Written review: www.shelfside.co/reviews-2023/issvanguard-review?rq=iss%20vanguard Little note on the rank-up cons that didn't make the final cut: You can go slowly in the early to mid game, to get a Rank 3 member of each section, then committing them to the Barracks to upgrade your rank 1 guys to rank 2 easily. However, this adds a LOT of grinding to the game, and is probably not very enjoyable to those who just want to play at a normal pace (e.g. enjoy the story).
Wow wow wow! 🙀 I have never watched/read a review as in-depth, to-the-point, and honest-but-fair as this 🙏 Thank you so much for all the info and setting it up in such a captivating way as this, exactly what I was looking for... How am I discovering this channel just now 😅
For me, it looks like a big part of your "nitpicks" are due to simple burnout from dice chucking. 17 sessions in less than a month? It's insane for such a game. I'm fairly sure that if you didn't rush through it and just spaced your plays at once per week (but probably a longer session, at 3-4 hours), then you wouldn't have burned out from dice chucking. These things can creep up on you even in the games you love. Campaign games can do that for you.
People can frequently play games tens of times in the course of a month. The gme not being fun after numerous plays indicates the game is flawed. It should be as much fun on the final play as it is on the first, even if you're playing one session every day.
My first view on your channel and it was fantastic, thank you. I appreciate the longer format because it really gives the detailed info on what you did/didn't like allowing me to apply it to my tastes and interests.
Love this channel and its reviews, details in explanations, creativity and overall game board knowledge. It is one of my favorite channels. So glad I found it. I have bought a lot of board games because of this channel and hope in the next year perhaps to buy Gloomhaven, Oathsworn and or War of the Rings too.
As someone that just started a campaign with 3 friends I think playing as a group has advantages to solo play. We just finished the first couple missions, but during the ship management phase half of us were able to take short breaks while the other half managed the ship. It was alot easier to remember rules with 4 heads instead of one, so less time looking through rule books. I think we did 1 actual rule lookup through both missions. I can definitely see the game losing a bit of shine if you're just having to do all the work on your own though and it would lose a couple points for me too. If you split the load the game feels closer to the right level of fun mini strategy/resource management and administrative work.
I totally resonated with you when you talked about how the game makes you feel the weight and consequences of your decisions. Especially when it comes to the lives of the crew 😂. Excellent review! That was fun to watch 🙌
Yeah I mostly agree with you from a solo player perspective, this game shines with more people and played gradually and in sessions with gaps between them, because we were so hyped for every game session at the beginning that at one point we dedicated a full day to try to progress it a bit faster, as we are a group of people who turns every stone in RPG before moving on, and we were unpleasantly surprised how fast you burn yourself out by just mostly rolling dice, specially on some of the later missions that are just plain hard RNG checks, at this point we are taking one to two weeks breaks between session so we have more excitement playing each session, altho our score in the group is still best narrative game out there and it is game of the year for 3 out of 6 people in our group this year :)
Can you describe a little bit how you play this in a group? Does each player choose a sector to represent? I really want to play this with my group but not sure exactly how the best way to do it. Thanks!
@@HandOvDoom2112 Exactly that, each player chooses there section and we mostly stick to these sections, we tried to play only when there is all 4 core players, but sometimes some one does not make to the game night than there might be some one else substituting him, pretty much we are 6 all of know what is going on, but yeah mostly we play 4 or 3, once we played 2 and each of us took 2 sections. But a lot of things to discuss in this game regarding story, if your group loves Sci-Fi like mine does, this wont be a miss just soley on setting and narrative/story
Great review! I am eagerly awaiting my kickstarter copy, and your review makes me want the game even more, despite the nitpicks. At the end, you will get bored by all games after playing them enough, and the fact that you actually got these nice memories of the game tells me that the story is good.
Great review! You mentioned progression and successes are limited in solo play but I don't think solo play is limited to only taking 2 sections on planetary explorations. I've played solo and controlled all 4 sections, though it definitely adds a lot of card and dice management to track and it's a huge table hog. I found the sweet spot is 2 player with each player controlling 2 sections.
yep, controlling 4 sections is totally possible even with less than 4 players, as I allude to in the recommender score. Buuuut, it is pretty unwieldly to manage multiple decks, and isn't really suggested by the game (except for certain scenarios later in the game.) -Ashton
40 hours of enjoyment is actually not bad! Still AR continues to struggle with providing exhilarating experiences consistently. They really need to consider how they can continue to introduce new elements throughout the game. Etherfields had the same issue, Tainted Grail too.
I strongly agree, all three games you just mentioned falls some what flat or have major issues later on in the campaign, while start is very very strong and pull you in hard, ether they need flat it out all around with better and interesting mechanics or make more exciting things closer to the end of the campaign, because currently the very strong start created an illusion that all of it going to be that way and it usually is not, by end of Tainted Grails we were so overpowered that we just skipped combat completely and mostly focused on story, Etherfields were actually quite good in terms of dreams all through out, but deck building aspect fell really flat after a while and none of out characters felt like in the beginning there was very little distinction because decks were completely changed, ISS Vanguard, story got waker at the end and the dice chuking just became boring and tedious to a point we sometimes just home rule again some of the things
@@MrLeanath my guess would be because campaign is somewhat long, at least half of the people do not make to the point where the game starts to show it's weaknesses, so in there mind it is high rating
@@MrLeanath Because when a lot of people pay $500+ for a game, they tend to rate it substantially higher as a way to justify to themselves the money they spent.
