I want to be fair to this one because the pieces of it that work are genuinely excellent, pre-painted miniatures, a randomized modular board so no two maps play the same, four characters with real mechanical identity, and a solo mode where the automa acts as a ticking clock rather than a stand in opponent, which I think is a better solution than most solo variants manage. The deckbuilding, gaining a card every time you level up, is elegant precisely because it’s a small slice of a much bigger system rather than the whole game, which for someone like me who usually finds pure deckbuilders tedious was a pleasant surprise.

Where this loses me, and I’ve started and stopped it more than any other box on my shelf, is the sheer rules overhead relative to how restrictive it feels turn to turn. Movement is stingy, the colored mana dice pool that fuels stronger actions is shared and unpredictable, and there’s a real feeling most turns of “here’s why you can’t do the thing you were planning,” which for a fantasy adventure game reads less like tactical tension and more like friction for its own sake. The scoring at the end leans hard into point salad territory too, several disconnected categories that don’t feel thematically tied to the adventure you just had, which sits oddly against how immersive the actual exploration feels in the moment.

At two players specifically it also just runs long, a full session pushing past three hours even once we both knew our characters, and the setup alone, shuffling the tile stacks, laying out the reputation and fame tracks, dealing starting hands, eats a real chunk of an evening before a single move happens. I respect what this game is doing more than I enjoy actually doing it, if that makes sense, it never once talks down to the player, but I’ve walked away frustrated more sessions than I’ve walked away satisfied.

Three stars. Immense respect for the design, genuine hesitation every time it’s suggested for game night.