Review of the game Swords & Sorcery (Lucienne's Quest) (3DO). Sword and Sorcery - Barbarian or Mage? The eternal question Sword sorcery board game

One bright sunny day, a young man named Ago approached the famous tower of the great magician Kokindo. Guys rarely go to fortune tellers and wizards, this is more the lot of the weaker sex, but this time the case is very serious. Junins (wolf people) attacked his village, pretty much biting everyone. The inhabitants became werewolves and after dark their appearance changes to that of a wolf. Not a single famous doctor could cure the terrible curse, and now the only hope is magic.

What was his surprise and disappointment when, instead of a gray-bearded old man, a 15-year-old absent-minded girl appeared in front of him, who at times also talks to herself! As it turned out, this is a young student of Kokindo named Lucien. Whether by her own choice or by her teacher's insistence, she convinced Ago to take her with him...

Traditionally, this is where I stop talking about the plot of the game so as not to spoil the intrigue.

The combat system is extremely unusual, as it has pronounced strategic elements. Fights are conducted on an isometric map. It is possible to move along it, avoiding obstacles, or hiding behind them. You can also hide weak fighters or strong mages behind well-equipped grunts. The arsenal of actions is also diverse - Lucien is especially striking - this fragile creature hides a powerful sorceress with a bunch of spells under her hat of unimaginable size! Moreover, for some spells, you can choose the power for optimal mana spending. Ago is especially strong in wolf form, so it's better to appear at night in some places. Other heroes also have their own distinctive features.

3D worlds, detailed graphics, different kinds review, pleasant music, memorable characters - the game will not leave anyone indifferent. And how I like the control - if Lucien rests on a corner, she tries to go around it on her own. It's so cute.

Naturally, unshakable to the laurels final fantasy the game Lucienne's Quest does not hold out, it is noticeably simpler. What is the possibility of restoring health by pitching a tent at any point global map. And Game Over is not the end, but teleportation to the beginning of the dungeon with the preservation of experience from the previous attempt, so that any location is passed, if not on the first attempt, then certainly on the second. The plot is not particularly complex, no secret conspiracies and sharp turns. About 30 locations, 3 maps, 5 main characters (each has its own chips), a lot of enemies...

Several attempts were made to translate Lucienne's Quest into Russian. VOODOO started its translation on July 14, 2004, I can’t judge the percentage of readiness. July 26, 2007 UNDERTAKER said in an interview that he had already translated 50-60% of the text. But only on October 15 The game was finally finished in 2010. SPIDER from 3doplanet turned out to be the most assiduous.Moreover, until recently he has been supporting his translation by releasing corrected versions.

The desktop market has been growing rapidly in recent years due to small publishers releasing games through crowdfunding. Moreover, large companies are also turning to public financing. And this cannot but please the boarders: more publishers - more interesting games.

Gloomhaven

A fascinating fantasy adventure for the strong in spirit. The game is distinguished by a huge box and a lot of high-quality components, the gameplay immerses players in a long campaign with a dozen scenarios, and the trendy legacy mechanics (changing components using stickers) makes every journey special and unique. Localizes Hobby World.

Star Wars: Rebellion

Asymmetric game in the world Star Wars in which players take on the roles of Imperials and Rebels. The main features of Star Wars: Rebellion are the team spirit, each player has their own goals, the huge scope of events and immersion in the events of the classic trilogy, which, if desired, can be changed beyond recognition. Localizes Hobby World.

Sword and Sorcery

co-op adventure fantasy world, successor to the space Galaxy Defenders. Players are waiting for smart and insidious monsters, dynamic gameplay, various tactics and legendary heroes who came back to life to save the kingdom and free their souls. Localizes GaGa Games.

Cthulhu Wars

Usually in Lovecraft games we save the world from an ancient evil. But in this strategy, we will bring his arrival closer! To do this, you need to recruit cultists, summon monsters, build gates and, of course, awaken the Ancients. Includes a colorful field and detailed miniatures. Localizes Game Factory.