Respectable review, I am playing solo & playing 4 handed. I feel like your overall impression of the game/rating would be higher if you played with more people/sectors instead of just two. On the ISS FB Group pretty much anyone playing solo plays 4 handed (including myself). (Since the game says they highly recommend to do that on harder planets) and you just benifit so much more with having all the sectors on the planet. The personal files expansion would have definitely helped you out playing two handed since when you have a crew member become veteran they get an extra covert ability. My most agreeable con has to be the rank up cards, sometimes they just really damn sucks! I was kind of surprised you landed on a 7/10, the review sounds like an 8 for sure! 5 stars to shelfside for actually reviewing this game unlike most other big board game YT channels
Yep, definitely 4 sections is way the way to go, solo or not, but I realized that FARR too late in the campaign, and just said, screw it, let's see what happens. hahaha. Also controlling 4 hands/decks of cards is too much for me. The game just unfortunately doesn't quite stick the landing, so I can't call it great, but it will be great for many groups out there -Ashton
Yeah man, those hot girls and all the dice rolling they ask of you! Also, I think I need to get one of those Patagonia jackets even though they aren't exactly inexpensive... But really neat review there! I sort of balked at watching for 75 minutes because in the end what was said could technically have been said in about half of the time. But I just enjoy the style of you guys so much that time flies by every single time. Well done! And now still waiting for ISS Vanguard to finally get here at some point because I didn't spring for two wave shipping at the time, ugh.
cheers man! Personally I like Tainted Grail story FARRR more, but ISS Vanguard gives a more consistent experience of exploring AND far better feeling of dealing with threats (I really got tired of TG's combat/diplomacy system). So they're really just very different campaign games. the newer TG seems to fixed the grinding aspects and wonky open world elements, so if you're leaning towards more solo play, I would say look into that first. Cheers! -Ashton
Thx for the review. Level sets my expectations. Will be waiting to start playing until wave 2 to see if there is an update pack. (I have ATO to keep me busy). Also expect I will apply a few house rules to help streamline any grind.
I would be very curious to have an update on how you feel about the game once you played it with more players. I started playing it solo, did 3 missions to get the hang of the game and then, we started playing as a group of 4. I can say with certainty that's its much more enjoyable for me to share this game with others. While paying solo, I was only player 2 sectors because it was already quite enough to keep track of everything. It's true tho that the game seems to be designed around bringing 4 crew members in each exploration phase, but I would still recommend against it for solo players. Thanks for the detailed video
Your review is pretty much spot on and for me it has nothing to do with burnout. This is the only game where I actually tracked the boat crossing the Pacific Ocean and was so anxious to finally get it. Jumped right in and played it heavily (not as heavy as you did). For me, once I was approximately 80% or so done, I had finished all upgrades and research projects. I really enjoyed the ship book and now the ship book portion was an empty part of the gameplay and exploration of the planets became tedious and boring for me. At the end, I just punched in entries to see how the story wrapped up. I did enjoy the game overall but rethinking playing these campaign games as a whole (I play solo mostly). I hope AR makes some gameplay tweaks and ensure that the ship book is an experience that last throughout the entire campaign.
Heyo! Agree, the campaign elements of it that weren't story related got pretty tedious to me, but then again, I'm not much of a campaign gamer so I might've felt the burnout much more prominently :) Do hope some tweaks are made too! -Ashton
One very minor thing I really appreciated (and I don't think you mentioned it) are the dedicated tokens showing which character turn it is and how many actions they got left. I feel like playing solo with four characters wouldn't be nearly as pleasant without them. With those tokens it is very easy to keep track of where you are during a round, even after having searched for something in the rule book or getting distracted by something else. Just clever they added them, even though it wasn't necessary. Great review btw way and I totally agree with your pros. (Will have to watch the cons another time though.)
Oh yep, I didn't mention that. It is definitely a nice element for bookkeeping that I didn't personally use, but could be very useful for probably most groups! -Ashton
I think the gameplay loop is too strict for a 40h+ adventure game for my taste. It either needs more emergent gameplay or a more adaptive gameplay loop like sleeping gods has (where you suddenly fall into an adventure in a cave for 2 hours just guided by the story book without returning to the ship and without doing the day to day main gameplay loop. It happens all the time in sleeping gods, that the main loop is interrupted by the storybook and that is a good thing in my opinion. This way the resource management of the main loop stays fresh and you can fall at any time into an adventures where anything can happen trough a story book. Those adventures are not formed by strict gameloop rules but by a script. They are very scripted so to speak, but they are handcrafted and well designed, which might even be more entertaining than emergent gameplay) But it has so many great ideas and I can totally imagine playing a few missions. But I think I already know that after a few missions I would like to experience different gameplay, especially if you can play a lot of different games in 40+ hours.
I'm an all-in backer, and I'm going to tell you that you're a hell of a lot easier on this game than I could ever be. Don't listen to any of the sycophants who refuse to acknowledge all of the issues with the game because they feel like they have to justify the hundreds of dollars they paid into the game.
cheers! I definitely didn't list every single con (and didn't even technically finish the game haha), and I almost had it at an 8/10 recommender at some point just because when this game fires it does well! Would like to hear some more cons (spoiler free of course) if you have some more to share -Ashton
@@Shelfside My cons are spoiler-filled, you'll know the thread on BGG when you see it. Suffice to say, there's nothing like rolling for random death on your entire crew without any mitigation.
