As another fan of this game, let me chip in. The randomness is very true, but there's a lot of mitigation. The community has a lot of tournaments, some with big money on the line, sponsored by Restoration Games. The competitors are very skillful and knowledgeable about the game, so much so that only the known top players get to the top of the tournaments. Part of this is the drafting of characters, mind games, and BO5 format reduce the randomness to skill. When we play ourselves, the imbalance between the characters is quite interesting. We try to pick heroes to battle OP heroes based on thinking about possible weaknesses, challenging ourselves. It also makes up for difference in skill when playing with newer/less experienced players. Also the game always ends when you run out of cards, our games never last long!
I believe, if you're really into the individual decks and play it on a very competitive level.... yes, I can see an appeal in it and I believe that tactical gameplay is a possibility. But tbh, in my case, I lacked the players to go that way. So it always ended up in causal plays like: "Look, I've got this fun game where you can pitch completely different characters against each other!" So, everyone played without any knowledge about the characters. Probably a second, or third time. But never enough to dive really deep into the possible mechanics. Im really glad for you and also a little bit envious that you managed to enjoy the game that way. :D Have fun ;)
@@archip8021 I’ve watched some tourney play and agree that’s level of game play is more strategic but that’s bc both players know all the characters inside and out. They are also doing a form of counting cards based on what’s in the other players discard. However 99% of games being played are not at that level. So it’s either cat and mouse or slug fest. What the game needs is more variety to force players to move or know where their opponent is likely going to move to. Like objectives or randomized obstacles on the field. I know there is some of this on some maps but it needs to be more core to the central game play mechanics
I agree with your “don’t likes”. I love this game but agree it’s shallow. I feel like some game design wizards should take up a challenge to make this a more strategic game and work down some of the short-comings
I really enjoy the system, and Tales to Amaze gives a fun coop alternative to playing the normal game, but that said your complaints are all valid. Because eof it's simplicity its nice and quick and doesn't out stay it's welcome and the variety in characters is great. They've managed to keep them feeling unique which is impresisve
Hoi ! Recent unmatched enjoyer here, I'd like to give some personnal insight about the game. After à few games with my girlfriend and my father (whom are not tcg enjoyers), I get the feelings that you expressed there. If I were to advocate for the the game, I'd say that the core of the game, is the "intel" you give to your opponent, your "attitude" towards information like card advantage, draw power, etc... which are akin to games like magic. Maybe I'm Just à sucker for these games but unmatched scratches that same itch for me. For the cat and mouse situation I kinda agree, this game is not meant to last till the end of the draw pile, i think it's tailored for fast and agressive BO3 type matches. Nevertheless, great vidéo, been following the channel since march and I haven't been disapointed since ! Cheers from France
Sometimes the cards just aren’t in your favor, like all those times I’ve rolled ones in Risk. But what’s nice about the cat and mouse endings is that your cards are your stamina. If your deck runs out and you have to draw a card (required with Maneuver) you take damage. It’s a doomsday timer.
@@BoardGameBollocks I think you take 2 damage for every card you cannot draw. So that can go fast. Its not like Munchkin which can drag on and on and on.
We’ve not got to the point where we’ve run out of cards. If we did the game would have dragged on for too long (it does that already sometimes). You only draw 1 card for manoeuvre and there’s 30 of them.