Clank!

A fun deck-building treasure hunt game with adventure, dungeons and a dragon. It features dynamic gameplay, fast-paced games and interesting rattling mechanics (hence the name of the game - clank!), when careless heroes attract the dragon with noise. Localizes Game Store. The game will be released immediately with the addition.

Twilight Imperium: Fourth Edition

legendary space strategy again promises to take gaming tables and return to the first lines in the geek ratings. Twilight Imperium 4th Edition is updated and balanced. Players who dream of achieving power in the universe are waiting for an exciting gameplay and a new gaming experience. Localizes Hobby World.

Exit

A whole series of card quests from German designers Inka and Markus Brandov. Locked in a secret lab, pharaoh's tomb, or cabin in the woods, players work together (although there's also a solo mode) to crack codes, collect items, and solve puzzles. The game promises interesting challenges, hints for beginners, and a more difficult mode for confident adventurers. Localizes "Star".

Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective

A popular series of cooperative detectives with an updated design and new investigations. Armed with a map, newspaper, phone book and deduction, players take to the streets of London in search of clues. Non-linear plots and intricate puzzles will captivate detectives for hours. Localizes Crowd Games.

Feudum

A strategy game set in a fantasy medieval world. Players will have to develop feudal estates, fight for control over territories and for influence on guilds. Interesting mechanics and components, an extensive set of actions and various ways to achieve victory are supported by original and atmospheric design. Localizes Crowd Games.

Codex

Card game with the spirit of computer real-time strategy. The deck for the game is assembled from the codebook. You can guess about the capabilities of the opponent by his code, but the true plans are revealed only in battle. With combinable decks, quick moves, and plenty of stylish illustrations, Codex will keep players hooked for a long time. Localizes GaGa Games.

Other publisher plans

• hobby world plans to expand the Star line War games Imperial Assault and Destiny, the Russian edition of Rum & Bones, the release of the card-based Game of Thrones and Arkham Horror, an add-on to the Star Empires Hero Realms that takes the action to a fantasy setting, support for both Zombicide lines with Wolfsburg expansions, and "Green Horde", as well as the long-awaited addition Runebound: Unbreakable Bonds.
• "Star" is going to release the popular Azul abstract, complement Andor with the Dark Heroes set, and release the big Aztecs expansion for Settlers, as well as the long-awaited set of mini-expansions, including the new We Didn’t Start The Fire.
• GaGa Games localizes the card game Alchemists and the team game Hunt for the Ring in Tolkien's world.
• Game Factory publishes localizationOutlive and signed an agreement with the French publishing house Ankama to release several games at once, including the tactical strategy Krosmaster Arena 2.0, garden battles at 75 Dwarf Street, Fast and Furious. Mafia races” and metaphysical abstract Stellium.
• crowd games promises an expanded reissue of Brass, a rated Anachrony, a mystical Cerebria, the time-tested Kemet, Cyclades and Le Havre, an addition to This War of Mine: The board game, a novelty in the Dead Season world called raXXon, as well as a series of additions to Massive Darkness and TIME Agency.
• "Game Shop" promotes its own projects "War of the Worlds: New Wave" and Badlands: Outpost of Humanity, publishes the complete edition of the winemaking strategy Viticulture Essential Edition in one box with add-ons, localizes the new Ethnos and Viral.
• Cosmodrome Games continues to develop and promote Russian copyright projects abroad, including economic strategy"Smartphones", the fantastic party game "First Contact" and the arcade "Space Battle".
• Eurycus gains momentum and localizes the fantastic cooperative game to the deduction Rising 5: Runes of Asteros, the card-based Paper Tales about the everyday life of a fantasy kingdom, the naval strategy with the pirates of Ilos, and the mysterious adventure SOL.
• "Magellan" localizes VR-quest escape room: Das Spiel, cube-card Mars Attacks: The Dice Game by Steve Jackson and gnome strategy Dwar7s Fall. In addition, the company will publish the filler "Nothing Human?" from the author of Finds for a Spy, Nefarious with a new design and an extra in a box with a base, and will also continue to develop its main hit Jackal: Archipelago.