I'd be curious to see how you guys compare this to a game like Unsettled. I know it's single scenario and not a campaign, so they're not exactly analogous, but the differences might highlight the strengths and weaknesses of each.
Hearing about that 'ones in, you're locked in'.. I think really sucks. I thought it was mostly a log player, with optional 'continuation'.... (so, it didn't really care where you were...'enter log entry 341' and it could pick up from there orso... Another reason to hate on apps in boardgames I guess... At least Middara has download options for the narrative .. and doesn't really have an app otherwise. Because those apps hardly ever survive 3-5 years anyway and then you're stuck with you 300-800 euro kickstarter game...and STILL have to read it all yourself..
Wow,i’ve never realize how big of a deal was the fact i played with all 4 sections.I had a scenario that killed 4 rank 3 crewmemebers but i had 4 other rank 3 crew and a lot of rank 2
The rank unlock system seems like it could be fixed the way a lot of PC games do which is that once you get past a certain point, new recruits come with free XP/levels
@@arthurdent9281 Sure, but AR is known for players being forced to use house rules, at this point. Hell, Etherfields has people cutting the board apart because it was poorly designed -- AND CALLED OUT IN PLAYTESTING AS BEING POORLY DESIGNED. They charge far too much for games, and have far too much plastic, for them to be only partially-baked.
Great review. Not sure how far I am through the campaign, just met my first "nice" planet. I'd agree with most of the points raised - I saw Vanguard described as a participatory story which I think describes the campaign accurately. And I think it would be brilliant if you could drop in and play a planet exploration as a solo session.
The operations booklet should cover this 'drop in and go' feel, yet I haven't experienced it outside of the campaign, so not exactly sure how it fares. Cheers! -Ashton
Awesome. Thank you for this video. I absolutely agree with you that I much prefer a shorter but more impactful campaign. On top of the many different games to play, this having different choices for crew is a lot already. How many times will you play the entire campaign.
I have a good idea for a show. What games have you played that have the least amount of problems? Which ones played smoothly right out of the box. What are the Shelfside Certified games?
maybe not a 1-1 of something getting promoted right away for balance sake, like maybe you have to pay something to promote it? But yeah something around that lens :) -Ashton
On the lander mods the page before with the instructions says you if you have more mods than slots you pick which ones to keep and the excess are removed from the game.
Your cons are spot on except on one point. What grind? Our game session we couldn't find a way to 'grind'. See below why. I'd add two more aspects you've missed. Backtracking, and sitting in a single system affects morale which impacts the ship phase in bad ways. The game pushes you to move forward, and punished you for not doing so regardless of the reason. There's not a heap of ways to raise morale. The game has a an intended direction, which is vague. If you go to planet you aren't supposed to be at, you've put your crew in danger, and are then forced to move on, or go back as not all star systems can be reached from any other star system. We got bored of dice rolling. Too many negatives that suck whatever fun was provided as a concept.
Absolutely superb video. Best I’ve seen on the game. AW should have hired you to do the official how to play video. Only recently started but do agree with the cons and nit-picks I’ve encountered this far. Awesome work!
The dice look nifty, but there are certain people who will ALWAYS AND EVER make the worst possible, unlikely rolls on a regular basis. And I am one of them.
Oh man, I can't really saw too much because we weren't sent it. But the base game has a TON of content and will give tons and tons of hours from start to finish -Ashton
Review Northgard: Uncharted Lands 😁 it's a 4x4 deck-building game but can be played in 1-2 hours. You don't need to know the online game because we don't and it's a lot of fun. Would like to know your thoughts on it. Our group consisting of the men in our family haven't had experience in deck-building games so we had a hard time learning the rules but maybe it will be different for you.
I think it’s a 8.5 .. but I’m not finished yet.. great production quality. Love the upgraded players mats.. Hate the upgraded dice. Miniatures are not needed. Tainted grail had a great story and miniatures but I hated the rest of the game. ISS Vanguard is way better than tainted grail.
Ive had this for ages, brought it for solo gaming as im a full time carer i thought itll be great to leave setup, i havent even played it, ive no idea where to start lol and after seeing this it looks impossible for solo so maybe time to sell it on.
I wouldn't say it's impossible for solo since I've heard of others who have also done the same, but definitely think if yuo want to get deep in the campaign, control multiple characters :D -Ashton
This is not a dungeon crawler where you will take your “personal” character to level up and retire. All the crew are expendable resources for a greater mission…
Thank you for a COMPLETE review. Everyone else is giving this game almost perfect ratings. Normally I stay away from these epic games where everything is 80% finished and degrades at the end. I keep thinking this should have been a computer game.
For the Lander Mod page - I thought it was intentional that we were supposed to remove the cards that don't fit on the page I'm 13 games in and have had a ton of fun with it so far. I'm running solo with two characters only using the app which I think is absolutely the hardest way to play. With that in mind, I accept fudging a little on so far two missions so that I don't need to repeat a mission entire. Losses I accept (memorial wall is full) - but I don't accept repetitive play since the fun is getting to the next log file. I do love the dice play - but...sometimes I'm just a turn or two short of success and I take the fail forward approach. I generally agree with the critiques here - though as a whole I'm on board with them despite that. Like I'm fine with the mostly linear story and accept the trade of few characters to manage and using the app despite the difficulty (since I'm just going to keep moving along). I also feel that your enjoyment likely took a hit for one major reason - you kept playing and playing to get a review out. My cadence so far has been to bring it out for 3 to 5 games at a time then put it away. I feel if trying to burn through the game of course the dice rolling will feel too samey and lose its appeal. So far, I still enjoy it at about the same point. I guess you ended with the Gravitational Threat mission which was my last game so far - and one I fudged because I was about two turns short of real success.
