Dark Souls: The Board Game - Steamforged Games cooperative Skirmish review

Dark Souls: The Board Game is a 2017 title of David Carl, Alex Hall, Mat Hart e Richard Loxam published in 2017 by Steamforged Games. Of his campaign Kickstarter we already talked to you in this article. For the game, several expansions have already been released as well as a stand alone card game, published in 2018 also by David Carl.

Based on the well-known videogame, Dark Souls is a cooperative fantasy fighting game. It is not possible to call it a dungeon crawler, as the dungeon is missing: doors, stairs and corridors are replaced by large locations, on which a series of circles (called nodes) mask a hexagonal grid. We are facing a tactical skirmish game in which it is necessary to defeat all the enemies of a location before moving on to the next.

Materials

The miniatures of the game are of medium quality: semi-rigid plastic, low level of detail and with thin elements that you will find already folded (but easily fixed with the help of a hairdryer). The style of the models, on the other hand, is interesting: above all the monsters are well characterized and very well represent the grotesque and disturbing creatures that populate the universe of Dark Souls.

Likewise, the bleak style illustrations found on the cards and tokens succeed in recreating the gothic atmosphere of the video game. We have already spent a few words on the tiles of the board: although the places are well represented, we were not convinced by the aspect of the game being played during the match. In fact, only one tile at a time will be populated with no more than 2-3 monsters (plus our heroes): we will always have an empty and monotonous-looking board, we would have liked some scenic elements with which to make it more varied ( and interact with, but we will talk about the mechanics in the next paragraph).

Dark Souls: the Board Game mechanics

Just like in the video game, in Dark Souls: The Board Game it is necessary to "farm" enemies, entering the same locations multiple times and repeatedly facing the same creatures over the course of the game to obtain better equipment, upgrades and statistics until we feel strong enough to face the final boss.

The attempts at our disposal are obviously limited, the rooms are repopulated only by resting at the bonfire and this will happen by our choice (between one encounter and another) or due to the death (even of a single hero).
The combat system does not offer particularly innovative mechanics: the equipment at our disposal can be activated by spending bunting to make attacks of different strengths (rolling dice of different colors and effectiveness) and hoping to get enough successes to be able to hurt the enemy.
A bar represents our life and is reduced both when taking damage (covering it with red cubes) and spending bunting (black cubes). Black cubes can be removed in several ways while wounds are more difficult to recover and tend to penalize us throughout the fight. At the end of each fight, the life bar is restored and we will be immediately ready for the next encounter.

The tactical aspect of the game is unfortunately neglected and lacking in ideas: our position does not affect the effectiveness of the attacks (there are no flanks, attacks from the back, bonuses for raised position), the only relevant elements are the distance of the enemy and some sporadic traps scattered for the map.
At the end of each match we will get some anime to spend on new cards (equipment to replace the basic ones or upgrades for equipment already in our possession) or in increases of stats (useful to meet the requirements of the equipment).

Considerations

The dynamics of farming, common in video games, is certainly unusual for a boardgame but we don't feel like judging it in a completely negative way. From our point of view, repeating the same encounters over and over again with the sole purpose of improving the characters has been a boring experience, but we have come across players who appreciate this setting and enjoy looking for the perfect strategy, fight after. combat, to kill the same enemies while minimizing the risks.
They are available on boardgamegeek a series of "home rules" that deeply modify the game, reducing the need to farm souls to improve the characters. However, we are of the opinion that these rules pay off Dark Souls too similar to the mass of tactical cooperatives available on the market, but having no particular elements of originality in the title, we recommend that you turn elsewhere if you find farming boring and prefer a more classic experience.