Descent: Legends of the Dark Review - with Tom Vasel

Tom Vasel takes a look at the new app driven big box campaign dungeon crawl from Fantasy Flight Games!

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#dicetower #thedicetower

Intro 0:00
Overview 2:11
Final Thoughts 25:37

[simonadams]

incase you miss it 14:02 - 14:39 is when Tom shows what the actual game looks like set up on the table. the other 36mins is the app, and if that's not indicative of what this "boardgame" is about, I'm not sure what is

[MrXehkrad]

for those interested Tom gave this game a 6.5 on his week in review video

[chadcoffman]

Great review! I think it's also worth mentioning a change in Fantasy Flight's part replacement policy since Asmodee took over. My favorite part of the company used to be how open they were to replace any damaged or missing components; no questions asked. However they now will only replace entire boxed games from distributors. So if you ever damage a game piece after owning it beyond a store's return policy, you will never get a replacement. You can't even purchase individual parts at your own expense. It's a horrible change and a slap to the face of their customers.

[ConeDefense]

Please keep talking about price. As games continue to inflate in price, the “value” a game delivers (price vs components vs depth/replay) MATTER.

Reviewers such as the Dice Tower can help try to uncover how some people may (not) perceive value. Hope you continue to do so!

[StephenAslett]

Not sure why this needs to be a board game. What on earth do the physical pieces add?

[indigosunszenith]

I'm not anti-app driven game, but this really feels like it should've been a video game. Even the way the dialogue sections was done is straight out of a JRPG or visual novel.

[FryMcFly]

Tom is struggling here at the end to name it as it is: As a Boardgame, this is a total Trainwreck. RIP Old Fantasy Flight Games … :(

[evansj]

Wow, the number of times he said 'the app takes care of that for you'...
It seems like folks with lots of mini-heavy dungeon crawlers could probably play this easily by proxying the minis and just printing out the hero cards. We have the terrain, we have the figures, we have the bits and bobs (treasure chests, weapon racks, trees, pillars) and I could 3d print the dice.

[DimJobbin]

Wait… a game with 3D terrain doesn’t have combat bonuses for attacking from height?

[jariterbangvr]

at this price I can buy Divinity Original Sin 2 and Baldur's Gate 3 and I get a really great Video Game RPG to play with my friends. If someone says "the apps development is not cheap" yeah so what, if the apps is the main reason why it's so expensive just buy 2 games I mentioned before it's a "full apps" dungeon crawl and it's cheaper

[-Markus-]

Seems they could just as well have made a digital game, this is not what I want when I sit down at a table to play a physical game...

[ancientvirus]

Glad I didn't pre-order this. Whilst that wasn't a damning review, for a £125.00 game here in the UK, that was not glowing enough either. As Tom said and many others have mentioned, there is not enough here to warrant the price in comparison to lots of other dungeon crawlers. I think this is an FFG misfire, where their time, resource and money could have been invested in so many other ways (Descent 2 reprints, Outer Rim expansion). The fact its only Act 1 makes me think Act 2 will be another £125.00!!

[PsiNorm]

It looks like they purposefully made the app not show character or enemy locations because otherwise there would be no excuse to make it a board game.

[rpgamerpro]

I downloaded the app, which is now available, and was fooling around with it. Unless I'm missing something, you could play this game using a dry erase battlemat, drawing the layout, your own minis, and your own dice. You could get some blank dice and mark them up to match the game dice. You could use anything for tokens. I'm not sure the cards are even necessary, as they seem to be fully detailed in the app. This seems to lend credence to the thought that the board game pieces are almost entirely extraneous. On a side note, the dialog portions of the app are very annoying and the writing is quite amateurish.

[pluvia]

Looking at how combat works, I'm really confused as to why they even needed to have physical dice in the game. Seemed like something the app could have handled just fine and they just included the dice for the sake of including dice.

[ndmi]

price is always the key. if this starts getting fire saled under 100, I'd be interested just from a collector standpoint. But 140 is so out of bounds. I picked up mansions for $50, lord of the rings for $60... I just can't see it.

[Nick_Whiskey]

i hope they reprint 2nd edition now i still have monster collections to buy.

[AngelAlita]

Tom said that well: "There are a lot of dungeon crawlers out there. Descent is no longer the only one." FGG missed the train. Completely.

[pcchris]

Damn Tom is a huge descent fan and he didn't even approve this? Even for someone like Tom who loves descent let alone broader audiences he couldn't recommend it. This speaks volumes on how many issues the game has RIP

[neuromancerk]

I was hoping that FFG would've put as much push behind Heroes of Terrinoth as they did this one. I hope that anyone who buys LotD enjoys it. I think I will pass on it and sign some Faustian contract to maybe get Descent 3E from them. The review is much appreciated. Thanks, Tom!