Cheers man, yeah the lander mod page turned out to be intentional- I still think its a bit confusing though nonetheless, and a weird restriction that doesn't really help gameplay. Yep, I do agree that playing so many games to get a review out does damper my enjoyment a tad, but man the scenarios this game had will stay with me for a very long time- I think the 3rd playthrough I was pretty floored on how they did the 'leaving the planet'. Fudging results would have helped me for sure, but I wanted to be fair in my assessment of balance/whatnot, so didn't do that here :) (and yes you are correct on my final scenario, hope no one sees this far for minor spoilers haha.) -Ashton
Yeah, it's pretty confusing because the rulebook says that "ALL sections must be controlled by a player", but then later says that for your specific away team, you can pick 2 sections if playing solo. -Ashton
At 5:00, you call the Yellow Outcome a "partial result", this is wrong. They are "Bonus Outcomes", they give you a bonus and then also give you the Green Outcome (see the yellow arrow). On you example, 3 Xenology would give you both the Yellow and Green Outcomes, if you rolled only 1 or 2 Xenology then you'd only get the Green Outcome.
I think the issue with all of these games is the actual length. Everything on Kickstarter has to have "100 hours of gameplay, over 50 scenarios, 500 tokens over 50 stretch goals and MINIS." Meanwhile the actual core game isn't that great. You don't need all the extra stuff when the core game is just meh. It's flashy and looks good on the table but then the reality kicks in after a dozen hours that the core gameplay loop is shallow and doesn't change much over time. We justify our purchase and say it's the best thing ever. And who wouldn't after spending over $300. It's like being in a bad relationship but you stick with it because they are smoking hot and you just spent too much on the outfit they are currently wearing. ISS probably would be perfect as a 10hr campaign with branching paths for replayability. *Rant over* Now excuse me while I go play Middara and wait impatiently for two more acts with hundreds of hours of gameplay I will never finish.
Don't do descent lotd, you are going to suffer doing nothing but move then attack twice. If you really want to review it, i can sell you my copy for really cheap along with all the acrylic dials and other promo stuff
I mean, that's pretty much the distillation of a dungeon crawler. But to say that's all that game is, is pretty disingenuous. The app adds a lot. There is plenty of narrative, and plenty to do in combat besides simply move and attack. The complaints I see and hear about this game seem to come mainly from people who play it poorly, or not at all.
Great review, but long winded lots of repeating. And if a game can make you go so excited you play the shit out of it for one and a half weeks, unless it totally shits the landing, I feel a 7 out of 10 seems low.
Game looks boring AF. Seems like 90% of the game is moving cards around like back in the 90s with marvel cards, then rolling dice every now and then to see if you put this or that card down.
![[FULL] RETROSPECTIVE : Final Fantasy Tactics](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/RUBmYqs1jZ0/mqdefault.jpg)
![[FULL] RETROSPECTIVE : Final Fantasy Tactics](/img/tr.png)
Written review: www.shelfside.co/reviews-2023/issvanguard-review?rq=iss%20vanguard
Little note on the rank-up cons that didn't make the final cut: You can go slowly in the early to mid game, to get a Rank 3 member of each section, then committing them to the Barracks to upgrade your rank 1 guys to rank 2 easily. However, this adds a LOT of grinding to the game, and is probably not very enjoyable to those who just want to play at a normal pace (e.g. enjoy the story).
You can finish this campaign, Ashton. You just need to, like, roll the hard six, and bring in the cat, or something.
This channel has continued to impress me. Love the work you guys put in and the thorough reviews!
Wow wow wow! 🙀 I have never watched/read a review as in-depth, to-the-point, and honest-but-fair as this 🙏 Thank you so much for all the info and setting it up in such a captivating way as this, exactly what I was looking for... How am I discovering this channel just now 😅
+1
For me, it looks like a big part of your "nitpicks" are due to simple burnout from dice chucking. 17 sessions in less than a month? It's insane for such a game. I'm fairly sure that if you didn't rush through it and just spaced your plays at once per week (but probably a longer session, at 3-4 hours), then you wouldn't have burned out from dice chucking. These things can creep up on you even in the games you love. Campaign games can do that for you.
People can frequently play games tens of times in the course of a month. The gme not being fun after numerous plays indicates the game is flawed. It should be as much fun on the final play as it is on the first, even if you're playing one session every day.
@@RvLeshrac Not really, I know I'd get tired if I tries to play Hansa Teutonica or Dune Imperium tens of times in a month.
Disagree. Diminishing returns exist.
Peope who frequently play the same game TENS of times in a month are a minority very minor, not the majority. @@RvLeshrac
My first view on your channel and it was fantastic, thank you. I appreciate the longer format because it really gives the detailed info on what you did/didn't like allowing me to apply it to my tastes and interests.
Cheers! Got a Frosthaven one coming for more campaign stuff :D -Ashton
Happy New Year Daniel and Ashton! I am so happy to have watched your channel grow over time. I can't wait to see how you develop in 2023.