In the light of the exit Sword & Sorcery in Russian (GaGa promised to release the game in April 2018) decided to drop a few lines about its predecessor Galaxy Defenders, which formed the basis of this fresh cooperative dungeon crawler. Let's see what the Defenders are like and how much the S&S differs from them.

The guys from the Gremlin Project do not hide the fact that they were inspired by the X-COM video game to create Galaxy Defenders. From there, both the theme and the rich tactical component were borrowed. Armed to the teeth, a special forces squad consisting of professionals of various specializations, aliens of all stripes, alien technology - you will find it all in Defenders. Moreover, you should not expect any administration of the organization’s budget and careful strategic planning here, you are immediately sent to the enemy’s lair and forced to carry out dangerous missions one after another.

What is Galaxy Defenders like? And a little bit of everything. Let's start with the fact that we have a full cooperative, since the monsters here are controlled by artificial intelligence in the form of a deck of cards. The system is very similar to the one in .

First, the enemy cards on the field are evenly distributed among the participants. Then, when an event is taken from the “bad” pile that activates one or another monster, the owner of the figure checks the distance to the heroes and resolves the appropriate effect. Usually this is either movement, or movement and attack, or several attacks at once. It is clear that each creature has its own behavior here: some have regeneration, others can give orders to the "sixes", etc.

There is another similar point with Gears of War - the fact that the heroes have two guns. One of which is more powerful and requires ammo, and the other is weaker, but with endless shots (or just some kind of melee stick).

In principle, due to the similar AI system, the sensations from the Defenders are comparable to the sensations from the Gears. Although the activation of enemies is random, all the options for maneuvers are in front of the players. This opens up wide scope for tactics in the spirit: “this one will move over here, then I will hide behind this wall”; or “he didn’t go for a long time, which means next card it definitely activates, I will try to fill it up, ”and so on.

If we talk about other borrowed mechanics or nuances, then “lightning” migrated from Descent, activating the special properties of weapons or monsters. There is also a kind of Mythos cards, as in the Arkham Horror, which are responsible for the appearance of the so-called signals and introduce additional weather rules. Well, they make it hard to get around or something like that.

By the way, I liked the idea with the signals. These tokens indicate a certain movement on the fighters' radars, but they do not exactly show whether the enemy is there or his own. The idea is not only thematic, but also makes life easier for the players, since the signals always behave the same way - they just move towards the nearest fighter.

In general, the Defenders are played cheerfully. They benefit from a connected campaign of 12 missions, and the possibility of pumping characters, and simple combat. For it, of course, cubes are used, but the cubes are not simple, but octahedrons with custom faces. In addition to hits and lightning, there are also misfires, and cartridge reset, and the GD symbol, which is used purely when pumping.

Experience gained from killing enemies is converted into an advanced weapon. In addition, the heroes still have the opportunity to get powerful alien technologies, however, they are not stable.

I am not a fan of X-COM, so I did not experience wild delight from Galaxy Defenders. Moreover, there are practically no original moments here. The decoration is also not very conducive to gasps and sighs. On the other hand, the game gives you the feeling of such an old-school AmeriTrash with sometimes very fierce randomness and all these classic properties and specializations. Therefore, I do not mind completing the campaign.

What is Sword & Sorcery? The authors assure that the game has absorbed all the best of the Defenders, acquired interesting nuances, and also acquired a nice appearance and the familiar theme of walking through the dungeons. The computer Diablo was the inspiration here.

The engine has remained unchanged: full co-op, linked campaign, AI of monsters on the maps, gradual improvement of heroes, the same round structure. Well, now about the changes.

