A Link to the dynasties and the horror of an old god.

I sometimes wonder if I am the only one who do not give a flying fuck about Hyrule Warriors…? The media sure seems to like it and some of my online friends talk about it like it is the second coming of Christ, but I just cannot get the old blood pumping. Maybe this is because I never cared much for the dynasty warrior’s series. They are good for a short burst of omgwtfbbqfordfocus of plowing through massive amounts of minions but it fails to capture me in a long run. Painting a Zelda skin on to it does not really help either as the only thing that does is to remind me of a much better game I could be playing. Not that is not to say it is without merits, it looks stunning and each character is detailed and has a nice variety of attacks from the looks of it. But still I rather hold out for a real Zelda game.

Now something that actually has my blood pumping is the new Eldritch Horror from FF games, yes this is a board game in the same vein as Arkham Horrors for reworked and in my mind vastly improved. Of course I am not Arkham Horrors expert or aficionado but I have played it a few times and found it to be fairly slow and clunky and from what people tell me the expansions can if not used correct utterly break it. So Eldritch Horrors move you out of the city and in to the world as your group of investigators cross the globe to stop the usually very messy invasion from an elder god. As I am not that particularly familiar with the Arkham games (Horror that is, not Asylum…) I did not catch all the things that were different but it is shorter and a tad bit less stuff to keep track of. An average play session should take about four hours and should offer up a decent challenge for up to 8 players. We were four and it did at times become a tad bit hectic getting from one place to another. But at no time did we feel absolute hopelessness. Each elder god now have their own deck so all the events in game are pretty much tailored to that particular god, we had a asshat by the name of Azathoth whom when he is summoned pretty much ends the world, no if and buts. So we had a very sharp timer because unlike some lesser asshats there is no chance to stop him once he summoned… the game simply ends. Now our small band of paranormal investigators to the slow start of just faffing about foing non-critical stuff such as our astronomer taking some time off to go read strange old books in the library of the Miskatonic University. It went about as well as expected. Unlike the old games there is no real problem with letting the doom counter rise, in the old games things started to get boarded up and people simply ran away. So we keep our heads down and tugged away at closing portals and scoring phat loot…. As one tend to do. With the world halfway to absolute oblivion T pointed out that we perhaps should start trying to solve the actual missions before the entire world went to hell. Now my character by this time had a nice little assortment of spells, was paranoid and had hallucinations. He also for some odd reason was stuck in Buenos Aires. But seeing as he had the spell to teleport other characters anywhere on the globe (for the tiny price of going insane at best) that did not bother him… Although I sort of have to ask why someone who twice have been caught in police stings would actually still try to buy stolen goods… But hey that is random event cards for you.

Now time was catching up to us and we thought everything was up, but with some quick thinking we realized that given that the doom counter did not get pushed ahead we could actually save the world with one turn to spare. It was a nail biter down to the finish and R who had some problem with clue in Helsinki at the start of the game got some sweet redemption by securing our last needed clue with a successful roll on a clue in Helsinki. All in all much jubilation was had and some spiteful remarks were made towards the game for its inability to kick our arses. We all made it out alive… Apart from T whom got sucked in to the void as part of a dark pact made earlier. But at least we saved the world.

So I would have to say we had a fun time and the game felt a lot faster than the old Arkham game. I would absolutely recommend this for others who like a bit of tactical co-op gameplay and the potential of being eaten by a elder god.