Is one of the latest from CMON a faithful recreation of the hit PlayStation 4 title or an overproduced mess of a dungeon crawler?
Disclaimer: This game was gifted to me without the expectation of review. The thoughts I share below are my own and are my honest opinion of the game.
CMON seems to be one of those publishers that gamers either love or hate. Some love the involvement in their production, the massive amount of exclusive content, and the meticulous detail of their miniatures. (I mean CMON their name is Cool Mini or Not, they better have cool miniatures am I right?)
CMON’s latest record breaking game at the time of writing this was Marvel Zombies that had pledge levels well over $600 with a gigantic Galactus figure to go with it (in full zombie mode). They publish a variety of games outside of the Zombicide series including various mayhem games (looney tunes, and wacky races), a new Scooby doo cooperative adventure, and of course the one we’ll discuss today: Bloodborne the Board Game.
The Base Game (it wouldn’t be CMON without a mass of expansions) is pretty thorough with 4 3 chapter adventures providing 12 unique games. There is a separate box of miniatures meticulously organized inside of the box with several larger boss figures. In the Base game the bosses include: Cleric Beast, Father Gascoigne, Vicar Amelia, and others. There are player mats, and unique decks for consumables, upgrades, etc.
The art in the game as well as the components are very faithful to the source material–and when you set your Hunter on the Central Yharnam Lamp, you feel teleported into an analog version of the game. This game is also the first one I took to painting my own miniatures.
The gameplay is simple to learn and explain and is rather enjoyable. Spend your cards to do actions and attack. Attacking yields additional benefits on your cards. Fight monsters and beasts, and loot treasure. Oh yeah–and you only get 6 health, and everything attacks you pretty much constantly. Don’t worry, much like the PS4 game, death is meaningless. After your slaughter you’ll wake up in the Hunter’s Dream ready to fight again (although you will lose your precious blood echoes and advance the round tracker making it harder to win your chapter).
We played through the Long Hunt Scenario and found each chapter challenging but not impossible. The first eases you into the game while the 2nd two chapters get more difficult. There are unique rules in each chapter, and various ways of playing the game to be successful. We played 2 players, and the game scales at the number of players 1-4 fairly well.
So let’s talk about our three review criteria:
- Components 9/10: This is a CMON game–they are top notch for sure. The cards are high quality, the box insert is useful and the miniatures are great. I would have liked more included in the base game, but its only a minor gripe as there is a lot of content there.
- Mechanics 7/10: While easy to learn and effective for the game, they could have added a little more complexity in actions. The mechanics are by no means bad and rate high at a 7/10, but the experience was certainly more valued than the gameplay mechanics themselves.
- Experience 9/10: If you liked Bloodborne the PS4 game, you will like this game. It is a faithful adaptation of the boardgame and mimics its difficulty well. It also allows you to play with multiple players locally which is fun.
Our ranking overall is an 8/10. Its a really great cooperative dungeon crawler, but its certainly not the best in the genre. It boasts great components and its definitely a fantastic port of the video game.
Where to buy–this game is widely available on Amazon, Miniature Market, GameNerdz and my new favorite gamestore–tabletopmerchant.
We haven’t found a favorite how to play video yet for this game, but the rules are fairly simple to pick up.
Thanks for reading.
Chasing Railways LLC 