• Unlike GD, where it was very difficult to damage the enemy due to the “defense die rolled for each hit” rule, things are much better in S&S. Each monster has three permanent stats: normal armor, magic armor, the maximum number of defense dice. So it's much easier for players to figure out how much damage should be thrown in order to fill it up.
• S&S removed the stupid leveling mechanic, which consisted of throwing out a certain number of "GD" symbols. Now everything is more or less logical: if you kill enemies, you get soul points that can be spent either on improving yourself, or on resurrecting a fallen comrade.
• Dying in GD, you dropped out until the end of the mission and then just got bored watching your friends throwing cubes with excitement. In S&S, the hero becomes a ghost after death and can somehow help his team. Moreover, if the comrades manage to get to the altar, then they can return the poor fellow to the ranks for soul points. Yes, the level "flies" at the same time, but you remain in the game.
• In GD, a hero could perform an attack, a move, and a special action on his turn. These three options have remained unchanged and have not been improved. In S&S, on the other hand, some characters got the ability to "delay", for example, an additional attack or another special action. Moreover, a special action that has nowhere to spend can be converted into additional damage or movement.
• In S&S, some hero abilities now have "cooldown". Let's say that especially powerful spells take several turns to recover. This means even more planning.
• Removed "Alpha" - the first player, from which everyone went clockwise. Now participants have the right to activate their wards in any order.
• Despite the various leveling options, in GD for each hero there is usually one most optimal set of skills and tactics. There are more development branches in S&S, they are diverse, and there are at least two equivalent ones.
• "Bad" cards are no longer drawn every turn, but once every two turns. But some missions have appeared story events. Shadows (analogue of signals) appear rarely and immediately in the specified place, and do not take the heroes by surprise after they have barely managed to clear the sector.

If briefly and without going into the nuances, then, in principle, and all the differences. The randomness was reduced, some moments were simplified, variability was added in the development of characters.

But it can't be all right, can it? What many complain about is the preparation and the huge space that the game requires. If in GD missions were limited to two or three pieces of the field attached to each other, then in S&S the scene consists of narrow corridors that can easily go beyond the boundaries of your table. Plus, all these small tiles and cards still need to be found during preparation.

To sum up, from tactical battles in advance installed map the game turned into a dungeon crawl adventure in the usual fantasy wrapper. There was less dice throwing, more dynamics, options for improving characters, and pumping itself began to depend on the success of the heroes, and not on the loss of the necessary faces. Honestly, after such a description, I myself wanted to try Sword & Sorcery, and the BGG rating in 8.4 scores for this. In general, successes to Gaga in localization, perhaps, and I will decide to buy myself a Russian copy.

Sword & Sorcery is good! No reviews for thousands of characters and no long rounds of walking around. So good that I wanted to write about something for the first time, because the game is undeservedly off the radar of many players.

I must say right away that I am a big fan of adventure games in any form. runebound? Yes please! Imperial Assault? Of course! Ancient Horror? Excellent! Arkham Horror LCG? Give me two! Over time, I began to feel embarrassed that all my favorite games were FFG products, and I decided to look for experiences outside my comfort circle. And then I came across a review of the game Sword & Sorcery, where it was called almost the killer of Gloomhaven. Intrigued, I nevertheless decided to take a chance and ordered a much-desired box.

I will not dwell on the components and content for a long time: you yourself see everything. I just have to say that there are a lot of them, but who will be surprised by this in a crazy modern world?

The only thing I really don't like about this game is the rules. There are a lot of them here, and although they try to pretend to be very structured, in reality they are a huge array of text in which important things do not stand out in any way, and during the first game I practically did not part with them.

Sword & Sorcery is a very cool fusion of hardcore, complex gameplay and a non-linear story, so I will divide my story into 2 parts.

Part 1: gameplay.