@BoardGameBollocks - If you draw a shit hand then you play defensively until the good cards come up, and they will. As you said, there are only 30 cards and many cards let you draw cards. Some heroes like the Genie can draw an extra card every turn. I just finished a game with Houdini versus the Genie and I was down to my last point of health. It was quite exciting. My early cards were crap but then I started drawing cards which granted me an extra action. I strung together a turn with 5 actions and the win. It was quite satisfying :-)
@@BoardGameBollocks So, some of it might just be taste, right? But when going through your channel, the newer thumbnails with the full blur background don't work as well in my eyes. For one, in the review videos, there is little consistency in the usage of titles on the thumbnail. Having a seperade space that indicates if it's a review, some space together with the logo, and using the free space to make the title of the game bolder could work. An since purple blur is dark already, the font doesn't need a black outline, I think it could work in bold white just as well. Having coloured logos that are dark themselves placed ontop of the dark blurry background makes it less readable. I'm thinking mostly of the cyclades playthrough here though. For placement and/or consistency of titles, I think you Top 100 videos work well, since they all follow one throughline. How you use title cards within the video works really well fore example, but the latest videos have their titles placed more chaotically. I really dig the asthetic of your videos, with you standing in front of this room full of games in an interesting lighting, everything behind you blurry, and when looking at some thumbnails, your video for risk, Eleven, champions of midgard or voices in my head work really well in that regard, they communicate the Feel of your videos clearly, but something like the Top 10 Auction/Bidding Board Games video present games in a really interesting way as well. So, if I had to summarize it, I'd say, for this newer design with the purple blurry background, find a way to have logo and "Review" placed somewhere in a consistent manner (like in the eleven thumbnail f.e.) and work more 3-dimensionally, with you and/or the boardgame more in focus and have the name / title not placed next to but boldly in front of or behind other objects in the frame. I am though not a youtuber, so just some thoughts I had. Sorry, was probably unasked for or inapropriate for me to even make this comment in the first place, but I realised that if youtube hadn't autoplayed your video for me and i got to see your amazing video aesthetic, I might have not wanted to click on it. Keep up the good work, I binged your review playlist while finalizing my masters thesis, so thanks a lot for entertaining me during my all-nighters!
the thing is, whatever the characters or their power, you ll end up with teh pretty same game.. running, refilling our hand with good cards, getting closer again and hit. If you compare with memoir'44, you have a zillion of possible strategies with even more basic cards and only three kinds of units. IMO, the idea was great, but it simply does not work (that well)
I really wished to love this game. When I first encountered it, I was totally hyped about the premise. The possibility to mix and match the characters and maps to create fantastic matchups promised a lot of fun. At the beginning it was kind of fun. I went on and purchased lots of sets, to have a huge amount of variety. I was aware of the imbalance between characters and I wished other sets than Volume 1 might fix the problem. Well, the didnt. Some characters are horribly OP, while others are so hard to play, its almost impossible to win, or play them in a strategic way. After all, it always ends up in move - attack, move - attack. The card draw decides who survives longer and wins. Or the ability gets incredibly strong, like Sinbads for example. Well, longs story short: I tried to love it, but after realising that there is no Unmatched game without frustration on either side, I sold all my stuff. I did not regret it till this day. It might be fun for some people, but not for me.
I fully agree. I ve bought the base game and thought there could be better with .. i dunno, better maps ? better characters ? I felt there was something in it that could work way better. I bought bigfoot/robin which did not make the game any better. Then; because the thematic scope interested me i bought cobble & fog. I thought.. ok gothic characters that make sense (kinda.. sherlock meeting dracula is less farfetched than alice meeting king arthur... i know i know its the principle of the game...) the map seemed more interesting with secret passages in a manor. But still, the rocket did not take off... M advise : not a bad game for what it is. if you like the principle : go get cobble, you'll play it a couple of time and put it back on the shelter. whatever the characters and the map you end up running away getting cards and then getting closer to brawl.. that's it
I had a very similar experience with this game. Got caught up in the hype and kept buying into it, thinking I was missing something. Felt very let down in the end.
I play this game exclusively as a 2x2 game. It elevates the game so much. It becomes so much more explosive and strategic.That said I think you are wrong about not being strategic, and luck driven, even in the 1v1 mode. That tells me you probably never played a good player. I do agree it can drag on in the 1v1 mode as you said.
@@BoardGameBollocks We use concedes liberally, the duo that lost a player decides if they want to continue. This game is the most popular in my group (I have about 50 games of 2v2 by now), and I saw a few epic 1v2 turn overs. That said, once the game is 2x1 it tends to be clear quite fast if it is time to concede. We even made a backyard 2v2 championship (with a trophy :) ). If you did not try 2x2 please do, it baffles me that 1v1 is the most played format. Cheers from Brazil.
@@BoardGameBollocks To finalize: the few times I got eliminated and we decided not to concede were not a big deal to me. They were rare, it never took long after I was eliminated (~15 minutes max) and I was still talking strategy with my mate during that time. If it is clear that the 1v2 turn over is not possible (~75% of the time) we just concede, no shame in it.
My partner bought the two jurassic park sets last year but we've not managed to get it to the table yet, she prefers other 1v1 games like Pagan or Stronghold.
