

The thing I didn't realize before playing is that all terrain has a purpose - you can interact with almost anything for an action cost, and most of the time you'll get something beneficial in return.

This is one of those things that you're either going to embrace the sheer audacity of it, or you're not. "The terrain is pointless." - I'll admit it's a *tad* gimmicky, but let's face it - it's also kind of cool to build out a multi-story dungeon and have your little minis running through it. It also offloads the upkeep of having to track enemy damage and status effects, and allows for random special attacks and enemy behaviors. The reason the app handles this is that effectiveness of enemy defense is a random modifier. The app does not roll dice, it only inputs successes rolled by the player (physically), and then determines enemy damage based on weapon type, weapon damage, and enemy defense. "The app does all the dice rolling." - Nope. The app DOES NOT track player position, player status effects, individual player turns & actions, and a myriad of other little things that it would need to do to be completely playable in digital form. The app displays map setup, tracks enemy damage and status effects, tracks hero/enemy phase, and manages terrain interactions. "You can just play the app." - I think Tom Vasel was exaggerating a bit in his review. I also wanted to address some common misconceptions I've heard from people who haven't played the game: However, it also does some pretty neat things that enhance the physical game, as we shall see. And I can understand why that may be a turn off. Does Descent lean more heavily into the app side of things than previous FF games? Yes it does. Why? Because apps can create new mechanics and ways of doing things that can't easily be replicated in a physical game, and the best app-assisted games do just that. I believe dismissing a game just because it uses an app is a great way to miss out on some fantastic gaming experiences. I'm not opposed to app-assisted games in any way, shape, or form. We spent much more time looking for specific tiles than we did setting up terrain.įirst off, let's address the elephant in the room - app-assisted games. All the terrain stuff had already been built so that was just a matter of grabbing it when asked for.

All told it took us about 3 hours, but a lot of that was rules lookup and figuring stuff out. We just got finished playing through the first scenario. This could get lengthy, but for a game that is this much in the spotlight, I think it deserves an honest review. Giving this its own thread since it's the hottest (and most controversial) game of the moment.
