Frosthaven: Did The World’s Biggest Game Just Get Bigger?
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Monikers: Serious Nonsense:
0:00 Gosh Frosthaven is big, but then so is this video
0:23 Disclaimers (no major spoilers, but b-roll will show some early-game things)
1:51 Gloomhaven Was Great
2:43 Gameplay
5:52 Organisers
6:23 What’s in the box?!
8:13 Helper Apps
11:13 Backwards Compatible
11:30 Is Frosthaven good?
12:19 The Manual
14:10 Sequels are complicated
17:39 Pudding — What’s new in Frosthaven?
25:13 Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion Review
27:55 Frosthaven Review
39:58 The “Insert” Insert
45:12 Frosthaven Conclusions – Is this for you?
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I had a great app that worked with network and it got shutdown as “cellophane”games had their own in the works. That app was a must. We found it annoying losing access and have not played it since. Can’t bring myself to spend money on an app that might get deleted after a year. To rub salt in the wound their official app apparently isn’t as good.😂 For that reason GH isn’t finished for us so we won’t get FH.
12:50 – what I did with my group of friend when we play gloomhaven back then was letting them join on the first scenario and I explained the rules bit by bit as the game goes, depending on what situation we're encountered with. True it does cost us with 3 hours of failed scenario run, but at least we're having fun in the end!
Partner and I are currently really enjoying jaws of lion. We are thinking of getting frosthaven or gloomhaven as Christmas gift for ourselves. Any advice which one we should go for?
this review is genuinely laugh out loud funny. great job guys
Insert insert is absolutely brilliant. Totally focussed.
Watch this video at 2x speed tho
Oh man, the app talk… :/
Why is this guy so twitchy? Like he talks about secret spy stuff instead a game.. Dude its oke don't tremmor like someone is out to get you..
Thank you for this video and your perspective. I disagree with a handful of your opinions. I think that I would enjoy that town-building mechanic; it was a part of Kingmaker I really enjoyed. My groups also take care to follow rules as presented while still having fun; there are so many games out there that if we do not like the rules we can play something different.
My evaluation of gloomhaven is only 6~6.5 points.
We are playing a 4-player game. After the 25th scenario of the main storyline, many characters have been unlocked. The puzzles in the subsequent scenario are so similar and repetitive, I'd have a hard time calling a constantly repeating puzzle a puzzle.
The tacit understanding between the new characters and teammates in the game can be familiarized through one or two battles.
As for the character upgrade cards, the first LV 4~5 is a little fresh, but the later upgrade cards are just powerful versions of the previous ones, and they don't provide many new ways of fighting. So the middle or late stage of the main story scenario of the game is not very interesting, because the game is too focus characters growth about the character and card mechanism, but ignores the design of the scenario. When you see through the fun of the character, it is the end of the game, unless you really like it Card mechanism, but if you are a dungeon crawler who likes long campaigns, please consider carefully, because the fun of its characters growth cannot support the completion of the entire campaign.
It's not a bad game, but it's not what the public would call a great game either. In the same type of game, I would prefer Middara, or even Oathsowrn with better card mechanism.
15:11 "Gunplay?" 😮
wait.. you didn't even finish Gloomhaven *once*?!
I don't agree with Matt
agree with the elements, it feels too fiddly and irrelevant most of the time.
W
I played a few sessions of Gloomhaven with friends. As someone without a TON of time to give to this game, I wish it had a mode that allowed you to jump into "cool scenario X," rather than demanding that players do the hard work of playing through all the preparatory scenarios to level up. In D&D you can decide to create a crew of level 9 characters to take on a potted scenario. But that's not an option in Gloomhaven.
"Who's been feeding you?" Man, I lol'd
This was hilarious and great. Sounds like Jaws of the Lion is the best option for my group.
My god he didn’t stop talking at the end………
seems dangerous in todays times to tell people what they want
I have JotL. I want to like it, the admin unfortunately makes it like a filing cabinet simulator. Then I move a character. I tried to use an app and decided that doing a data entry job paid better. The problem with Frosthaven, is that it's still GH. All the issues brought up have been there all along. Choice between this and nothing, I take this for the minis. Choice between this and Talisman or Heroquest, Talisman first then Heroquest.
I completely agree with Tom 💯
I used to play Battle Chess!
Great gsme but i dont have the right group of players to play it. This is a lifestyle but unfortunately I dont have the lifestyle to enjoy it. Hopefully the stars will align and I will get this to the table agsin one day.