Vol 1 is rather enjoyable and would recommend over Vol 2 as a casual light weight game at home. However, the CCG players have gotten into Unmatched and they don't do casual. So if you play with some randos in a store event they will know which characters defeat each other and have every card memorised. For example the Marvel pack with Luke Cage is a million buck second hand since he is the only character that can defeat the Bruce Lee promo character. There greater competitive competition in pro wrestling.
Bruce Lee is hardly even middle of the road competitive and Luke Cage’s set is still available for retail price from a ton of retailers. Just to clarify.
Agree with you on Vol. 1 over Vol. 2 though! Despite Medusa still being in the top 3, the fighters in general are very fun with Alice and Sinbad being particular highlights.
I agree that it’s a good game. Maybe not the best of all time. But I wanted to correct the “cat and mouse statement”. Moving requires drawing cards and if you run out of cards you loose health when you have to draw. So their is a clock built in to keep the game from becoming a stalemate. It may take a while, but it will end. But I’d yourself just running away and not engaging, maybe you should be playing something else. Maybe tiddlywinks?
Looks like a vastly simplified Duel of Ages. DoA does a much more competent job of letting you fight mismatched characters from history and is generally a much deeper game, well worth grabbing a 2nd hand copy.
Got a copy when it first came out years ago as I'd just started my board gaming addic.. hobby... Really disappointed with this one after so many great reviews i found it so shallow and boring.
Sometimes the simplicity of a game makes it charming. Not every gamer wants to spend hours trying to learn a 3+ complexity rating game, and spend hours explaining rules every time playing with a new person. That's what I love about Unmatched. Quick setup, get in get out in half an hour.
i want a simple yet profound card driven battle game, with a minimalistic rulebook, go get memoir'44. I started my collection.. 44 years ago (coincidentce...), i played hardcore wargames, but for a so easy to learn easy to play ""warboard", this one is a pure gem (im sure there's a review on this channel of that absolute classic). You ll have tenth and tenth of games with the base game. It s not as if you need to buy expansion to have the real thing...
You can teach this game to an idiot in about 3 mins. It appeals to folk that couldn’t give a shit about board games. That’s its pull. It’s not for deep euro gamers. It’s designed to be stupid & light & quick.
restoration games is populated with people who on the one hand talk about growing the hobby and being inclusive and yet brag about how many people they block, not a company I can support
The game is imbalanced, rubbish tier simply can’t stand a chance against god tier. For instance, Vol1’s King Arthur is rubbish and Medusa is god. They even have to fan edit weal characters like Arthur to make him playable.
King Arthur is a turd. If you want to make him playable then add both cards from the alternate art pack to his deck to give him a fighting chance. The better solution is to buy the later sets, which are much better. There are quite a number of characters that can beat Medusa 50% or more. But the whole point of the game is that it is rock, paper, scissors. The fun is trying to beat a known S-tier hero with a weaker hero. It can happen and is quite satisfying. Or just choose two relatively equal heroes and have fun. There are more than 50 heroes to choose from. I created a Battle Box of my 24 favorites based on how fun they are to play and not necessarily how strong they are :-)
As another fan of this game, let me chip in. The randomness is very true, but there's a lot of mitigation. The community has a lot of tournaments, some with big money on the line, sponsored by Restoration Games. The competitors are very skillful and knowledgeable about the game, so much so that only the known top players get to the top of the tournaments. Part of this is the drafting of characters, mind games, and BO5 format reduce the randomness to skill.
When we play ourselves, the imbalance between the characters is quite interesting. We try to pick heroes to battle OP heroes based on thinking about possible weaknesses, challenging ourselves. It also makes up for difference in skill when playing with newer/less experienced players.
Also the game always ends when you run out of cards, our games never last long!
I believe, if you're really into the individual decks and play it on a very competitive level.... yes, I can see an appeal in it and I believe that tactical gameplay is a possibility.
But tbh, in my case, I lacked the players to go that way. So it always ended up in causal plays like: "Look, I've got this fun game where you can pitch completely different characters against each other!" So, everyone played without any knowledge about the characters. Probably a second, or third time. But never enough to dive really deep into the possible mechanics.
