Legends of Sleepy Hollow Review

Legends of Sleepy Hollow from Grater Than Games has 1-4 players controlling characters on the search for Ichabod Crane. The game plays over 10 scenarios but I'll keep this as spoiler free as I can. Each character has a set of unique skills and abilities that players will need to work together in order to complete the rules of the scenarios. For example, in scenario 1, players will need to search for items while holding off the attack of supernatural creatures. This is done by moving to locations on the board and using your environment ability to search. If you're lucky, you won't open more spawn points making it even more difficult to manage the onslaught of creatures. Each character also has special abilities that can allow you to harness their roles even better. The turn structure essentially boils down to move somewhere and do an action. You have action discs that slot into your actions and some can only be done once until you reset. Once all players have gone, the enemies will go as well. This is predetermined in the scenario guide to whether they'll move, attack, spawn, or all three. It's also predetermined as to what will be spawning in. If players can manage to work together to fulfill the conditions of the scenario, they will win but if any one character is incapacitated, they'll lose. Then, they will get rewards for the scenario and continue the story.

The Good: There is a lot to like in this game. I've never been one for huge narrative driven campaign games but I immediately wanted to keep playing this. I love watching how the story evolves and how characters get more powerful as it goes on. The general gameplay is super solid. I played this solo and I never felt overwhelmed or confused. You need to play as all 4 characters so this is a huge plus for you solo gamers out there. Also, the production quality is fantastic. The miniatures are really well made and have just the right amount of creepy to fit the theme. The headless horseman may be one of the cooler minis that I've personally gotten to use. The character mats are all double layered and each level gets its own board.

The Okay: Some rules were a bit vague. Especially in the scenarios. Avoiding spoilers here, a thing happened that changed things but I didn't know if I was supposed to keep doing another thing from the beginning of the thing (I'm proud of that sentence). They're not too vague that the game can't continue but certain bits were left to my own interpretation so it may not have been done the way it was meant to be done.

The Not So Good: I love the components to this game but my biggest complaint here is the health wheels that attach to character bases. It's a really cool idea in theory and it does work, but they're a bit too free spinning and with so much going on, I was having difficulty managing health values. Especially on certain characters who have more health than others so they have a smaller gap between them. There are also a lot of cards that cannot be shuffled and no real system to organize them so I hope you have a lot of baggies.

Final Thoughts: Legends of Sleepy Hollow was a game that I knew nothing about. Sleepy Hollow in general I didn't really know much about other than there was a movie with a frog, I think. I'm way off topic here but I really enjoyed this game. The characters are all really well developed. It didn't feel like I was just playing a faceless person. I haven't finished all of the scenarios yet but I'm definitely going to be wrapping this game up. If you're in the market for a campaign game that doesn't overstay its welcome I think Legends of Sleepy Hollow would be a great buy.

Thanks to Greater Than Games for providing me with a review copy.