World of Darkest Dungeons and Cool Meeples

Tiny Epic Dungeons review – World of Darkest Dungeons and Cool Meeples

We take on the role of epic heroes trying to defeat the big baddy. Along the way, we’ll beat up goblins, collect new goodies and avoid traps.

Heroes

We have 8 heroes to choose from and each of them is unique in their own way. They differ in their traits, stats, and special abilities. Each hero has his own role and is good at something else. We will be able to play as a wizard who casts magic missiles, a dwarven priestess who heals our heroes, and a rogue who can sneak. So a bit like in Dungeon & Dragons or World of Warcraft.

Exploration

We will start our expedition from the middle of the dungeon and as we continue exploring we will uncover more rooms. We may come across goblins, traps, portals, treasures, and many other interesting rooms. Our dungeons will look different each time and, in my opinion, this is the strongest feature of this title.

Items

The new items we collect will not only increase our attributes, allow us to roll more dice, but will also provide special abilities. We will gain new artifacts by defeating monsters and searching rooms. We can have two weapons, 1 armour and two amulets. New weapons will replace our basic attacks and allow us to attack from close or far away. Unwanted items or those that do not fit us will go to the market. Later we will be able to take them from there. Only we have to search for a special room that gives us this possibility. This is a bit annoying. Especially when we want to collect a set. Because there are sets of items in the game, which, when completed, will provide additional skills and improve our character even more. It is a pity that we cannot exchange items.

Spells

The game also features spells, which, for example, can wreak havoc on enemies, make us invisible or allow us to teleport. There’s plenty to choose from and virtually all of them are useful. Although I generally look for spells that deal area-of-effect damage to quickly eliminate small goblins. Casting spells is very exhausting as it uses up our concentration. You will often run out of it, so don’t expect to cast it so regularly.

Epic battles

When we fight monsters, we choose which weapon to attack with. We check the trait that is assigned to that weapon and roll that many dice. We will always throw a maximum of 3 dice. From these, we will choose one and discard the rest or use their special abilities. A one and a two will modify our attack, a six will heal us. Unused dice can also regenerate our focus.

If our opponent has survived then he rolls a counterattack dice. As a rule, this indicates the damage that we will get. At worst, our torch level will be reduced by one. It’s random, it’s funny, and when we get hit, it makes us sad. Because this game is not as easy as we think.

Darkest Dungeon

The torch track tells us how much time is left in the game. After each turn of our hero, we will decrease this level by 1. When it reaches the skull it means that we have lost. Along the way, our torch will also activate enemies and summon new goblins.

Goblins are those annoying green creatures that will pop up and harass us every now and then. There are several types of them, but each only has 1 life. If a fifth were to appear on the board we automatically lose. It’s better not to pour water on them because we have to control their populations all the time. The more of them on the battlefield, the stronger the green force becomes.

Minions are mini-bosses that we have to defeat to get to the beast’s lair. Each of them has its own life level, reacts differently to certain attacks, and has special abilities. We will face, among others, a Minotaur, a giant spider, and an ogre. Each of them has its own unique meeple, which looks simply phenomenal.

Activating the monsters causes them to rush towards the heroes and activate their abilities. That is, they generally deal damage to us. Surprisingly, we can’t defend against this. This actually makes our armour level only count when attacking a creature. This is quite strange and mildly annoys me that my bear armour can’t do anything. That’s not why I collected the whole set.

Strength in numbers

So how many heroes is it worth going to this instance? In my opinion, it is worth gathering a classic team, i.e. Tank, Healer, and two DPS. When playing with two players, it’s hard to achieve our goal. We have quite a lot of dungeons to explore and the torch has a fairly short stick. Although playing as a full team requires us to do more we can explore more rooms in a short amount of time. We are also able to defeat small bosses quicker and count on more equipment passing through our backpacks. When playing together with my wife, we always choose two heroes each and we will stay with this option.

Boss fight

Once we have collected the grey heart from the minions and entered the boss lair we are able to see who we will be fighting. Because at the start of the game we randomly select our big bad guy. Of course, nothing prevents us from choosing who we want to face ourselves. We’ll fight a huge red dragon that breathes fire, when we see a gorgon we’ll be paralyzed by her cuteness and a beholder will defeat us in the blink of an eye. We have as many as 6 bosses to choose from, who differ in their special abilities and the house they inhabit.

When we go full-on into the big bad’s lair we will take our place on one of the fields. This will provide us with various combat bonuses and sometimes we even get extra damage. I guess the game doesn’t like us?

Fighting the final beast follows the normal rules, but there is a small catch. It’s not enough to throw dice on our main bad guy. Each boss on its life bar has special seals. When we reach them to continue beating our opponent we have to lure them out of the warm cave and into the fields where the minions have appeared. Tiny Epic Dungeons then turns into such an annoying game of tag. Our chances of success, of course, diminish the further away these fields were from the lair. This leaves us with a question. Is it even worth returning to his cramped apartment? Well, in my opinion, no. Because while we are running around so merrily the torch is slowly dying out. We can’t afford to make a mistake and it does not pay to waste our movements to return to his cottage. If we got rid of these damn seals then the gameplay would be better, and not as tedious as it is now.

Warcraft of world

If anyone is looking for awesome RPG figures then in my opinion it is worth buying this game just for that. They are small but have a lot of detail and are of good quality. Graphically it’s a bit Warcrafty, but it gives the game such an epic feel. Reading the instructions was terribly tiring and the sheer volume of symbols made our heads hurt. I’d like to say that everything became clear during gameplay, but it didn’t. We often had to resort to youtube videos, which cleared up our doubts a little.

Solo expedition

Tiny Epic Dungeons also includes a solo mode, in which we will play several characters at once. I already have a dozen solo games behind me and it played really well. It’s currently my favourite game to play solo because it offers me quick game preparation, epic combat, and very high replayability.

Summary

I’ve explored the dungeons, played tag, and collected a ton of junk. It’s time to sum it all up. In such a small box we get a lot of components, meeples, and figures, which are just asking to be painted. Tiny Epic Dungeons are very replayable thanks to the different heroes, bosses, minions, items, and the fact that our dungeon will look different each time. If you get over the symbolism and get used to flying around a dungeon with a dragon held by your paw, you get a really solid dungeon crawler.

I’d recommend this tiny epic dungeon if you’re looking for something quick, and casual but with epic clashes. I love the set collecting, character development, and the fact that I can fight a lot of interesting bosses. Just watch out for those nasty little goblins that play with our torch all the time.

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