Im really glad for you and also a little bit envious that you managed to enjoy the game that way. :D
Have fun ;)
@@archip8021 I’ve watched some tourney play and agree that’s level of game play is more strategic but that’s bc both players know all the characters inside and out. They are also doing a form of counting cards based on what’s in the other players discard.
However 99% of games being played are not at that level. So it’s either cat and mouse or slug fest.
What the game needs is more variety to force players to move or know where their opponent is likely going to move to. Like objectives or randomized obstacles on the field.
I know there is some of this on some maps but it needs to be more core to the central game play mechanics
I trust whatever this guy says because he sounds like Ghost from call of duty
I agree with your “don’t likes”. I love this game but agree it’s shallow. I feel like some game design wizards should take up a challenge to make this a more strategic game and work down some of the short-comings
I really enjoy the system, and Tales to Amaze gives a fun coop alternative to playing the normal game, but that said your complaints are all valid.
Because eof it's simplicity its nice and quick and doesn't out stay it's welcome and the variety in characters is great. They've managed to keep them feeling unique which is impresisve
Cracking review mate!
You must have missed the Kickstarter Deluxe version. It came with the mushrooms.
Next time I call in sick to work, I need you to voice the call in. My boss won't think twice about letting me off work. 💪
Put me on speed dial mate
Hoi ! Recent unmatched enjoyer here, I'd like to give some personnal insight about the game.
After à few games with my girlfriend and my father (whom are not tcg enjoyers), I get the feelings that you expressed there.
If I were to advocate for the the game, I'd say that the core of the game, is the "intel" you give to your opponent, your "attitude" towards information like card advantage, draw power, etc... which are akin to games like magic. Maybe I'm Just à sucker for these games but unmatched scratches that same itch for me.
For the cat and mouse situation I kinda agree, this game is not meant to last till the end of the draw pile, i think it's tailored for fast and agressive BO3 type matches.
Nevertheless, great vidéo, been following the channel since march and I haven't been disapointed since ! Cheers from France
Sometimes the cards just aren’t in your favor, like all those times I’ve rolled ones in Risk. But what’s nice about the cat and mouse endings is that your cards are your stamina. If your deck runs out and you have to draw a card (required with Maneuver) you take damage. It’s a doomsday timer.
Never got to that point yet
@@BoardGameBollocks I think you take 2 damage for every card you cannot draw. So that can go fast. Its not like Munchkin which can drag on and on and on.
We’ve not got to the point where we’ve run out of cards. If we did the game would have dragged on for too long (it does that already sometimes). You only draw 1 card for manoeuvre and there’s 30 of them.
@BoardGameBollocks - If you draw a shit hand then you play defensively until the good cards come up, and they will. As you said, there are only 30 cards and many cards let you draw cards. Some heroes like the Genie can draw an extra card every turn. I just finished a game with Houdini versus the Genie and I was down to my last point of health. It was quite exciting. My early cards were crap but then I started drawing cards which granted me an extra action. I strung together a turn with 5 actions and the win. It was quite satisfying :-)
@netman63129 That’s my point. You end up with cat and mouse situation or just a stand off depending on if one or both players draw crap hands.
Absolutely love this channel, I'm so happy I found this!!!
Your thumbnails could be better, though ...
In what way could the thumbnails be better. If your going to criticise please help me improve 👍🏻
@@BoardGameBollocks So, some of it might just be taste, right? But when going through your channel, the newer thumbnails with the full blur background don't work as well in my eyes. For one, in the review videos, there is little consistency in the usage of titles on the thumbnail. Having a seperade space that indicates if it's a review, some space together with the logo, and using the free space to make the title of the game bolder could work. An since purple blur is dark already, the font doesn't need a black outline, I think it could work in bold white just as well. Having coloured logos that are dark themselves placed ontop of the dark blurry background makes it less readable. I'm thinking mostly of the cyclades playthrough here though.
For placement and/or consistency of titles, I think you Top 100 videos work well, since they all follow one throughline. How you use title cards within the video works really well fore example, but the latest videos have their titles placed more chaotically.
I really dig the asthetic of your videos, with you standing in front of this room full of games in an interesting lighting, everything behind you blurry, and when looking at some thumbnails, your video for risk, Eleven, champions of midgard or voices in my head work really well in that regard, they communicate the Feel of your videos clearly, but something like the Top 10 Auction/Bidding Board Games video present games in a really interesting way as well.
