I've been actively involved in the board game hobby for several years now, and have had the opportunity to play hundreds of games (I've played 75+ new games this year alone). When you play a lot of games, it's fair to expect that they're not all going to be fantastic, and I've had my fair share of gaming disappointments among all the terrific experiences I've had.
For this list I'm going to focus on games I expected to like, either because they seemed to be popular or well-reviewed, or had a theme or mechanic I was intrigued by. Some of these games (probably most) will be games that most people love, so I'd love to hear what I'm missing or why you like it.
Without further ado, let's get started.
After playing through (and loving) the entire Gloomhaven campaign with my wife during COVID-19 induced lockdown, we were excited to continue with another big box, campaign-based, RPG game. When you had in that I personally a huge fan of Lord of the Rings (I sat through an entire extended edition Marathon in January), this seemed like a no-brainer.
Sadly, this is no Gloomhaven, and while the story is OK, the card play and Test system is very drab and unexciting. Halfway through scenario 5, we looked at each other and asked "why are we still playing this?". Neither of us were enjoying it, there were no moments of excitement, levelling up and buying new items/cards was anti-climactic, and the game was not doing its excellent theme justice.
The game is not without its plus points: the production quality in particular is great. We did not enjoy incorporating an app into our board gaming, which could be a personal preference. Although the app is well done, we found too often that we were looking at the phone instead of interacting with each other, having to worry about battery life, and didn't think the upsides of the app did enough to warrant its inclusion.
We have no intention of finishing the campaign, and I'm looking to either sell or offload to my brother. No idea how this has an 8.1 rating on BGG. Next!
To some extent this is probably not that surprising, given my opinion on Jounreys in Middle Earth. Indeed, I'm starting to think I just don't like Fantasy Flight Games in general.
We bought this early during quarantine, again looking for an engaging, cooperative campaign experience. We were left pretty underwhelmed with the small amount of content in the base game, the confusing cards (and extensive rules), and overall procedural-ness of it. I never felt like I actually got to do what I wanted to do, instead being forced to do something else (less exciting) in order to stave off disaster.
I think the mythos is cool, and the sotry was OK, thougha little short for the base game, but didn't overcome the fairly bland gameplay.
This is by no means terrible, but I was expecting more from an 8.2 rated game, ranked 20th overall, and it fell flat for my wife and I. We moved it on as soon as we finished the 3 scenario missions, with no desire to sink further money or time into the expansions.
Not going to lie: I liked this game enough after my first play that I bought it immediately. I remembered the first play being exciting, dynamic, surprising, and most of all...fun! Sadly, that was as good as it got, and each time I brought it out after that it never lived up, often resulting in really anti-climactic, and fairly boring sessions that took the wind out of our sails. After an initial rating of 8, this has slid down to 3 and I've offloaded my copy.
The way I describe it to people now is: "When it's good, it's really good, but more often than not it will fall flat." The variable haunts and game states give it solid replayability, but at the expense of really uneven quality. Some of the haunts line up well and are pretty fun, others end immediately due to circumstances, and the mid-game pause to learn a whole new set of rules really disrupts the flow.
At the end of the day, the game experience is just too variable that I couldn't trust bringing it out and getting it to the table, so it had to go.
Great theme? Check
Bruno Faidutti design? Check
Interesting action mechanism within a co-op? Check
Unfortauntely this was less than the sum of its parts, and while it was OK it didn't really shine on any level. The humour of the theme didn't really come through, the inebriation mechanic was bit punishing, and keeping track of the time spent was fiddly. It all added up to something that just didn't quite hit the mark, and was quickly forgotten. Hard to imagine who I would play this with, and in what context, as it overstayed its welcome.
Admittedly, we played this on Tabletop Simulator, so it didn't get the best chance to impress, but no one in our group has suggested giving it another go.
I had so many misses with co-ops games in 2020 I began to think I no longer like co-op games at all (and there's some truth to that). This was by far the least fun I've ever had with a well-reviewed, high ranking board game It just did not click for me at all, despite its gorgeous art and production. Yes it avoids the common dominant player pitfall of most co-ops by limiting communication, but I just don't know where the fun is supposed to be.
I think the game gets a lot of credit for its novel (and anti-colonial) theme which is fine, but I think that masks a fairly repetitive and overlong game. Learning the game was a chore, and it seemed needlessly complex, given the complexity : fun ratio of some of its mechanics. It was difficult and inaccessible on the first play, which has put me off wanting to give it another go, and my turns all felt so insignificant that I felt like I wasn't doing anything. The reward I was getting on my turns wasn't in line with the effort I had to put in to learn and try to understand the game. I can get better bang for my time-buck elsewhere.
I am also the kind of gamer that can enjoy any game with the right group, which we had for this game, but I couldn't find the fun here. I can't see myself giiving this one another go.
What are some of the games you were most disappointed by and why? What do you think of my list? What do you disagree with? I'd love to hear more.
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