Ah yes, the game that is completely irrelevant now. They've rebuilt Gloomhaven. Just wait for the next rebuilt Frosthaven.
Disappointed the game company pulled such a move.
Gloomhaven wasn't all that great. So many problems. That card system you think is great fails in it's design to work well consistently.
If you need to cheat in a game, the game obviously has a problem that wasn't ironed out during testing. Perhaps the underlying problem is baked into the core aspects because the one who made it didn't know how to do it better, or worse, refused to make it better. Has anyone taken the time to really look at all of the cards for all of the characters and come to conclusion they are certainly not balanced (every character should be able to beat all scenarios balance-wise)? How about the fact that the upgrade paths were non-options (there is a clear best build path)?
It offers an alternative dungeon crawl game, not one I would recommend to be fair.
edit: 24:00 Sorry a co-op game shouldn't pit players against one another, let alone be AHoles to one another.
edt: maybe I should have just got Frosthaven. Sounds like more what I was looking for. Maybe.
Ah yes. An app is certainly a must, in my opinion, playing these games. Best take away from this video. Reduces clutter, and expedites play.
Great review, but I am still really looking forward to Frosthaven.
What a brilliant review. Thank you!
Really interesting and insightful. Your thoughts on sequels was particularly good, it made me think about stuff, it's nice!
At first I misread the title as “Foothaven” and immediately thought “Oh no, not you too…”
It's like board-game Edward Norton reviewing Frosthaven! First rule of Frosthaven we don't talk about Frosthaven ❤
The
£250 for a board game that you need to spend £8 on a app… Nope!
Oh shit. When you put learning gloomhaven into those terms it hits different…. I could've been a Doctor
The part when Tom talks about Jaws of the Lion spoke directly to my heart. For a while Jaws was underrated because it does not have all the OG content, but it is a great game! It is a Gloomhaven that can fit in a normal person's life, and it is a great gateway for the bigger world of Gloomhaven. I was happy to buy it and I finally found a party that loves it, and now I'm getting the 2nd edition of Gloomhaven and I'm so excited.
I think Gloomhaven is the most overrated board game of all time. Having said that, it's really ok…as in average…as in FAR from the greatest board game or dungeon smasher ever, it can be atrocious in fact. I've played much worse too, though.
Good review, I have not heard good things about Frosthaven, even from Gloomhaven fans. I think this perspective is a bit too positive.
I think it says a lot about my perception on the size of this game that my reaction to the "at the bottom of the box, you'll find a second copy of Frosthaven" was simply a "Huh, ok then." Didn't hit me till a few min later.
I've never played Gloomhaven, nor has any of the three other people I am currently playing Frosthaven with.
The character descriptions tell you how complicated each character is to play. A real Matt move right there.
what in the 11/10 intro was that hahahah, loved it!
200% agree on with the points on Jaws of the Lion. I wish Gloomhaven and Frosthaven were released as 3 smaller format games each without all the extras.
So glad I cancelled on backing this monstrosity.
I agree with everything you say, (and laughed a lot). I am fortunate enough to be in a dedicated party that finished Gloomhaven in about 18 months and then went directly onto Frosthaven. Wow, what a difficult and grinding first few months it has been. None of the easy wins in terms of scenarios or loot/items, having your town attacked and burnt down after the end of a gruelling quest is pretty sapping. However we are now about 10 months in and we're really beginning to feel utterly immersed in this all encompassing experience. I feel quite fortunate to be in that position.
Why bother to play board games when SU&SD has al the ethos pathos logos and goofy-os one desires
The biggest question however, is it ELEGANT?
I loved the distinction between a focus on writing vs. a focus on reading. I've been playing the Arkham Horror LCG, and each campaign gets more ambitious and far more wordy. Having more paragraphs to read through makes me appreciate the value of brevity board games. Too much text makes me want to fight the structure instead of playing within it.
Wow "The Despot of the Kallax" is such a wonderfully profound title, and very appropriate. Well done gentlemen
Holy shit battle chess. A blast from my childhood
I hated gloomhaven – ended up selling it for less than half of what I bought it for. I will not be buying frosthaven.
This review is so poetic and philosophical. It's more of a review of your feelings of the game than the game itself. Very enjoyable video.
You should make a channel dedicated to philosophy.
Moving forward I think they should definitely include a QR code to an officially licensed app to keep track of the more fiddly bits and take some of that stuff out of the box.