So, if I had to summarize it, I'd say, for this newer design with the purple blurry background, find a way to have logo and "Review" placed somewhere in a consistent manner (like in the eleven thumbnail f.e.) and work more 3-dimensionally, with you and/or the boardgame more in focus and have the name / title not placed next to but boldly in front of or behind other objects in the frame.
I am though not a youtuber, so just some thoughts I had.
Sorry, was probably unasked for or inapropriate for me to even make this comment in the first place, but I realised that if youtube hadn't autoplayed your video for me and i got to see your amazing video aesthetic, I might have not wanted to click on it.
Keep up the good work, I binged your review playlist while finalizing my masters thesis, so thanks a lot for entertaining me during my all-nighters!
@FakeDonut thanks for your thoughts mate
My buddy got me into this with the marvel version. But frankly I think this game is far better with the mythical/non copywrite characters.
I’m done with marvel…it’s everywhere
Yup. Avoided Marvel, too.
the thing is, whatever the characters or their power, you ll end up with teh pretty same game.. running, refilling our hand with good cards, getting closer again and hit. If you compare with memoir'44, you have a zillion of possible strategies with even more basic cards and only three kinds of units. IMO, the idea was great, but it simply does not work (that well)
@@yannber you’re right, it adds very little other than “things I know”
I really wished to love this game. When I first encountered it, I was totally hyped about the premise. The possibility to mix and match the characters and maps to create fantastic matchups promised a lot of fun. At the beginning it was kind of fun. I went on and purchased lots of sets, to have a huge amount of variety. I was aware of the imbalance between characters and I wished other sets than Volume 1 might fix the problem. Well, the didnt. Some characters are horribly OP, while others are so hard to play, its almost impossible to win, or play them in a strategic way. After all, it always ends up in move - attack, move - attack. The card draw decides who survives longer and wins. Or the ability gets incredibly strong, like Sinbads for example. Well, longs story short: I tried to love it, but after realising that there is no Unmatched game without frustration on either side, I sold all my stuff. I did not regret it till this day.
It might be fun for some people, but not for me.
I fully agree. I ve bought the base game and thought there could be better with .. i dunno, better maps ? better characters ? I felt there was something in it that could work way better. I bought bigfoot/robin which did not make the game any better. Then; because the thematic scope interested me i bought cobble & fog. I thought.. ok gothic characters that make sense (kinda.. sherlock meeting dracula is less farfetched than alice meeting king arthur... i know i know its the principle of the game...) the map seemed more interesting with secret passages in a manor. But still, the rocket did not take off... M advise : not a bad game for what it is. if you like the principle : go get cobble, you'll play it a couple of time and put it back on the shelter. whatever the characters and the map you end up running away getting cards and then getting closer to brawl.. that's it
I had a very similar experience with this game. Got caught up in the hype and kept buying into it, thinking I was missing something. Felt very let down in the end.
I play this game exclusively as a 2x2 game. It elevates the game so much. It becomes so much more explosive and strategic.That said I think you are wrong about not being strategic, and luck driven, even in the 1v1 mode. That tells me you probably never played a good player. I do agree it can drag on in the 1v1 mode as you said.
How do you deal with player elimination in the 2v2?
@@BoardGameBollocks We use concedes liberally, the duo that lost a player decides if they want to continue. This game is the most popular in my group (I have about 50 games of 2v2 by now), and I saw a few epic 1v2 turn overs. That said, once the game is 2x1 it tends to be clear quite fast if it is time to concede. We even made a backyard 2v2 championship (with a trophy :) ). If you did not try 2x2 please do, it baffles me that 1v1 is the most played format. Cheers from Brazil.
@@BoardGameBollocks To finalize: the few times I got eliminated and we decided not to concede were not a big deal to me. They were rare, it never took long after I was eliminated (~15 minutes max) and I was still talking strategy with my mate during that time. If it is clear that the 1v2 turn over is not possible (~75% of the time) we just concede, no shame in it.
My partner bought the two jurassic park sets last year but we've not managed to get it to the table yet, she prefers other 1v1 games like Pagan or Stronghold.
As always, a great review. This game never interested me. At least now I'd be willing to give it a go.