“ Immolate Improved! This means that the possibility of its resist is extremely small!” - as the classic once said. These words echoed in my head more than once while playing Sword & Sorcery, the game took me back to the days of vanilla WoW or old MMORPGs like Everquest. Each battle in it turns into a puzzle in which you have to constantly adapt to the circumstances. Each weapon has a type of damage, all spells have a reload time, and depending on the strength of the spell, it can be reloaded either 1 turn or all 4, and you can talk about the equipment that we acquire / find during our travels, sooo for a long time (some can be strengthened in the forge, many items on the market have 2 sides: weaker and cheaper, stronger and more expensive, etc.). However, the game does not turn into a lesson in advanced mathematics, once you get comfortable with the rules, it will become really interesting to understand all this. It is the diversity in each element that brings me back to the time when I was just starting to explore the world of desktops and each new game was something special. In Sword & Sorcery, you want to dive and try to understand every aspect, you want to try new character classes and find an approach to each type of monster, which, by the way, are few in number, but each has 3 variations (recruits, experienced and elite).

It is worth mentioning that the monsters here are controlled by artificial intelligence, which is doing its job quite well: the robbers are trying to keep their distance, and the orc warriors are trying to get to you as quickly as possible and regale you with your insides. There are also bosses, the combat mechanics of which are radically different from ordinary monsters, for example, a threat token appears and tanks need to make sure that it does not go to the party members, because local bosses can break a frail mage in a couple of moves. There are a lot of nuances in the game, I repeat once again, the game does not turn into clearing one dungeon after another, it very successfully interweaves everything that is in it into a single array gameplay, and here, unlike Imperial Assault, which I adore, there are no moments when the end of the mission becomes a pure formality, and the players do not get bored while the master collects the card. As soon as the next chapter ends, everyone immediately climbs into the shopping deck, deciding what to pick up, agreeing on future skills that they will learn, because if the warrior does not take the skill to knock over enemies, then the archer will not be able to ignore the target’s armor, and half the damage will go nowhere.

Part 2: history.

In many games, history is made for show, and in some places its creation is generally shifted to the shoulders of the players. Sword & Sorcery goes the other way, from the moment of choosing a character, she grabs into her arms and is not going to let go until the very end. For example, when players choose a character, not only do they need to decide on a class (the gnome has such a cool miniature, but I don’t want to be a healer!), but also with the worldview of your protagonist, and this affects not only the set of skills, but also on the choices in the book of secrets. At some points, the game will give us links to a certain paragraph of this book, where more and more plot twists will be described to us, and we will also have access to different variants actions at key moments in the story: save the blacksmith from the burning forge or take advantage of the situation to plunder him, finish off the key enemy or spare him. In the city where we shop, there is a tavern where you can play for money, during our adventures there is a dynamic cycle of day and night, all this is aimed at breathing life into the game, which the players become a part of.

Sword and Sorcery gave me one great weekend already, and I'm planning on replaying it with another group of friends next. I really want Ares to succeed and set up the release of add-ons. Nowadays, there are not enough games that are able to show such a study of each element without a price tag of $150, and I would like to see more such games.

AT recent times there are many "kickstarter" games about the adventures of heroes, which are represented by beautiful figures, walk around the field and kill other figures (enemies). About one of these tables , Sword & Sorcery, will be discussed today. The review was translated into Russian by a reader named Alexander.

The world of board games is wide and varied. And the adventure genre has a very significant place in it. Its history goes back very far, which means that it can be safely called one of the classic trends. Therefore, the appearance of new products is quite an ordinary event. And if with a kickstarter and minks, then you need to think twice ... or read the review to draw the right conclusion.

Many people have been waiting for Sword and Sorcery since the summer of 2015, since it appeared on Facebook and then on Kickstarter. The game was presented as an improved version of Galaxy Defenders, so the success was guaranteed - all the goals of the project were instantly achieved. And just recently the game entered the market.

Many of you may be wondering: is it worth trying this creation at all? Co-op in a fantasy universe with miniatures will not be to everyone's liking. It is, but this game positioned as a fast action adventure game with RPG elements and an innovative system artificial intelligence control of enemies. Compared to Descent, you can only get a real fan there if you have a well-trained gaming company and pumped Overlord. And here they promise an excellent solo mode, which will take you less than 5 hours. And after that, you can try this miracle beast in the company.