Shelf side reviews are the best boardgame reviews all time!!!!
Love this channel and its reviews, details in explanations, creativity and overall game board knowledge. It is one of my favorite channels. So glad I found it. I have bought a lot of board games because of this channel and hope in the next year perhaps to buy Gloomhaven, Oathsworn and or War of the Rings too.
As someone that just started a campaign with 3 friends I think playing as a group has advantages to solo play. We just finished the first couple missions, but during the ship management phase half of us were able to take short breaks while the other half managed the ship. It was alot easier to remember rules with 4 heads instead of one, so less time looking through rule books. I think we did 1 actual rule lookup through both missions. I can definitely see the game losing a bit of shine if you're just having to do all the work on your own though and it would lose a couple points for me too. If you split the load the game feels closer to the right level of fun mini strategy/resource management and administrative work.
I totally resonated with you when you talked about how the game makes you feel the weight and consequences of your decisions. Especially when it comes to the lives of the crew 😂. Excellent review! That was fun to watch 🙌
Yeah I mostly agree with you from a solo player perspective, this game shines with more people and played gradually and in sessions with gaps between them, because we were so hyped for every game session at the beginning that at one point we dedicated a full day to try to progress it a bit faster, as we are a group of people who turns every stone in RPG before moving on, and we were unpleasantly surprised how fast you burn yourself out by just mostly rolling dice, specially on some of the later missions that are just plain hard RNG checks, at this point we are taking one to two weeks breaks between session so we have more excitement playing each session, altho our score in the group is still best narrative game out there and it is game of the year for 3 out of 6 people in our group this year :)
Can you describe a little bit how you play this in a group? Does each player choose a sector to represent? I really want to play this with my group but not sure exactly how the best way to do it. Thanks!
@@HandOvDoom2112 Exactly that, each player chooses there section and we mostly stick to these sections, we tried to play only when there is all 4 core players, but sometimes some one does not make to the game night than there might be some one else substituting him, pretty much we are 6 all of know what is going on, but yeah mostly we play 4 or 3, once we played 2 and each of us took 2 sections. But a lot of things to discuss in this game regarding story, if your group loves Sci-Fi like mine does, this wont be a miss just soley on setting and narrative/story
@@cardiner-lv, thanks! Sounds great.
Great review! I am eagerly awaiting my kickstarter copy, and your review makes me want the game even more, despite the nitpicks. At the end, you will get bored by all games after playing them enough, and the fact that you actually got these nice memories of the game tells me that the story is good.
Great review! You mentioned progression and successes are limited in solo play but I don't think solo play is limited to only taking 2 sections on planetary explorations. I've played solo and controlled all 4 sections, though it definitely adds a lot of card and dice management to track and it's a huge table hog. I found the sweet spot is 2 player with each player controlling 2 sections.
yep, controlling 4 sections is totally possible even with less than 4 players, as I allude to in the recommender score. Buuuut, it is pretty unwieldly to manage multiple decks, and isn't really suggested by the game (except for certain scenarios later in the game.) -Ashton
@@Shelfside 4'x1.5' of table space just for four characters, even more with the mats!
40 hours of enjoyment is actually not bad! Still AR continues to struggle with providing exhilarating experiences consistently. They really need to consider how they can continue to introduce new elements throughout the game. Etherfields had the same issue, Tainted Grail too.
I strongly agree, all three games you just mentioned falls some what flat or have major issues later on in the campaign, while start is very very strong and pull you in hard, ether they need flat it out all around with better and interesting mechanics or make more exciting things closer to the end of the campaign, because currently the very strong start created an illusion that all of it going to be that way and it usually is not, by end of Tainted Grails we were so overpowered that we just skipped combat completely and mostly focused on story, Etherfields were actually quite good in terms of dreams all through out, but deck building aspect fell really flat after a while and none of out characters felt like in the beginning there was very little distinction because decks were completely changed, ISS Vanguard, story got waker at the end and the dice chuking just became boring and tedious to a point we sometimes just home rule again some of the things
@@cardiner-lv Lucky you, that you were OP in Tainted Grail. I never felt like that. :D
Why do you think the game has such high rating if this is true? Im genuinely curious, havent played the game
@@MrLeanath my guess would be because campaign is somewhat long, at least half of the people do not make to the point where the game starts to show it's weaknesses, so in there mind it is high rating
@@MrLeanath Because when a lot of people pay $500+ for a game, they tend to rate it substantially higher as a way to justify to themselves the money they spent.
Fantastic overview! One of the best I have seen, if not the best :)
this game looks insanely thematic above all. great review as always!
Respectable review, I am playing solo & playing 4 handed. I feel like your overall impression of the game/rating would be higher if you played with more people/sectors instead of just two. On the ISS FB Group pretty much anyone playing solo plays 4 handed (including myself). (Since the game says they highly recommend to do that on harder planets) and you just benifit so much more with having all the sectors on the planet. The personal files expansion would have definitely helped you out playing two handed since when you have a crew member become veteran they get an extra covert ability. My most agreeable con has to be the rank up cards, sometimes they just really damn sucks! I was kind of surprised you landed on a 7/10, the review sounds like an 8 for sure!
5 stars to shelfside for actually reviewing this game unlike most other big board game YT channels
Yep, definitely 4 sections is way the way to go, solo or not, but I realized that FARR too late in the campaign, and just said, screw it, let's see what happens. hahaha. Also controlling 4 hands/decks of cards is too much for me.
