7 Souls Review

I have to admit, I've never played any sort of Lovecraft themed game and I don't really know much about the lore other than Cthulhu is hard to spell.

In 7 Souls, you are attempting to gain followers and collect their souls so that you can ascend to become the ultimate Elder God. Each player starts with an identical deck of cards and during the round, they all select one follower to play on the investigator cards at the top of the board in order to convert their souls. When all three of the followers actions have been resolved, an investigator will attack. Whoever is being attacked must then defend themselves. Once there are 2 empty pools of supplies, the game ends and all players count up their souls taken. Whoever has the most souls wins and becomes the Elder God.

The Good: The artwork in this game is phenomenal. I absolutely loved it. I know nothing of the lore, again, but it has some of the most interesting creatures. There is a really awesome picture on the back of the board. I always like when designers add extra bits to the back of a board. The combat system I also feel was done really nicely. An investigator location is chosen based on the back of the top of the investigator deck and the current investigator at said location attacks based on the lowest/highest initiative of the players follower. That player can then attempt to corrupt the investigator or defend the attack. After that, the player collects rewards and the next round begins. It's a really well done mechanic that adds a bit of unpredictability to who is going to be attacked.

The Okay: There is a lot going on and a lot of symbols. I think that the game could have used a reference guide of some sort for each player. I had to go back to the rulebook many times in order to figure out certain symbol types.

The Not So Good: The overall flow of the game took a lot more getting used to than I'm accustomed to. I really struggled with the rulebook and there is not a lot of videos online that highlight the gameplay. I had some back and forth with Inside Up to help clear up some confusion (they were very helpful. This aspect belongs in the good section). A lot of the manual was in Lovecraft language which may have been because of my own ignorance to the theme that caused my confusion.

Overall: 7/10 scary monsters with hard to spell names

I really did enjoy my time with 7 Souls. Despite my struggles with the manual it was a really interesting game that I was drawn to because of the theme and the art. The gameplay was really solid once everyone got the feel of it. I felt like this was a solid introduction into the Lovecraft universe and I hope to play more games that have this theme.

If you want to check out 7 Souls for yourself, click here.