Descent: Legends of the Dark lives up to the hype, our full review

Fantasy flight Offspring was one of the first modern board games to attempt to provide an experience similar to a game of Dungeons and Dragons. The second edition of the game, Descent: journeys in the dark, improved the experience by providing more variety in mission objectives to make it feel a bit less like a hack and slash dungeon crawl. But it still required one player to do most of the work of challenging others. Now, Descent: Legends of Darkness It has truly delivered on the show’s promise by providing a tabletop experience with the tactical and narrative depth of a pencil-and-paper RPG, while letting a computer run things through.

Set in the fairly generic fantasy world of Terrinoth, the game’s campaign unites six heroes to fight all manner of threats, from ruthless bandits to insane wizards. The required companion app guides players through missions, informing them how to build a 3D map and populate it with treasures, traps, and monsters.

The game is physically imposing, requiring about an hour of work just to fold and assemble all the thin cardboard pieces. You will need a large amount of table space to lay out the maps, which expand as your characters explore new rooms. The app lets the game surprise you, forcing you to navigate mazes or watch rooms shrink over time as they are engulfed by flames. Often times the app will provide tips on how you should navigate a situation or deal with a dangerous enemy, and you need to pay close attention.

Descent: Legends of Darkness contains a comic book-style visual novel that completes the story behind each mission and decision trees for each of the characters, impacting not only the current setting but future encounters as well. These characteristics make Legends of darkness it feels very familiar as a video game, even if I think its designers might have leaned a bit more towards that medium. A little voice acting would have been nice, as there is so much exposure and dialogue that it can be difficult to share if you don’t have your computer synced to a big enough screen for all gamers to see. On the other hand, having players take turns voicing their characters adds to the feeling of being part of a TTRPG.

After the app shows you where to initially place each monster and your party members, players must track their movement on the game board. However, the app will pinpoint who an enemy is attacking and will track random events like special enemy defenses or triggers on a player’s weapon that can deal additional damage or apply debuffs. Most of the challenges, from brandishing a weapon to opening a lock on a chest, are handled by rolling dice, with players entering the results in the app. The result is all the kinetic pleasure of playing a board game without doing so much math. It also better enables secret information, such as the difficulty of a challenge or the types of weapons an enemy is vulnerable to.

All the characters feel very different mechanically and there is a satisfying challenge to find the ideal composition for the party. Most missions require a specific character to come to complete some part of their personal plot, so you will have to learn the nuances of playing with each of them.

That complexity lies mainly in an intelligent fatigue management system. Do something special, like adding extra success to a roll or using an ability like letting an ally move or weakening an enemy, and you’ll add a certain number of fatigue tokens to one of your cards. Some enemies will fatigue you just by hitting you and you could also get fatigued from completing mission objectives, such as pulling people out of a burning building. If it gets too depleted, it will start taking damage.

You can take an action to flip a card and remove all of those tiles, but each card has different abilities on each side. The result is that you have to constantly change tactics, even when it may seem like a winning strategy to keep hitting an enemy with your equipped weapon.

The app really shines between missions, when the group returns to base to rest. The City Display offers a store with an ever-changing inventory of crafting materials, recipes, and equipment, as well as workshops where you can forge your own equipment. Potions, armor, and trinkets are represented by cards that you keep in your play area, and these can provide you with powerful effects when used wisely. Trying to get enough money for everyone to get healing potions before embarking on the next mission really felt like playing D&D.

In the city and during your travels you can also play through narrative events and participate in random encounters that could give you more rewards or help you develop the player characters. While the plot may draw on broad fantasy tropes, the characters are charmingly individual, such as the kind-hearted rogue Chance, who loves to steal from bad people, and the overly optimistic wizard Syrus, who adores his phoenix familiar. . The game is not particularly linear, which gives you access to multiple missions at once so you can choose what you find most exciting or requires the character you are in the mood to play.

While the game allows you to play solo, it’s best to have a full party of four, even if that means one player controls more than one character. Keeping track of multiple actions adds complexity, but the game just doesn’t scale down properly for smaller groups. Large groups meet more enemies who are also individually tougher, but the real limitation to success is often the action economy, as your characters need to gather mission items while facing timers created by respawning monsters or terrains. that collapse. It’s also harder to manage your health and stamina when baddies team up against one or two characters.

I’ve only played four of the campaign missions in my 10 or so hours of play, but I’m eager to get through more. It looks like the app would make adding new content easier as it already provides stats for multiple monster types and environmental effects using the same physical components. Also, this is just the first act in a planned series. As a really good D&D game, I hope this adventure will last for years.

Descent: Legends of Darkness was reviewed on Windows PC using a preliminary copy of the physical game and application provided by Fantasy Flight Games. Vox Media has affiliate associations. These do not influence editorial content, although Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased through affiliate links. You can find Additional information on Polygon’s ethics policy here.

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