Oh god…
They did seem quite upset, although in a mostly mild mannered kind of way. I was quite impressed!
Is “the Sentinels Massive” a group of people who enjoy sitting round a table and flipping cards to find out if they “won” or “lost”?
I did play the app quite a lot, but I draw the line at doing the same thing in the company of others - social gaming time is too valuable.
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I think that’s a ridiculously dismissive way to describe a game I find consistently compelling and full of difficult decision-making, with more plays than anything else in my library other than Gloomhaven, but, y’know, you do you.
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By the way, welcome to the forums.
I get that it’s a marmite game, I do. The feedback to the review had quite a number of people saying things along the lines of “ Great review guys you managed to verbalise what I couldn’t as to why I never really enjoyed this game.”
I first met it via the ios version. That does a great job of handling the fiddly bits, adding atmospheric music etc and, although I’ve got the board game basic set, I almost always go for the app version if I fancy a bit of supers. Partly because my brain is too simple for some of the more complex characters and I basically need help!
Given the responses to the review, I think this is a case of SU&SD would get both crowds piling in regardless of whether they had loved it or hated it! Can’t please all of the people all of the time, I’m afraid.
I quite like the game though. After all, who can honestly resist trying to stop a supervillain from trying to destroy the Earth by pulling the moon into it? Not me!
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Me neither! I always try to stop supervillains by hitting them with the moon.
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I’ve played the physical version once and it felt like a bit of a faff. Like you’re supposed to look at your hand and figure out exactly what combo will do the most damage and if you get it wrong you’ve wasted your turn. Anything less than maximum efficiency felt like a failure, rather than a series of decisions about what tactics you could go for?
@malkav11 (or anyone else) I’d like to hear if you have any thoughts about what I’m missing. Did I just get a boring hero? (I think I had the ice/fire one) Or am I missing the decision space that should be driving my thought process? Maybe it improves if you’ve all played before, since we were all learning the game at the time. I didn’t hate it, just wasn’t compelled to play again.
Clearly the game is pretty popular, and maybe after a few rounds of the app I could get a better grip on it while the housekeeping is done for me. Or perhaps it’s just not the game for me. Marvel Champions seems to be inspired by Sentinels, with a similar structure and heros vs villain setup and I have no interest in that. At least Sentinels has a relatively fresh superhero world to engage with.
Great to see that other opinions are available, I’ll definitely give it another go once the owner is in town again.
I played 3 or 4 heroes of Sentinels when friends brought the Big Box Of Everything to the pub. It was surprisingly social, and good fun. I could see immediately how each hero worked, they were all different, the team up was satisfying.
When Marvel Champions came out it was immediately branded “the one that’s not as good as Sentinels”, but (and here’s where the fights between fans start) I prefer Champions. It feels more like you’re playing your character, instead of contributing to the best max turn using the mechanic your hand uses, as Sentinels sometimes felt to this newbie. A mix of Champions having very strong theme to make the hero feel like the comic (an unfair advantage over Sentinels) and the difficulty level not being so maxed out.
I’m a sucker for anything that has so many cards it needs two large people to lift the collected box, though.
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What you describe in your first paragraph feels like your own hangups to me? Certainly achieving cool combos is one of the pleasures of the game, but if instead you’re feeling bad about anything other than The Optimum™, it may not be a game that you’re going to enjoy. Nothing wrong with that. We all have our own wiring, and stuff that doesn’t mesh with that.
That said, far from being a boring hero, Absolute Zero (who I’m pretty sure is the one you mean) is one of the most complicated and challenging to play. That said, he’s often regarded as one of the weaker hero designs simply because it’s so difficult to get him set up to do his thing and even once you do it’s not necessarily that much stronger than any of a bunch of other heroes that require less setup etc.
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Very likely true.
Next time I’ll go for a different hero and see if it clicks a bit better, but I feel like this is probably one for the “not for me” pile.
Listened to Podcast 115 where they talk about Fields of Arle.
While I dont like point salads, in general, I think I will feel differently on their late game play of it. One thing I usually dont like on late game states with Euros is that youre basically points optimising, which I can tolerate if it’s the final round. But FoA seems to still gives you a wealth of choices even on late game.
Also, the Tea expansion extending it to 3 players, made FoA possible for me. I’ll give Fields of Arle a try then! Thanks SUSD!
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I have owned Fields of Arle for a long time… I had no idea there was an expansion But I’ve mostly played solo.
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Not that I agree or disagree, as I haven’t played the game, but last night I was trying to watch SUSD latest review of Curious Cargo, and I gave up after 5 - 10 minutes. Somehow, pipeline games don’t do it for me… If there is a game I am not interested in, is connecting pipes…
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I agree with you here, and I think it’s the pipes.
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I think “make a series of pipes!” games suffer from the same problem as they described in that review as boardgames that use conveyor belts. The beauty of conveyor belts is their autonomous consistency.
Yeah, I watched the entire review. I’m a strong-ish pass on Curious Cargo at the moment after watching. But it made me want to go watch the Pipeline review again (which is hilarious)
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Interesting, I decided to pick it up off the back of their review. Whereas pipeline seemed like it was a huge machine where pipe-laying is only a small part of the gameplay, it seems more central to this one. I’ll be playing it over Christmas with my brother, who I hope will get a kick out of it. I think you’re right about pipes/conveyor belts @pillbox, I’d like to see a game where the autonomous nature was more central, but I’m not sure how you’d avoid moving dozens of components every turn if you wanted to get the same “feel” as something like Factorio where you’re building an efficient machine that physically moves pieces along…
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I think there is just some corners of game design where computer games will always have an unbeatable advantage.
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I too thought found that review really sold me on the game. I’m not going to buy it as I struggle to play these kind of 2 player games and the warming about differing skill level hit home but it certainly got me intrigued and excited by the prospect of Curious Cargo. I think my negative first impression might have come from NPI.
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I think it says something that they’ve reviewed it already. I also think everyone needs to really put some serious weight behind Matt’s comments on crunch. My partner and I were legitimately exhausted after our first play and that sure isn’t going to be for everyone.
If that sounds good though, it’s a must-buy. Games rarely ask so much of their players and that will always result in rewarding gameplay. Just… seriously, keep the Advil handy.
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