According to ancient legends, your squad was once considered legendary, but each of its characters was killed at different times. Powerful spells awakened you back to life, but the strength and power were no longer the same after the resurrection. But there is good news - if you go to fight evil, you will earn a lot of experience to pump your lost skills into place. All heroes start at level 1, but they have every chance of reaching level 7 during the game.

Of course, you won’t be able to start with a swoop - you will have to kill 3 hours to study the rules, which are presented here in three different booklets: the main one, a collection of adventures, which describes all the conditions for quests, and a book of secrets, which includes dialogues and a description of events from quests . You only need the core rulebook to get started, but you still need to digest 56 pages, so take heart.

The box with the game is frighteningly huge, and it is filled to the brim with all sorts of things: here you have 20 double-sided card fields, and a rule book, and miniatures of heroes and enemies, a dozen decks of cards and hundreds of all sorts of chips. Just to disassemble the box and stop looking at all this stuff will take a lot of time.

As usual, first you need to collect your squad. At a minimum, you will need 2 heroes, but you can choose three. The choice is to be made from 5 different heroes, and each of them has 2 versions of the characteristics, so technically there are still 10 heroes to choose from in the game. There are some recruitment restrictions as there are 3 deities in the game (Law, Neutral and Chaos) and no lawmen or chaos heroes can be in the party.

All heroes need to be individually assembled and dressed up: armor and weapons, a tablet, a deck of cards, etc. Each player gains one or more innate abilities for their hero. These abilities depend on the level of your hero.

As soon as the squad is assembled, you need to get the quest and prepare the scenario corresponding to it. In the quest, everything is described in detail and in detail.

Each game is a sequence of rounds until the heroes achieve victory or defeat.

The format of each round is the same: 1) Time, 2) Battle, 3) Event. The time phase mostly helps to heal wounds, although you can also increase the level of heroes here. This phase also marks the passage of time for the reuse of power cards.

During the battle phase, each hero takes two turns. He moves or fights. During combat, you must select a weapon and roll the die indicated on the weapon card. After that, you need to roll the die again, add up the results and get general level damage. After that, while looking at the enemy's face, you need to subtract his defense, resistance, armor, defense dice rolls, and other modifiers. The attacking hero must then accept the enemy's turn, during which an encounter card is drawn and played. Approximately every second turn, event cards are dropped that expand the main plot of the game.

The heroes win if the victory condition described in the adventure book is met. And the heroes suffer defeat when they all die again or when the event deck is empty.

Thoughts on the game

For fans of solo games, Sword and Sorcery is a real find. You can arrange a wonderful weekend for yourself by going through campaigns alone. At the same time, the game does not take up much space on the table, so you can take breaks for eating and sleeping, and then return to the world of intense fights again.

The setup of the game, to be honest, is quite long. The rules are quite complex, and the first couple of scenarios can be a bit difficult for you until you figure out every nuance. Plus, making a map for the quest, placing enemies and other preparatory operations can take a decent amount of time.

In terms of storyline, it's pretty good. You can even say more - it differs depending on the selected characteristics of your squad. But it's not a fact that this will add replay value, so there's no guarantee that the other squad will go through the same scenarios as interesting as the first time. But the quests themselves are thought out very well, so it will be interesting to follow the development of the plot.

At the beginning, decisions are characterized by a high degree of uncertainty, but as you move along storyline every action you take will become more and more meaningful. But first, you have to thoroughly puzzle over the problem of choosing heroes, their focus and inventory. The latter, of course, will constantly change during the game, but you still need to choose items in such a way that they bring the maximum possible benefit. During the game, each decision must also be weighed - each time you need to take into account the abilities of the hero when performing each new step. Moreover, as you progress through the story, the scenarios will become more complicated, and there will be more and more enemies, so you have to seriously think about your game strategy.