Right proper diamond geezer.
Thank you for another f***ing honest review - shit hot
Vol 1 is rather enjoyable and would recommend over Vol 2 as a casual light weight game at home. However, the CCG players have gotten into Unmatched and they don't do casual. So if you play with some randos in a store event they will know which characters defeat each other and have every card memorised. For example the Marvel pack with Luke Cage is a million buck second hand since he is the only character that can defeat the Bruce Lee promo character. There greater competitive competition in pro wrestling.
Bruce Lee is hardly even middle of the road competitive and Luke Cage’s set is still available for retail price from a ton of retailers. Just to clarify.
Agree with you on Vol. 1 over Vol. 2 though! Despite Medusa still being in the top 3, the fighters in general are very fun with Alice and Sinbad being particular highlights.
Brilliant, keep em comin 👍🏻
I agree that it’s a good game. Maybe not the best of all time.
But I wanted to correct the “cat and mouse statement”. Moving requires drawing cards and if you run out of cards you loose health when you have to draw. So their is a clock built in to keep the game from becoming a stalemate. It may take a while, but it will end. But I’d yourself just running away and not engaging, maybe you should be playing something else. Maybe tiddlywinks?
You don’t need cards to move.
Looks like a vastly simplified Duel of Ages. DoA does a much more competent job of letting you fight mismatched characters from history and is generally a much deeper game, well worth grabbing a 2nd hand copy.
Been trying to offload my copy of DoA for years with no takers
@@BoardGameBollocks Why aren't you a fan?
Rules are too dense and fiddly. I’ve done a review of it so check it out
is Heroscape really coming back?
I only had the MtG which I literally picked up from trash
It’s already back
@@BoardGameBollocks kickstarter? Announced reprint? I dont see it in places available for me
@Wolcik3000 Renegade website has it for order
I'd strongly recommend adding time-stamps (chapters).
Why?
@@BoardGameBollocks If someone is watching multiple reviews for instance, and already knows the rules, they can skip to your opinions.
@tundranocaps Can they not do that without timestamps?
@@BoardGameBollocks That is what I suggested adding. Time-stamps create chapters.
Sorry I’m lost…you want me waste my time adding timestamps so that people can jump to sections they can just as easily scroll to?
Much prefer Ivion to unmatched, has a lot more tactical depth to it.
Got a copy when it first came out years ago as I'd just started my board gaming addic.. hobby...
Really disappointed with this one after so many great reviews i found it so shallow and boring.
Sometimes the simplicity of a game makes it charming. Not every gamer wants to spend hours trying to learn a 3+ complexity rating game, and spend hours explaining rules every time playing with a new person.
That's what I love about Unmatched. Quick setup, get in get out in half an hour.
i want a simple yet profound card driven battle game, with a minimalistic rulebook, go get memoir'44. I started my collection.. 44 years ago (coincidentce...), i played hardcore wargames, but for a so easy to learn easy to play ""warboard", this one is a pure gem (im sure there's a review on this channel of that absolute classic). You ll have tenth and tenth of games with the base game. It s not as if you need to buy expansion to have the real thing...
You can teach this game to an idiot in about 3 mins. It appeals to folk that couldn’t give a shit about board games. That’s its pull. It’s not for deep euro gamers. It’s designed to be stupid & light & quick.
Fantastic fast play duelling game. Prefer the literary/ legend characters
restoration games is populated with people who on the one hand talk about growing the hobby and being inclusive and yet brag about how many people they block, not a company I can support
The game is imbalanced, rubbish tier simply can’t stand a chance against god tier. For instance, Vol1’s King Arthur is rubbish and Medusa is god. They even have to fan edit weal characters like Arthur to make him playable.
King Arthur is a turd. If you want to make him playable then add both cards from the alternate art pack to his deck to give him a fighting chance. The better solution is to buy the later sets, which are much better. There are quite a number of characters that can beat Medusa 50% or more. But the whole point of the game is that it is rock, paper, scissors. The fun is trying to beat a known S-tier hero with a weaker hero. It can happen and is quite satisfying. Or just choose two relatively equal heroes and have fun. There are more than 50 heroes to choose from. I created a Battle Box of my 24 favorites based on how fun they are to play and not necessarily how strong they are :-)