Thank you for Forgotten Souls!

By X_BryGuy_X, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

I know there are haters of this expansion, but I bought Descent 2nd ed. ONLY because it now has a solo component. I am loving this game! I enjoy the constant tension that is created as I work my way through the quest. I love a challenge, I do not want an easy game. I like randomly choosing my heroes before each run.

I do have a question. Does this quest only work well with the core set heroes?

Edited by X_BryGuy_X

I have played the co-op with a variety of heroes. Have not noticed any issues or problems, however there are certain hero and class abilities that are not suitable for co-op, like those that affect the overlord.

I played it yesterday I think this is good, I played with 2 heroes, I think it will work better with 3 or 4 heroes.

I randomize the heroes and it is just a blast with anyone.

I finally took the time to read the rules and have been giving this a go over the last few days with a number of different heroes. I personally think it is a really tight experience and was pulled off very well by the design team, i cant wait to get more of these add ons and hopefully we get to see a small or big box expansion that fleshes this idea out even further.

Well worth the small purchase price!

Edited by BentoSan

I think Forgotten Souls is extremely well done! I was surprised something that condensed could work that well, but it does. I've played several games now and find it hard to win, though I have managed to win a couple of times...but you really have to "earn it". Haven't noticed any particular heroes that don't work other than the case Madmartigan mentioned where, for example Elder Mok's Heroic Feat lets the heroes view the overlord's hand of cards and discard one. There is no overlord with a hand of cards although I'm thinking you could maybe look at the top card of the Fate deck and discard it (or leave it) instead..

My only disappointment is that you can't order Nature's Ire through the FFG site. And I hope it eventually comes to include more monster groups than just those from the base 2e set.

I hope for a co-op big box. Forgotten Souls is exactly what I hoped Descent to be.

Sounds like there is quite a bit of enthusiasm for Forgotten Souls here. How would you guys compare it to other co-op/solo dungeon crawlers such as the DnD games (castle ravenloft,etc) or mice and mystics?

Thanks for the info!

Not remotely as good. Descent was designed as a 4v1 experience, not a co-op experience. You're much better off playing a game that is designed for co-op from the start. Forgotten souls was intended as a demo, it can be fun the first few times but it gets dull pretty quick without a living, intelligent opponent.

Hi, I think it´s remind a lot of Castle Ravenloft and almost a bit better :) But as they say there are not so many rooms, but it´s worth the money.

I don't know Mice and Mystics, but I played (and own) D&D CR, WoA and LoD.

Forgotten Souls is definitely better, for me, my wife and my nephews. You are exploring, looting while having always different things to do depending on the room in which you are. Of course in this expansions you have only 12 rooms (4 main plus other 8) and this makes the experience a little ripetitive in the long run (and this is why the game deserves a big-box expansion :-)). Of course integrating materials (rooms, monsters, ...) from the other already available expansions would be great, but this doesn't seem to be FFG approach. Let see what they go for.

D&D is really good, but it is more repetitive and in the end it is just a friction experience (events are your enemy and not monsters).

That are my 2 cents :-)

Carlo

I own ledgend of drizzt and it really did not do it for me. There really is just not enough hard choices for me to make to make the game enjoyable for me. On the other hand when you get beaten to a pulp it feels like you just had a run of back lack of monsters as opposed to bad choices you made during the quest, then when you do win it feels the game let you win with a lucky streak of relatively easy monsters to defeat. The game leaves me feeling rather cold.

The descent coop is quite the opposite, leaves me with a number of hard choices to make. There is some luck involved but it doesnt seem insurmountable compared to getting 2 trolls in a row after a hoard of other monsters that proceed to beat you to death. The only issue really is the replay ability being low due to fighting the same 12 rooms again and again. I have been using it to test out heroes/classes i have not yet played to give them some test runs, seems great for this to get a small feel for the class.

Edited by BentoSan

D&D is really good, but it is more repetitive and in the end it is just a friction experience (events are your enemy and not monsters).

The only issue really is the replay ability being low due to fighting the same 12 rooms again and again.

I had many hopes for Legend of Drizzt but I had also to give up on it. And it seems the new "Temple of Elemental Evil" hasn't improved considerably the D&D experience. :(

However, while my group like the game dynamics of Forgotten Souls and Nature's Ire, we are quite bothered by the not so high replayability of the Descent coop games, unfortunately associated with a considerable playing time. I would be glad if, apart from changing the heroes, you have tested some variants to improve the game experience.

Right now we are playing with a faster variant which allow also to alternate Nature's Ire and Forgotten Souls in the same quest ( Sudden Death at the Cursed Mountain )

but I would be glad to know if you are also playing with something similar. :)

D&D is really good, but it is more repetitive and in the end it is just a friction experience (events are your enemy and not monsters).

The only issue really is the replay ability being low due to fighting the same 12 rooms again and again.

I had many hopes for Legend of Drizzt but I had also to give up on it. And it seems the new "Temple of Elemental Evil" hasn't improved considerably the D&D experience. :(

Doesn't feel very fair to me, if you take each game and its contents individually and play through them twenty times then sure, it does get repetitive in the end. But you´re missing the fact that the set of games is a huge sand box.

So yeah, I mix all games together, which means we have LOTs of variety, plenty of cards, monsters, skills etc. And Temple of Elemental Evil just adds to that so it's a blessing to me. I don't need it to revolution the D&D system or whatever, as long as it remains compatible with the other games I´m more than happy.

We love encounter cards, they keep you pressed the whole time so nobody can tank the game. I mean, I hate them with a passion, but just like I hate the Exposure dice in Dead of Winter or the cross on the D2E attack dice. Just awesome mechanism. Encounters force you to plan your moves more thoroughly.

You can mix the games "just like that", but I personally play my own variant of the game (time attack) and we´re having a blast. I´m playing this with one of my Descent group (so these guys have had experience from several games of the same kind) and although you can't directly compare D2E to D&D they´re really enjoying the experience.

I´m still playtesting the variant so none of its contents have been released yet to BGG but I plan on doing that for those interested.

And from what I´ve experienced myself I can safely say that D&D (played the "correct" way, and I don't mean to be pretentious or anything lol) is largely better than the co-op expansion for Descent released so far. Sure, if FFG expand on that then there is no reason why it wouldn't be as good if not better in the future, but for now it looks very shallow to me.