Huge huge fan of the video game. Own all the boxes and I honestly loved the board game experience as well. When we play it, we don’t do the semi co-op cuz it kinda ruins the flow. We play to just win outright but are only cut throat in the market phase of the game. Genuinely excited for the new kickstarter tho tbh I need to offload some of my past copies cuz idk if I have room for a whole new set haha. Great review as always, Alex. You da man and the best in the biz as far as I’m concerned 💪🏾

SFG are such a "hit and miss" producer. They make amazing spectacle games. The boards, cards and minis are always high quality. The rules are almost always crap. Games are always myred in uncertain and poorly explained mechanisms. They are also incredibly expensive for very little. Great review as always bud.

Wow! Finally, a review on this game. I remember when I first saw this game, and it's many boxes proudly displayed above the couch in your coffee table shots. I tried thinking how long ago it was and gave up. I also thought about scanning back, but I think I would rather take the time to actually play a game instead.

@BoardGameCo

9 ай бұрын

Yep, I played it when I first got it and then intermittently since then. The upcoming crowdfunding campaign finally pushed me to finish what I needed to review it

I feel the same on the game difficulty, and balance. I was so disappointed with the game, I really wanted to like it. However, over time, and after a few tries in different ways, I found a way to play it and make it work. Play it solo, with the 1-2 players side and setup of the game. Play 2 players, but with the stages setup for 3 to 4. It makes it much more deadly at point and puzzly and a challenge. At 3 player or more... it just does not work.

I have the game with all the expansions but I have never played cooperative mode. The issue of difficulty changes a lot with the expansions, the game is much more difficult, so there is a possibility that in cooperative mode with expansions it will not be as easy. I'll try to play it like this one of these days. Thanks for the review and we'll see what the new game brings.

Played it at Gencon last year. Had a terrible experience I'm still interested because i loved the video game. But I have that play in the back of my mind. People weren't even remotely trying to be stealthy with high degrees of analysis paralysis. But I also didn't know anyone I played with. Not a huge fan of semi cooperative but the full cooperative sounds up my alley as long as it does get harder with the expansion.

@BoardGameCo

9 ай бұрын

Ya, I'm interested, but ideally with it rebalanced

I have the core game with most of the expansion boxes, played them a little bit and enjoyed it but don't really have anybody to play with and do understand the points you've mentioned Are there any suggestions you have, in other words ways to Tinker with the rules a bit to make it work - better at least

In response to player tanking game, I force an agreement from all players in a semi coop: they must keep trying to win even if nearly certain losing. They have to agree at start they will keep playing to win and not play to spoil at end if they think they can't win. Haven't had an issue since.

Hey, I was looking for your review of Meadow, and it looks like you haven't reviewed that. Is that correct? Making sure i'm not missing anything.

@BoardGameCo

9 ай бұрын

Sadly I haven't :(

My group generally likes the Semi-Coop but since we have numerous players that prefer pure Co-op games, we had to home rule the game a bit and make the machines tougher to make it challenging.

@BoardGameCo

9 ай бұрын

Yep, I think this game could work with house rules...just not a hoop I want to jump through right now

Based on your review and recommendations Alex I take it that you don't see Horizon Zero Dawn and Monster Hunter World as being the same types of game? I was hoping for a "Play this not that" but i get where you're coming from. Think i'll pick up MHW when it comes to retail.

@SharkOnBoard

9 ай бұрын

Wait for Iceborne if you are going for MHW, it streamlines and improves a bunch of things compared the first base game set. It does require waiting even longer though...

@paulbarton1119

9 ай бұрын

@@SharkOnBoard Aye, saw Alex's reviews on both. Thinking I will get a base set (either Ancient Forest or Wildspire Wastes) to start and test the concept then if we like it we can see if we're content to wait or get the extras.

@tiredguy2753

9 ай бұрын

@@paulbarton1119that is my plan , mhw looks solid enough and if the game turns out to be great then ill take a look at the iceborne ks

You've been talking about this review for so long XD What do you think made this particular review so difficult and/or time-consuming? (Sorry if you addressed this in the video, I haven't watched it all yet)

@BoardGameCo

9 ай бұрын

Playing through a full campaign session of horizon zero, Dawn is five games, I like to play games multiple times, combined with me wanting to play it full coop, and it just means that it took more time than I wanted to feel that I was giving the game a fair representation.

@riddlesphinxx

9 ай бұрын

It shows how much time and effort you put into this @@BoardGameCo

Sounds like a standard Steamforged game score, some things fun, a lot of things that could have been better. Unfortunate.

