We recently got to try a Superhero Card game called Sentinels of the Multiverse, a neat indy project crowdfunded on Kickstarter. It’s a neat game with preconstructed decks for several heroes and villains (usually based off one or more DC/Marvel character) that really strives to do something different with each hero you chose. Additionally you also select the villain your faux-Justice League faces as well as an environment deck that influences each turn.
Legacy. A Supergirl/Power Girl kinda hero character you can play as.
A lot of your favorites are here, parodies of Batman, Iron Man, Aquaman and Superman were some of the characters in the premiere set. As mentioned before, each comes with their own preconstructed deck that works around a theme based on the powers of the superhero(es) they imitate. I had fun trying out a few different ones, but what sets this game apart is that it is a cooperative game. Instead of playing against the other players at the table, you work with them to defeat the villain deck (which essentially plays itself). At times this led us to odd situations where we would have to “rules lawyer” ourselves to make sure we were playing the game fairly. The other coop challenge came with deciding which heroes worked well with each other. We got annihilated a few times early on because we simply just didn’t know which heroes worked in tandem, and which just flat out left huge holes in our defense that the villain deck was able to trample through.
Good homages to the source material.
In the beginning, we played without the environment deck since we just kept getting killed. Once we organized the heroes in groups that worked together, the challenge level definitely balanced out (dare I say at times it just became too easy). The game is simple enough to learn, I picked it up by just reading the cards and getting some instruction by someone who read the rulebook (which I never needed to read except as a reminder of the turn order). In fact, when we were down to just two human players, it was a very simple matter for us to each just play two heroes each.
The art doesn’t quite reach comic book level, but is good enough. It would be nice if at some point the company that releases the game hires some well-known comic artists for the art. I will grant that the images for the most part provide great homage to the comic book medium and the characters that they are based on, right down to clever quotes in the lore text complete with fake issue numbers. They did a really good job with that, at times making me think (and even wanting to read) adventures based on the characters, which they actually do have on the game’s website.
The game is a bit pricey at $40, but in my opinion it is well worth it for comic book fans. I would definitely pick this game up over the DC Deck Building Game. Already there are two expansions available, as well as individual “promo” Hero and Villain characters you can pick up. A fun game I hope to play with some of you at Gen Con 2013.
Later, BroZ.
How would you compare this game to other “Game in a Box” games like Resident Evil, Dominion, and Apples to Apples?
I like the preconstructed aspect of it and that each character plays differently and does something unique. It also doesn’t have as much set-up/annoying clean up that Resident Evil has (which I felt that game starting going off the rails after the first expansion).
Curious if you guys have had a chance to play Legendary, the Marvel deck building game. While Sentinels of the Multiverse might not be deck building, Legendary does include a coop theme. It also has a “combo” system of sorts. Hopefully there will be a review of it up here someday.
We got a demo of the DC game at Gen Con and wrote about it, but unfortunately we were not invited to any of the “private” demonstrations of the Marvel game.
You make it sound like there was something dark and shadowy about the demo, or perhaps something else entirely inappropriate. LOL. I actually just bought the game a few weeks ago, so it should be available at stores now. If I get some time (which is now a rare commodity since becoming a dad two months ago), I’ll try to write something up on it. There are a few other articles-ish I’ve been meaning to get to as well, but either way, I wasn’t sure if that type of game is your guys playstyle, but as I’ve seen the DC, Resident Evil and I think a couple other “non-ccg” card games pop up in mention several times I thought I’d ask about it. And on that note, have you had a chance to play the new Star Wars LCG?
I’ve heard from some people that have played it, and they said it was ok. Nothing spectacular, but a good game for the Trekkies apparently.
Well it’s no SW:CCG by Decipher, true. (One of the best card game systems I’ve played), but yeah, it’s ok. I think the deck building mechanic is a bit abstract as is “attacking,” but they can’t all be winners. On the plus side as an LCG it’s buy one and done. If it wasn’t Fantasy Flight I’d be skeptical about the number of expansions, but I think they are good for at least 4 or 5. The X-wing game FF put out a couple months ago however, is fantastic! I know it’s a completely different game genre (Starfighter mini-battles), but it completely captures the dog fighting aspect of the classic trilogy. I don’t think that’s so good for the Trekkies.
No conspiracy, they just were doing very “random” invites and refused our request to demo and review the game, despite our press credentials.