The game just unfortunately doesn't quite stick the landing, so I can't call it great, but it will be great for many groups out there -Ashton
Awesome video. Thank you for the detailed review and great production quality.
Great review. Nice touch with the music from “EVE” - it’s fitting with the theme.
A game that includes a hidden QR code to Rick Roll people?
10/10.
Yeah man, those hot girls and all the dice rolling they ask of you! Also, I think I need to get one of those Patagonia jackets even though they aren't exactly inexpensive...
But really neat review there! I sort of balked at watching for 75 minutes because in the end what was said could technically have been said in about half of the time. But I just enjoy the style of you guys so much that time flies by every single time. Well done!
And now still waiting for ISS Vanguard to finally get here at some point because I didn't spring for two wave shipping at the time, ugh.
cheers man! The dice rolling! Patagonia jacket has been worth it. Excited to keep improving our videos -Ashton
Awesome review, you guys have become one of my favourite channels to watch! Between ISS Vanguard and Tainted Grail, which do you prefer/recommend?
cheers man! Personally I like Tainted Grail story FARRR more, but ISS Vanguard gives a more consistent experience of exploring AND far better feeling of dealing with threats (I really got tired of TG's combat/diplomacy system).
So they're really just very different campaign games. the newer TG seems to fixed the grinding aspects and wonky open world elements, so if you're leaning towards more solo play, I would say look into that first. Cheers! -Ashton
Thx for the review. Level sets my expectations. Will be waiting to start playing until wave 2 to see if there is an update pack. (I have ATO to keep me busy). Also expect I will apply a few house rules to help streamline any grind.
I would be very curious to have an update on how you feel about the game once you played it with more players.
I started playing it solo, did 3 missions to get the hang of the game and then, we started playing as a group of 4. I can say with certainty that's its much more enjoyable for me to share this game with others. While paying solo, I was only player 2 sectors because it was already quite enough to keep track of everything. It's true tho that the game seems to be designed around bringing 4 crew members in each exploration phase, but I would still recommend against it for solo players.
Thanks for the detailed video
Your review is pretty much spot on and for me it has nothing to do with burnout. This is the only game where I actually tracked the boat crossing the Pacific Ocean and was so anxious to finally get it. Jumped right in and played it heavily (not as heavy as you did).
For me, once I was approximately 80% or so done, I had finished all upgrades and research projects. I really enjoyed the ship book and now the ship book portion was an empty part of the gameplay and exploration of the planets became tedious and boring for me. At the end, I just punched in entries to see how the story wrapped up.
I did enjoy the game overall but rethinking playing these campaign games as a whole (I play solo mostly). I hope AR makes some gameplay tweaks and ensure that the ship book is an experience that last throughout the entire campaign.
Heyo! Agree, the campaign elements of it that weren't story related got pretty tedious to me, but then again, I'm not much of a campaign gamer so I might've felt the burnout much more prominently :)
Do hope some tweaks are made too! -Ashton
One very minor thing I really appreciated (and I don't think you mentioned it) are the dedicated tokens showing which character turn it is and how many actions they got left. I feel like playing solo with four characters wouldn't be nearly as pleasant without them. With those tokens it is very easy to keep track of where you are during a round, even after having searched for something in the rule book or getting distracted by something else. Just clever they added them, even though it wasn't necessary.
Great review btw way and I totally agree with your pros. (Will have to watch the cons another time though.)
Oh yep, I didn't mention that. It is definitely a nice element for bookkeeping that I didn't personally use, but could be very useful for probably most groups! -Ashton
I think the gameplay loop is too strict for a 40h+ adventure game for my taste. It either needs more emergent gameplay or a more adaptive gameplay loop like sleeping gods has (where you suddenly fall into an adventure in a cave for 2 hours just guided by the story book without returning to the ship and without doing the day to day main gameplay loop. It happens all the time in sleeping gods, that the main loop is interrupted by the storybook and that is a good thing in my opinion. This way the resource management of the main loop stays fresh and you can fall at any time into an adventures where anything can happen trough a story book. Those adventures are not formed by strict gameloop rules but by a script. They are very scripted so to speak, but they are handcrafted and well designed, which might even be more entertaining than emergent gameplay)
But it has so many great ideas and I can totally imagine playing a few missions. But I think I already know that after a few missions I would like to experience different gameplay, especially if you can play a lot of different games in 40+ hours.
Great Review Ashton!
Your vid's are so awesome to watch! May The 4th Be With You!
I'm an all-in backer, and I'm going to tell you that you're a hell of a lot easier on this game than I could ever be. Don't listen to any of the sycophants who refuse to acknowledge all of the issues with the game because they feel like they have to justify the hundreds of dollars they paid into the game.
cheers! I definitely didn't list every single con (and didn't even technically finish the game haha), and I almost had it at an 8/10 recommender at some point just because when this game fires it does well! Would like to hear some more cons (spoiler free of course) if you have some more to share -Ashton
@@Shelfside My cons are spoiler-filled, you'll know the thread on BGG when you see it. Suffice to say, there's nothing like rolling for random death on your entire crew without any mitigation.
is that eve online's music im hearing? ~11:30
I'd be curious to see how you guys compare this to a game like Unsettled. I know it's single scenario and not a campaign, so they're not exactly analogous, but the differences might highlight the strengths and weaknesses of each.
