Review: Arkham Horror by FantasyflightGames

I've just played this game and ... damn ... is it epic. Now I have to pause to say, I'm not an expert at adventure board games, and I can't keep all the rules straight in my head. But i'll give you the point of view of a novice, to this game and this type of game in general.

I'll give you the story first. The general gist as I see it: an Ancient One is awakening, and its awakening is opening gateways from the otherworld (or perhaps the gates opening is what's waking up the Ancient One - I'm not sure). Anyway, when gates open, creatures can get through.

You play as an investigator, and you need to seal the gates and stop the Ancient One from awakening.


The idea is fairly simple, and easy to understand. I can't explain all the mechanics of how this is done, though, because it is an INTENSE game.


So, the quality of this game?

Brilliant. The board (the HUGE board) is colourful, filled with different Arkham locations. Along the side of the board, is the Otherworld.

The investigators stand up on little plastic clips, and the monsters themselves are little heavy cardstock pictures. I think I like the pictures better than little figures, plus you draw them randomly, so all the cardstock squares are the same size.

You also have a large card for your Ancient One ...

Cthulu! omg!

and your chosen investigator...

Investigator card...

There are also a million playing cards. What I refer to as playing card decks - there are decks for Arkham locations, decks for Otherworld locations, decks for weapons, decks for spells, decks for allies, decks for special items. They all have short but well written flavour text and they are all made of a nice, non-flimsy, shiny stock.


What about the gameplay?

The game is played in five phases for each character.

1. Upkeep stage - briefly: the upkeep for your character, refreshing any spells that exhaust, adjusting your characters stats
2. Movement - moving around the board.
3. Encounters - Either the investigator moves to a location without an open gate (and draws a card for that area) or into the otherworld.
4. Mythos - the investigator draws a mythos card, which has some effect on the board usually (e.g. all monsters in a specific location leave) and also usually opens another gate.


This doesn't sound that intense?

I know, right?  But it's the variation in all the characters, actions, monsters etc is where it starts getting tricky... and awesome.

I mean, look at the rule book!

yowza.

Let's start with the monsters. So monsters appear when gates open, or cards that have random events in them can sometimes spawn monsters.
Monster cards have a movement side and a combat side.

Movement Side

Combat side

Movement is determined by the colour of the monster card border, and the movement "symbol" on the card. The are black borders (normal), yellow borders (stationery)... the one above is a flying monster because it's blue.

Mythos Card

It's movement is determined by the Mythos card you draw... so as the pic shows, the monsters with a plus symbol move along the white lines on the board, and monsters with a moon symbol move along the black.

And that's just their movement!

Now to combat...

First step, you have to pass a horror check, which is your invetigators current skill (plus any boosts) against the blue figure in the bottom left of the combat side of the card. If you lose against this monster, you lose two sanity as indicated by the little blue circles.

Then you have to do some fightin'. So this means rolling your investigators fight + weapons or spells against the monsters lower right side number. The check is the number of blood drops on the card...

Holy shit! That's involved! And that's just one aspect of the game!


Can you win this thing?

You can. It's hard, but you can. You either have to close all the gates, or have six Elder Signs on the board to deter the Ancient One. I managed to get six signs on the board, so I didnt have to face the godthing, which is good.... cause I think that end fight will be stacked towards the Ancient One...

It's a lot easier to lose the game than win it...



In conclusion...


Yes this game has a lot of rules you have to follow, but once you get into it, once you figure out what you have to do... you start getting it. And it's fun. There's a real intensity to the game, a real sense that you are on the streets, trying to get away from monsters that are too tough to fight... you have to protect the town, not let it get overrun with monsters or the shops start closing down.

You spend the game scrabbling to get to these opened gates, trying to shut them before the Ancient One awakens! There's a real sense that you are up against the odds, and it's important for you to win, and if you do manage to win, there is a real sense of victory. A woo-hoo moment, in fact!

Just make sure you buy some plastic baggies before you open the game...

Stuff. Lots of.