fault not a dice roll. Like in the actual video game.

[@DutchYoda]

I love Dark Souls, but grinding in a board game is just not a good fit. Maybe I'll check it in my game group.

[@AliciaDarky]

DutchYoda Well, people keep saying Souls games are grindy, yet I never did that and played through them without major problems.

[@saintmaster22]

in my country a game with these many things would be worth around 300 USD im not even kidding. it's ludicrous

[@saintmaster22]

i was wrong. it is 600 USD... USED

[@retardsauce6323]

Where do you even live?

[@snakeqc]

I'm a huge fan of the video game but man oh man this game's rules are atrocious. The loot/reward system and leveling totally kills this game for me, it just doesn't work. The rulebook is awfull. The campaign system is also really disapointing and lackluster. we tried using alternative rules on forums and still ... the game has serious design flaws. Nobody at our table liked the game and we all thought it was a boring grindfest. Only positive would be that the minis are nice. This game does not give you the Dark souls feel aside from aesthetic. DS is all about precision and skills while this game is randomness and bad rules. The Dark Souls iP deserve a better boardgame than this.

[@Zwanling]

The thing about equipment for certain characters makes no sense even in the logic of the videogame, i think i'll be crossing that out day one.

[@GaijinKnibb]

He read the rules wrong... any character can use anything as long as they have the stats...

[@Zwanling]

Yeah, thank you, i discovered that later, is the first time i find something wrong in his reviews.

[@benjinnwolf7010]

What I don't like about this game is the lack of adaptability. You field 2 guys or 4 guys you still face the same number of baddies. With all the baddies going at once a full character can get wiped before even getting a chance to activate. And for what? 2 soul tokens per character?! You can't level any stats good enough b4 the fire runs out. House rule or bust on this game.

[@tombotus1378]

Thanks for the review. I always know that if you hate a game, I'm likely to love it. Now I'm really excited for this.

[@TheRmm1976]

Tom did you seriously just make fun of Executioner Smough and his Hammer? That's like Wil Wheaton repeating the name of Hastur... Living dangerously!!

[@somedudesaccount8962]

2:22 he he just call that halberd an axe?

[@MoriMemento117]

Accurate review. I just played an entire two-stage game. It took 7.5 hours. Fun? Yes. But I also love Dark Souls, so take that with a grain of salt. Grindy and alpha gamer prone? Yes, but in a good group you can overlook that. Tactical? Yes... but only in a group sense. What I do as an individual is mostly meaningless. What and where everyone positions themselves so as to mitigate the damage from the monsters is where the real tactics lie (because the bad guys activate so many fracking times!). In the end, for a 7+ hour game, it is so very random. Brutally so. Dark Soul masochists will enjoy, but others should consider themselves warned.

[@DrMaoh]

I wish this game was like 30 dollars less or something, but I understand why it is so expensive. It looks like great fun tho.

[@DrMaoh]

Also you can play singleplayer right?

[@QDurlstonP]

If you're looking for a chat with someone about the game, I recommend either going to the subreddit on the game or to a BoardGamingGeeks forum. Singleplayer is possible but not recommended (as bosses and enemies management is all about controlling agro (much harder when 1 player always takes the agro). To play SP would probably lead to you playing 2 or 3 characters at once.