Got this far!!! Just started Jaws of the Lion with my girls. Then Oathsworn coming up - and thinking of backing this new one….
Hearing about that 'ones in, you're locked in'.. I think really sucks. I thought it was mostly a log player, with optional 'continuation'.... (so, it didn't really care where you were...'enter log entry 341' and it could pick up from there orso...
Another reason to hate on apps in boardgames I guess... At least Middara has download options for the narrative .. and doesn't really have an app otherwise.
Because those apps hardly ever survive 3-5 years anyway and then you're stuck with you 300-800 euro kickstarter game...and STILL have to read it all yourself..
Wow,i’ve never realize how big of a deal was the fact i played with all 4 sections.I had a scenario that killed 4 rank 3 crewmemebers but i had 4 other rank 3 crew and a lot of rank 2
The rank unlock system seems like it could be fixed the way a lot of PC games do which is that once you get past a certain point, new recruits come with free XP/levels
It feels like something you could probably house rule to reduce the grind.
@@arthurdent9281 Sure, but AR is known for players being forced to use house rules, at this point. Hell, Etherfields has people cutting the board apart because it was poorly designed -- AND CALLED OUT IN PLAYTESTING AS BEING POORLY DESIGNED.
They charge far too much for games, and have far too much plastic, for them to be only partially-baked.
Great review. Not sure how far I am through the campaign, just met my first "nice" planet. I'd agree with most of the points raised - I saw Vanguard described as a participatory story which I think describes the campaign accurately. And I think it would be brilliant if you could drop in and play a planet exploration as a solo session.
The operations booklet should cover this 'drop in and go' feel, yet I haven't experienced it outside of the campaign, so not exactly sure how it fares. Cheers! -Ashton
Awesome. Thank you for this video.
I absolutely agree with you that I much prefer a shorter but more impactful campaign. On top of the many different games to play, this having different choices for crew is a lot already. How many times will you play the entire campaign.
I have a good idea for a show. What games have you played that have the least amount of problems? Which ones played smoothly right out of the box. What are the Shelfside Certified games?
Great idea!
This eve online music slaps!
I like your idea of a house rule if someone dies, you get to promote some to that rank. Similar to how the military would handle it.
maybe not a 1-1 of something getting promoted right away for balance sake, like maybe you have to pay something to promote it? But yeah something around that lens :) -Ashton
On the lander mods the page before with the instructions says you if you have more mods than slots you pick which ones to keep and the excess are removed from the game.
Came here to say this
@@xenothonstelnicki597 ohhh okay! This quite helped. Cheers! -Ashton
We need a Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy Review
Do you think some issues could be fixed or made more exasperating with all of the wave 2 content coming in?
Yes. Shelffside ISS. Thanks.
That hidden Rick Roll is peak game design
Your cons are spot on except on one point.
What grind? Our game session we couldn't find a way to 'grind'. See below why.
I'd add two more aspects you've missed.
Backtracking, and sitting in a single system affects morale which impacts the ship phase in bad ways. The game pushes you to move forward, and punished you for not doing so regardless of the reason. There's not a heap of ways to raise morale.
The game has a an intended direction, which is vague. If you go to planet you aren't supposed to be at, you've put your crew in danger, and are then forced to move on, or go back as not all star systems can be reached from any other star system.
We got bored of dice rolling. Too many negatives that suck whatever fun was provided as a concept.
Absolutely superb video. Best I’ve seen on the game. AW should have hired you to do the official how to play video. Only recently started but do agree with the cons and nit-picks I’ve encountered this far. Awesome work!
thank you! Was an effort making this, your feedback is really appreciated :D -Ashton
Welcome to the X-Com side when people start dying! R.I.P. Riku.
The dice look nifty, but there are certain people who will ALWAYS AND EVER make the worst possible, unlikely rolls on a regular basis. And I am one of them.
Bro the EvE soundtrack Black Legion. Forever
Are the stretch goals worth it!? I got the retail game but wonder if I should get the extra stuff. Thanks
Oh man, I can't really saw too much because we weren't sent it. But the base game has a TON of content and will give tons and tons of hours from start to finish -Ashton
That is what I was worried about. There should be a rotating system to not take the same characters and having more leveled up people to take.
Awesome review. Looking to grab the game for a while now. But looks so damn complicated 😅
Those damn melodramatic facial expressions
Review Northgard: Uncharted Lands 😁 it's a 4x4 deck-building game but can be played in 1-2 hours. You don't need to know the online game because we don't and it's a lot of fun. Would like to know your thoughts on it. Our group consisting of the men in our family haven't had experience in deck-building games so we had a hard time learning the rules but maybe it will be different for you.
Thanks
Can’t tell you how many times I heard “shit” instead of “ship”. 😂😂😂
Is that Cuba Libre back there? 👀
I think it’s a 8.5 .. but I’m not finished yet.. great production quality. Love the upgraded players mats.. Hate the upgraded dice. Miniatures are not needed. Tainted grail had a great story and miniatures but I hated the rest of the game. ISS Vanguard is way better than tainted grail.
Ive had this for ages, brought it for solo gaming as im a full time carer i thought itll be great to leave setup, i havent even played it, ive no idea where to start lol and after seeing this it looks impossible for solo so maybe time to sell it on.
I wouldn't say it's impossible for solo since I've heard of others who have also done the same, but definitely think if yuo want to get deep in the campaign, control multiple characters :D -Ashton
Still undecided on personal files.
