CMON is returning as soon as extra to the Massive Darkness universe with Massive Darkness 2: Hellscape and the game is live on Kickstarter right now. For these unfamiliar with Massive Darkness, the game places you within the footwear of a particular class of warriors generally known as Lightbringers, and it is as much as you and your staff to go into the labyrinths and caves and take out the evil looming inside. A serious facet of the unique and sequel is the idea of sunshine and shadow tiles affecting what expertise can be found to your character. Massive Darkness 2 has fairly a little bit of enjoyable with that central mechanic, although it additionally brings in a bunch of modifications that enable gamers to actually make their characters their very own, guaranteeing your expertise is not like anybody else’s.
ComicBook.com had the prospect to check out the game with the staff at CMON, and through our time with the game, there have been 4 heroes obtainable. We might select from the Berserker (Gheta), Paladin (Sir Ronen), Rogue (Feydra), and Wizard (Mathrin of Xon), and for my playthrough, I selected Gheta the Berserker, and he or she was an absolute blast to play.
One of Massive Darkness 2: Hellscape’s most laudable components is how district every hero performs from the others, and by the way in which, this isn’t simply attributable to their stats or weapons. Each character comes with their very own distinctive gameplay mechanic, that means that if go from the Berserker to the Wizard you’ll have to study a unique mechanic to get essentially the most out of them.
For occasion, take Gheta the Berserker. Gheta takes injury similar to everybody else within the game, however when she takes that injury it would not simply knock her well being down. When Gheta takes injury the injury she takes strikes over to a Rage Dashboard, which has three completely different columns which you could freely transfer between. The Rage goes into the highest a part of the board, and upon getting sufficient to activate one of many expertise in your dashboard you will flip them in and activate it proper there after which. Each of those columns focuses on a unique skillset, cut up into motion, resistance, and offense.
What’s nice is that this dashboard will acquire extra expertise over time as you acquire XP, and you may select which column to stay these expertise in, customizing your board to suit your particular person playstyle. These expertise will assist you to do a mess of issues, together with transfer further areas, eradicating injury, including extra cube to your roll, and extra, and may actually make or break a flip.
Once you throw in weapons, armor, and different expertise into the combination, you’ve got obtained a straightforward to know system stuffed with depth, and that is simply the Berserker. The Wizard’s magic makes use of an amulet to solid their spells, however the amulet encompasses a rotating heart with an arrow, and whichever spell the arrow is on is the one you should use. There are methods to maneuver the arrow ahead a couple of area, however by default, it strikes after every use, and you may add extra spells to the amulet and customise it to your play fashion.
The Rogue and Paladin all have their very own expertise so as to add to the combination, and after just a few turns, you get the hold of what your staff can do and the way greatest to make use of these numerous expertise to assist the staff transfer ahead all through the dungeon. That’s the place the game’s trademark mechanic is available in, as you will want to determine how greatest to method an enemy mob on the board given their proximity to a Shadow Tile. These tiles assist you to use the Shadow Die, which might enable you the chance to make use of your Shadow Skill. Each character has their very own Shadow Skill, and these are extraordinarily highly effective when known as upon.
That staff dynamic was a blast in Tabletop Simulator however must be 10 occasions as entertaining when you get these slick miniatures and the bodily parts in your desk. The unique game had an intriguing premise and stable gameplay, however CMON appears to have actually raised the bar and gone above and past for Massive Darkness 2, injecting the game with recent new mechanics that I can’t wait to dive into extra.
Dungeon-crawlers are a perennially well-liked style of board game, and there’s a number of excessive profile games of that style launching within the subsequent 12 months or so. Luckily, CMON has discovered a singular solution to separate Massive Darkness 2 from different high-profile rivals like Darkest Dungeon or Descent. The uneven play of the game’s six (or extra, relying on stretch targets) lessons ensures a unique play fashion with every game, even should you aren’t selecting to play by way of the game’s marketing campaign. This appears to be like to be an enormous enchancment over the unique Massive Darkness (which I favored quite a bit) and continues a development of offering extra distinctive gameplay experiences to make sure that you’re getting your cash’s price. – Christian Hoffer
You can discover Massive Darkness 2: Hellscape on Kickstarter right here, and to speak all issues tabletop you may hit me up on Twitter @MattAguilarCB!
