Batman Gotham City Chronicles Final Thoughts

Chris and I compare Batman to Conan, and discuss the improvements to the system.

Scenario: The Sad Celebration

Players:
Michael Dennis
Chris Britton

[kennythegreatbear]

Agree on the game being inaccessible. You were spot on in saying that someone, likely the game owner, has to take the leap and put in the time to learn the game deeply (memorizing icons, rules, board scheme rules) and the whole task can be a chore because the rulebook is atrocious and there are no player aids. Past that hurdle, I've taught this game to people whose only boardgame experience was monopoly and they understood things as I explained them along during the match and by turn 3 or 4 they were making their own decisions and enjoying the game.

Agree that playing with multiple people can be a problem in that one of the heroes may be constantly targeted by the villain and end up skipping turns a lot (specially if he's the one assigned to complete objectives).

Heavily disagree on this being solely (or almost solely) about dice-chucking. There are a ton of tactical considerations to be made in regard to movement, taking cover, when to rest and when to be active, who to target and how many cubes to assign to any given task (and an near equal amount of considerations on the villain side). Very often, when I lose, I can pinpoint the exact moment where I fucked up (not the dice themselves, mind you!) that led to my downfall.

During your playthrough I spotted more than a dozen tactical mistakes (the most egregious probably being spending a ton of rerolls on low value white or yellow dice and leaving hero characters out in the open to be shot at). The fact that I can spot these and you guys didn't comes down to experience, as I have around 10 games of this under my belt and this was your second try. And it proves that there's a lot more to the game than just rolling dice and praying for the right results.

Another thing is that you guys got quite a few rules wrong, most importantly using the command skill repeatedly (which heavily warped the game balance from the start) and using the bonus movement of thughs twice, before and after their action. Neither of these is properly your fault as the rules are obtuse and poorly written (the command skill thing is a pure omission in the rule book!), but it's worth noting that a game where you have all your rules in check will lead to a more balanced experience.

Anyways, just my 2 cents. Thanks for the playthrough and review!

[derekgarcia]

I was lucky to grab an all-in pledge second hand for a very good price. As the game had been out for 4 or 5 months by than, we knew what we were getting into. Going into with that knowledge (and the player aids printed...seriously, wtf monolith?!?!?) made it a much more enjoyable experience.


It's actually become one of our favorite games, and my son absolutely loves it. That said, we tend towards the Amerithrash side of things, and Mythic Battles Pantheon is my (and my sons) number 1 game.


it definitely helps to have a dedicated opponent or two though, given the overhead.


All that said, if i ever recommended it to anyone, it would be with a list of caveats, lol.

[Vascariz]

I hope they watch this review and make all the improvements needed for their next game...

[LazyNeutrino]

If you guys can get your hands on the new Judge Dredd board game, which is also a reskin of an existing board game system (Wildlands by Martin Wallace) with a comic book theme, that might be a fun one to watch / play on the channel.

[Vascariz]

Agree, my experience with the game is same as your review... for the amount of time you sink into the game, the pay off isn't there...

[AIMInvestorJournal]

Great series guys! I appreciate the raw honesty in the final thoughts, definitely share your frustrations on the point of accessibility. This is such a chore to learn and for such a dice-fest does not seem like a good investment of playtime.

The biggest draw I think are the miniatures! They are amazing value and with a bit of effort it shouldn't be too difficult to make a 3D version for each of the 4 boards to improve the gameplay experience.

I'm a little surprised you guys weren't more negative about the dice chucking aspects of the game. For melee / ranged attacks and defence it doesn't bother me so much but the manipulation and thought rolls can be pretty tough even with special abilities / traits and if luck is against you put a right downer on the game.

One way to reduce the randomness in the game would be to add a tactical thematic card-play element that reduces the randomness in the game. Increasing both players ability to succeed when making important rolls must be a good thing, right?

[davidbowieridingatigeronar]

I enjoyed your play through, now your getting the hang of it, it would be awesome to see you try a differnt scenario

[vlogospheer]

The scenarios are very unbalanced. Seems they’ve now said we can refresh 1 more cube on either activation or rest. Like that’s a fix for the imbalance.

[GrandKhan]

Thanks for the video! I love the game but I agree with most of your points, the game is difficult to get into without someone who teaches you and player aids. Btw there is an website that calculates line of sight and height difference at Monolith’s site.