I saw this while it was in the prerelease phase but it just didn't grip me. I don't think it'd hit my table with my playgroup tbh
It must be cold in your room. :)
Love your content.
Please consider oathsworn!
Just ordered ISS Vanguard.... and now I know to avoid Frosthaven as I like exploration more than fighting 😉
This is not a dungeon crawler where you will take your “personal” character to level up and retire. All the crew are expendable resources for a greater mission…
Thank you for a COMPLETE review. Everyone else is giving this game almost perfect ratings. Normally I stay away from these epic games where everything is 80% finished and degrades at the end. I keep thinking this should have been a computer game.
Interesting another review where it gets separate scores based on what parts you play. 🤔
How do you have enough time to learn, let alone play, these games? Lol it takes me so long to learn them.
For the Lander Mod page - I thought it was intentional that we were supposed to remove the cards that don't fit on the page
I'm 13 games in and have had a ton of fun with it so far. I'm running solo with two characters only using the app which I think is absolutely the hardest way to play. With that in mind, I accept fudging a little on so far two missions so that I don't need to repeat a mission entire. Losses I accept (memorial wall is full) - but I don't accept repetitive play since the fun is getting to the next log file. I do love the dice play - but...sometimes I'm just a turn or two short of success and I take the fail forward approach.
I generally agree with the critiques here - though as a whole I'm on board with them despite that. Like I'm fine with the mostly linear story and accept the trade of few characters to manage and using the app despite the difficulty (since I'm just going to keep moving along).
I also feel that your enjoyment likely took a hit for one major reason - you kept playing and playing to get a review out. My cadence so far has been to bring it out for 3 to 5 games at a time then put it away. I feel if trying to burn through the game of course the dice rolling will feel too samey and lose its appeal. So far, I still enjoy it at about the same point.
I guess you ended with the Gravitational Threat mission which was my last game so far - and one I fudged because I was about two turns short of real success.
Cheers man, yeah the lander mod page turned out to be intentional- I still think its a bit confusing though nonetheless, and a weird restriction that doesn't really help gameplay.
Yep, I do agree that playing so many games to get a review out does damper my enjoyment a tad, but man the scenarios this game had will stay with me for a very long time- I think the 3rd playthrough I was pretty floored on how they did the 'leaving the planet'.
Fudging results would have helped me for sure, but I wanted to be fair in my assessment of balance/whatnot, so didn't do that here :)
(and yes you are correct on my final scenario, hope no one sees this far for minor spoilers haha.) -Ashton
Thought you were always supposed to use all sections?
Nope, the rulebook says you need to play at least two sections.
Yeah, it's pretty confusing because the rulebook says that "ALL sections must be controlled by a player", but then later says that for your specific away team, you can pick 2 sections if playing solo. -Ashton
i just wished this game had some sort of personal semicoop obejctives.
At 5:00, you call the Yellow Outcome a "partial result", this is wrong. They are "Bonus Outcomes", they give you a bonus and then also give you the Green Outcome (see the yellow arrow). On you example, 3 Xenology would give you both the Yellow and Green Outcomes, if you rolled only 1 or 2 Xenology then you'd only get the Green Outcome.
aah, well said. thanks for this clarification! -Ashton
I think the issue with all of these games is the actual length. Everything on Kickstarter has to have "100 hours of gameplay, over 50 scenarios, 500 tokens over 50 stretch goals and MINIS." Meanwhile the actual core game isn't that great. You don't need all the extra stuff when the core game is just meh. It's flashy and looks good on the table but then the reality kicks in after a dozen hours that the core gameplay loop is shallow and doesn't change much over time. We justify our purchase and say it's the best thing ever. And who wouldn't after spending over $300. It's like being in a bad relationship but you stick with it because they are smoking hot and you just spent too much on the outfit they are currently wearing. ISS probably would be perfect as a 10hr campaign with branching paths for replayability. *Rant over* Now excuse me while I go play Middara and wait impatiently for two more acts with hundreds of hours of gameplay I will never finish.
Great, fomo relief.
38:45 Pooooooo
I wanted to love this but it just doesn't work as a multiplayer game. We played at 4 and it was a miserable experience.
Your spoilers time stamps are not accurate. FYI.
Thanks for the heads up, I'll fix them now -ashton
way too costly, i would just buy frosthaven instead
Don't do descent lotd, you are going to suffer doing nothing but move then attack twice. If you really want to review it, i can sell you my copy for really cheap along with all the acrylic dials and other promo stuff
I mean, that's pretty much the distillation of a dungeon crawler. But to say that's all that game is, is pretty disingenuous. The app adds a lot. There is plenty of narrative, and plenty to do in combat besides simply move and attack. The complaints I see and hear about this game seem to come mainly from people who play it poorly, or not at all.
Great review, but long winded lots of repeating. And if a game can make you go so excited you play the shit out of it for one and a half weeks, unless it totally shits the landing, I feel a 7 out of 10 seems low.
Game looks boring AF. Seems like 90% of the game is moving cards around like back in the 90s with marvel cards, then rolling dice every now and then to see if you put this or that card down.
In this fast consumer society, do you stop and think that maybe a review longer then one hour is way to long?
There are plenty of short ones around, this is why I really like what shelfside is doing.
maybe the real problem is the fast consumer society not the review
Thank you for your service at reviewing this game. 🫡
Review Ankh Morpork, or if you’re normies, get Nanky Nanking