May 6, 2020
Sword and Sorcery By Simone Romano & Nunzio Surace Published by Ares Games
Released 2017 (Base Game)
Big and imposing.
Large with many moving pieces.
This was my stab at just a few words to describe the essence of my time with the game.
Now the world.
Large and inviting. Dangerous and wonderful.
Sword and sorcery is a game that is not ashamed of itself, it is not trying to apologize for what it is: A roaring dungeon crawl filled with magic, monsters, fighting and loot. A game with fairly complex turn mechanics that open up a larger world of customization and role-play, but requires some effort on the players part to truly excel, it absolutely soars when done well. This turn mechanic while complex and satisfying also has a unique mechanic to get you into the worlds lore AND keep you playing at the table, after your untimely demise. Two heroes are needed to play even when running solo, this is one of the places where it does not apologize for what it is, there will be no single heroes powerful enough to run this gauntlet. But can play 1-5 normally. The premise is that you are an already gone hero, to a realm that badly needs them, so you start your adventure being brought back from the other side. You are weakened, and only have an urging to get somewhere, and do...something. Everything is laid out across the story book, and then managed through the book of secrets, yes two different books in the base game, and neither is the 50+ page rule book! (another place it makes no apologies!) However once wrangled and understood you are set up to build out your adventure, I am talking about this because it is a large part of every game and this one is no exception. You will place tiles, then build pools of tiles to populate enemies, treasure AND encounters. This, while a bit manual ensures that there will be variety in the maps and therefore the experiences. As you progress and if defeated, you may resurrect at a local shrine for the cost of some invaluable soul shards. These are used to restore your heroes to their former glory, so spending a good chunk of them to resurrect one of the party is costly. While in this form you do have SOME interactions with the “living” world, but cannot affect it like you could when you are whole. So in a campaign situation you will want to contribute as much as possible to help the team so that you may return proper and continue your quest. It is wonderful that death here does not spell the end of your time in the game and that you can still play and be involved in the greater narrative all while adding to it! Your heroes are managed through personal dashboards and cards to represent the gear, weapons and spells they may cast. While levels and basic stats are managed in the players soul stones, a clever dial that houses this most basic and personal information for each hero. Many things are interchangeable via class, the soul stones are not! This bit of personalization in the veritable ocean of options and layouts is refreshing and gives the distinct feeling of adventuring a specific way with a specific skill set. You have a fairly open turn with almost too many things to do: move, actions, free actions, combat, abilities. It is a lot, but flows well and once you have your direction to go in, it's a matter of using the right tool for the job and picking the process that gets you closer to your goal. My first run through was not without its hiccups, but they were eagerly overcome as I wanted to see the engine move. I wanted to see combat and how the activations worked, and how getting from one harrowing place to another would look, what the magic looked like, and then the defense. Each new thing led me into wanting to see the rest of the package that I was now being exposed to and none of it disappointed. Wanting to see my characters grow in power, but knowing that only one of them could at a time, was an amazing incentive to try and fight as much as possible, to gain those shards so I could raise them both. What a remarkable joy it must be to run this through with other players and have to work out who gets to go to level II first! Then what new talents to take? It's very heady for a board game to be looking at this as something that has to be worked on! I enjoyed my time, trying to figure out what was going on, why I was back and most importantly, what happened to me in the first place! The artwork is well done and invokes the setting well, the miniatures are also well done for a board game and though I may never paint them, the cool “ghost form” minis that come with each are a cool contrast and nice touch. I played my game with one of my two expansion characters, I purchased them along with the base game to spice up the game's core roster, I also took the requisite Elf archer as a neutral, and my expansion character as a chaotic character, yes, you have that choice with each character! Neutral, good or chaotic, just a little bit of extra content that informs the talents and spells and abilities you may learn as your game progresses, they really are different enough to warrant a look through them before making up your mind. I finished the prologue and ultimately want to dig into the campaign in earnest with at least one if not both of my current characters intact, building upon this first victory and getting stronger, to see how this will all play out. In the end this is what Campaign games are all about, and having this one be a dungeon crawl with the promise of being much much more, I am very excited for my future in this brave new land.