Dark Souls: Tomb of Giants Review

You Died. This is Dark Souls in a nutshell. In the second edition of the board game which addresses most of the issues from the first, you'll be pushing your luck to clear the dungeon. Each player will select a class and take their unique gear cards. When you're ready to start an encounter, you'll draw 2 and pick one. From the card, you'll set up the room by placing the enemy minis and any tokens. The enemies will attack first in most cases. They all have a corresponding behavior card and will move and attack a player. Players will attempt to evade it by rolling a specific amount of green dice based on their gear as well as any others to try and negate some physical damage. Once all of the enemies have gone, the players will go. Turns are similar. You get to move and attack/interact. Players get 1 free movement point but they can spend stamina to move additional spaces. If they want to attack, they'll select an enemy and an attack type based on their gear. They'll gather all of their dice and roll. Then they'll compare against the enemy defense value and deal any wounds or kill them. After the encounter, gather any rewards and then you decide to return to the bonfire or keep pushing on.

If you go to the bonfire, you'll restore all of your items and you can spend souls to level up or buy new gear cards and equip them. Leveling up lets you use more powerful items. When you level up, you'll punch the square in your player board and flip it to its gold side. Unfortunately, you'll also need to start over from the beginning or if you've found a shortcut. Then rinse and repeat until you make it to the mini-boss or main boss room. Bosses function similarly to normal enemies but they have a deck of randomized attacks and their attack windows are different based on their positions on the board. If you kill the main boss, you win. However, if you die and run out of bonfire uses, that's game over. Death is inevitable in this game. The bonfire acts as your life counter.

The Good: This feels like a true rendition of the video game. It's punishing and can be unfair but it's incredibly rewarding when you get a dice roll that goes in your favor or dodge an attack that can result in your death. With practice, you can probably be mildly okay that the game too. The push your luck mechanic to it is as tense as I've ever seen. Going over means death and restarting. If you've played your cards right, you can breeze back to where you were with better gear. It also should be mentioned that the minis are fantastic. The bosses look as tough as they are to fight.

The Okay: Because it's Dark Souls, it's meant to be tough. This also means there is very little that you can do to mitigate a bad dice roll. There are some events that allow you to re-roll but only if you get lucky enough to pull them. Even that doesn't guarantee better rolls. There is a lot of luck involved here. From my experience, using ranged weapons can make life significantly easier. Being able to stay away from enemies is huge but it also takes some of the fun away from bashing them over the head.

The Not So Good: I have no experience with the first edition of the game so I don't know specifically what was addressed. The general rulebook seemed to be all over the place and it felt there were some pieces missing that I needed to look up or interpret myself. For example, the enemy attacks felt pretty vague as far as how some of them actually worked. There is also a lot of management that needs to be done throughout the whole game. Taking enemy turns and managing health for them and figuring out how to work the bosses makes planning a struggle if you're the one managing everything.

Final Thoughts: I really enjoy the Soulsborne series of video games. It provides an excellent challenge that provides you with a sense of accomplishment after a tough fight. The board game gives a similar feeling but with even less control of the situation. It feels like a true rendition. It's definitely not without its flaws but the learning curve isn't as steep as it feels. At its heart its a dice chucker that hates you. If you're a fan of the video game or are just looking for a challenge, I would absolutely recommend this. However, if this sounds too luck based, I would consider staying away and looking into something like a Gloom/Frosthaven potentially.

Thanks to Steamforged Games for providing me with a review copy.