@BoardGameCo

9 ай бұрын

Completely agreed that Steamforged has been hit and miss. I love Resident Evil and Elden Ring, really like Monster Hunter World and the rest so far have been more middle or worse.

I loved the video game, but almost exclusively play board games now in my spare time. I would love for this to scratch the itch of jumping back into the HZD world... But it clearly doesn't. I will stick with the video game even though I don't get the time to play hours of it like I used to

Where can I get your dress

@BoardGameCo

8 ай бұрын

Dress? Are you commenting on the right video?

A friend brought me the Thunderjaw expansion because it's a lovely mini and I plan on painting it. Never had any interest in the game itself though as I'd rather play the video game.

@BoardGameCo

9 ай бұрын

The minis are insane

@morgaknightgames

9 ай бұрын

@@BoardGameCo They really are!

Omg, it finally happened! 😂

I own it, and the balancing around semi-co-op definitely affected it. Co-op was too easy, and for most of the machines there wasn't much point in breaking off parts. Meanwhile semi-co-op could only ever work based on general contribution, but even then different hunters do different things. Want a hunter that isn't gonzo for damage, or is tankier? Well, you'll get kills stolen from you all the time.

@BoardGameCo

9 ай бұрын

Yep, I like what it's trying to do but it missed some marks

To be clear, the name of the game series is just "Horizon." The first SUBTITLE for the first game is "Zero Dawn," so "Horizon - Zero Dawn." The second, therefore, is just "Horizon - Forbidden West," and not "Horizon Zero Dawn - Forbidden West." In fact, if you look at the cover for the second video game, you can actually see a "II" in between the word "Horizon" and the "Forbidden West," so technically, it's probably "Horizon II - Forbidden West," although, I'm pretty sure nobody ever says that "two" in there. (btw, I'm just adding the "-" to the names to make clear for this post that it's a subtitle, because nobody writes it that way) Having said that, I'm really looking forward to seeing how the fully co-op in the new "Horizon - Forbidden West" comes out, because there were two reasons I wasn't interested in this board game, even though I absolutely love the video game: 1) because semi-co-op is pretty much always terrible, and 2) the base game only had 1 thing so you were forced to buy a huge all-in for even a small amount of variety. The second may not be changed, so I may still not want the new game, but hopefully the first will at least be figured out.

@BoardGameCo

9 ай бұрын

Thanks for the clarification on the title!

Too bad the gameplay isn’t more like Oathsworn. Would be awesome removing armor and equipment off each ‘creature’.

@BoardGameCo

9 ай бұрын

Oh man, that could be amazing. I'm curious for hzd fw

Surpised they're doing another crowd funder for this game considering all the bad reviews.

@BoardGameCo

9 ай бұрын

They're majorly overhauling it. And never forget these games have a large audience that aren't your standard gamers

As a massive fan of the video games, I thought this board game was absolutely terrible. Cool miniatures, but the gameplay was awful

@BoardGameCo

9 ай бұрын

I liked many parts of it...but the core aspects I want changes to

@VincentBalmont

9 ай бұрын

I love the video games and I thought this was quite good. Captured the hunts quite well. I would have liked a campaign story, but it is a fun game to play with my kids

Omg this game is just flat out bad! Huge overhaul or not I wouldn’t touch it again. They had one shot and they put out this extremely expensive mess. 🤦🏻‍♂️

@BoardGameCo

9 ай бұрын

They are doing a pretty big overhaul

The game modes don’t work, one of its main mechanics you hate, and you don’t recommend it. Still 3/5? It’s ok to rate a game low.

@BoardGameCo

9 ай бұрын

I have played through a full hunt several times and actively enjoy many aspects of this game. My ratings have an actual meaning to each one, a 3 is where this one lands. I understand you might want it to be lower, but I gave my opinion and matched my opinion to the number it lines up, I'm not going to rate games lower than I believe just to make people happy. 5.0 - My absolutely favorite games. You can pry them out of my cold dead hands. 4.5 - Love this game! At the same time missing something that would make it a 5. Could be hard to table, lacking variability, a little light, etc. 4.0 - Really great game, almost always keeping, although has meaningful complaints as to what takes away from the experience. 3.5 - Really enjoyed, don't love it, may lose out to better games but the idea of never playing again is a bit sad. 3.0 - A good game, would play and suggest with the right people, if I never played it again wouldn't lose any sleep. 2.5 - A game I'd play again , but will never suggest it myself 2.0 - A game I don't want to play again 1.5 - A game I can't find any reason to recommend 1.0 - A game that is just bad.