Game Review: Sword & Sorcery

First Impression

This game has a large box. Unlike the game from my last review (5-Minute Dungeon), the large box is necessary, as the game comes with an incredible amount of material. Before we could start playing, we had to spend 30 minutes preparing the game material. This involved pressing the lovingly designed cards, badges, tokens, markers, and other items out of the cardboard templates. Of course, we had to be cautious to ensure everything stayed intact. Thanks to the excellent artistry, this went smoothly.

Thereafter, we started on the instructions. Even skimming through them took us another half hour. After all, we're role-playing veterans and thought to ourselves: The rules can't be that complicated. That was a fallacy, and not a good idea to skim through the rules. More on that later.

With the game material prepared and the rules seemingly understood, we embarked on the first adventure. The tutorial, so to speak. Luckily, we took some time for this because the first round presented enormous challenges.

The Tutorial

The setup of the first level was like a thousand-piece puzzle – doable 🤪. Once everything was in place, we started with the first turn… That's where our problems began. We didn't understand the monster turn order at all. When each group was activated or not, and why, was unclear, as not all monsters were always required to be activated. Similarly, we didn't know which pieces of equipment we could own or acquire. Or when certain events occur and cards are drawn. The many symbols on the dice look great, but they require a lot of looking up information during combat until we can remember what was happening.

This is precisely where skimming the rules paid off. We spent the first few hours just checking the rules for every little question. Generally, we couldn't find an answer and, frustrated, reread parts of the manual, only to finally figure out for ourselves how best to reconcile the situation with our previous knowledge of the rules. A few turns later, as we flipped through the rules to answer another question, we found answers to the earlier questions.

Thanks to my son's persistence, we didn't give up. We sensed the game's potential and wanted to reach a point where the flow of the game kicked in and the whole thing became enjoyable. Shortly before the end, we almost made it. It was going well, and we were about to complete the tutorial or maybe even fail. Tension was building, and the dice would decide how things would go for us and our heroes. But then it happened again. That was the final boss for me. The question that finally got me going: I had to understand what and how critical hits work with my new bow. Flipping through the pages again, searching once more, and puzzling over whether we would win or lose. I decided to win and put the game away for the day.

The Conclusion

Ultimately, it became clear to us how the game could have been successful from the outset. My son and I quickly agreed that the instructions were a disaster and unsuitably structured for us. A keyword index or a more straightforward tutorial would have been good. Since our first attempt, we haven't taken the game out of the shelf again. Now, as I write this, I regret not having tried it again right away. Shortly after the first rodeo, the rules were resolved. After a while, I'm growing worried that it will end in another disaster. Which is why I'm reluctant to invite friends over for a board game night with “Sword & Sorcery.”

I'm probably doing the developers an injustice, and it's due to my lack of experience with such complex board games. Nevertheless, I still have a bitter aftertaste that we were denied a wonderful experience because of the initial frustration. The figures and the materials are outstanding. At least they are used in my Dungeons & Dragons sessions.