A competitive board game in which you’re a hero trying to bulk up in order to replace the corrupted king.

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A game of Armello is split up into multiple rounds, each of which sees players take turns in moving across a board made up of various tiles. You play as one of a number of characters, each starting with different stats as well as resource amounts and having a unique ability, all of which combines to encourage rather varied play styles for the different heroes.

Each player holds a number of cards, which are replenished at the start of their turn and can be played in exchange for resources, resulting in different effects, like temporarily increasing character stats. Certain cards can be equipped, giving your character semi-permanent buffs, with other enabling you to place traps on selected tiles, which creatures will activate by stepping on them.

Aside from you, the board is also inhabited by various NPCs as well as of course 3 other players, who you can interact with in various ways. Most significantly, they block you from entering the tiles they’re currently occupying, leading to battles if you engage them. These consist of each player throwing a number of dice, with various rollable symbols determining the amount of attack and defence available to you and your enemy. This system is heavily influenced by each participant’s stats and equipped cards, resulting in dice being added or removed and rolled symbols receiving additional effects.

The game can be won in a number of ways, like having the most of a specific resource after a set number of rounds, obtaining a certain number of collectibles or entering the palace at the center of the board in order to defeat the corrupted king inside. Because of this, player often compete indirectly, with everyone pursuing different goals and changing their approach in response to the way the game develops. This is made even more interesting as people have to balance their own progress with sabotaging the others’ attempts of ending the match.

Beyond the gameplay basics I managed to cram into this review, Armello holds a lot of additional mechanics, making for quite a compelling experience that can vary widely from match to match. That being said, many of the game’s mechanics are also heavily influenced by randomness, often noticeably taking away from the great amount of strategic depth present otherwise and at times leading to genuine frustration.

Armello can be played with others players online or on your own against bots. Said bots sadly are locked to a single difficulty and generally aren’t much of a challenge, though they provide a less competitive experience which matches better with the at times overbearing randomness. For more variety, you can also create custom games, giving you the ability to adjust the rules of the game to your liking.

As for visuals, this game looks genuinely beautiful, creating a vibrant world out of the core board game aesthetic. Everything from models to artwork, interface elements and effects looks great and creates a cohesive and distinct style, with a stellar soundtrack rounding out the game’s wonderful atmosphere. On the flip side, this focus on presentation also leads to noticeable shortcomings when it comes to the interface, with the camera always being a bit too close to the board, certain actions not being well communicated and it being quite inconvenient to access certain information, e.g. to get an overview of all players’ current states.

Beyond the base game, there are also various DLCs available for Armello, the most relevant of which introduce several new heroes for you to play as. While these don’t majorly alter how the game plays, they certainly introduce a good amount of additional variation, which I quite enjoyed.

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Overall, Armello was a lot of fun to play for me. While I believe that the amount of randomness present is way too high, its deep gameplay and the charming presentation gave me a lot of enjoyment and kept me hooked for a while.

Note: There seems to be a rather common problem with the game crashing during certain interactions when your frame rate is too high. Make sure to enable VSync to counter this.

A competitive board game in which you’re a hero trying to bulk up in order to replace the corrupted king. [hr][/hr] A game of Armello is split up into multiple rounds, each of which sees players take turns in moving across a board made up of various tiles. You play as one of a number of characters, each starting with different stats as well as resource amounts and having a unique ability, all of which combines to encourage rather varied play styles for the different heroes. Each player holds a number of cards, which are replenished at the start of their turn and can be played in exchange for resources, resulting in different effects, like temporarily increasing character stats. Certain cards can be equipped, giving your character semi-permanent buffs, with other enabling you to place traps on selected tiles, which creatures will activate by stepping on them. Aside from you, the board is also inhabited by various NPCs as well as of course 3 other players, who you can interact with in various ways. Most significantly, they block you from entering the tiles they’re currently occupying, leading to battles if you engage them. These consist of each player throwing a number of dice, with various rollable symbols determining the amount of attack and defence available to you and your enemy. This system is heavily influenced by each participant’s stats and equipped cards, resulting in dice being added or removed and rolled symbols receiving additional effects. The game can be won in a number of ways, like having the most of a specific resource after a set number of rounds, obtaining a certain number of collectibles or entering the palace at the center of the board in order to defeat the corrupted king inside. Because of this, player often compete indirectly, with everyone pursuing different goals and changing their approach in response to the way the game develops. This is made even more interesting as people have to balance their own progress with sabotaging the others’ attempts of ending the match. Beyond the gameplay basics I managed to cram into this review, Armello holds a lot of additional mechanics, making for quite a compelling experience that can vary widely from match to match. That being said, many of the game’s mechanics are also heavily influenced by randomness, often noticeably taking away from the great amount of strategic depth present otherwise and at times leading to genuine frustration. Armello can be played with others players online or on your own against bots. Said bots sadly are locked to a single difficulty and generally aren’t much of a challenge, though they provide a less competitive experience which matches better with the at times overbearing randomness. For more variety, you can also create custom games, giving you the ability to adjust the rules of the game to your liking. As for visuals, this game looks genuinely beautiful, creating a vibrant world out of the core board game aesthetic. Everything from models to artwork, interface elements and effects looks great and creates a cohesive and distinct style, with a stellar soundtrack rounding out the game’s wonderful atmosphere. On the flip side, this focus on presentation also leads to noticeable shortcomings when it comes to the interface, with the camera always being a bit too close to the board, certain actions not being well communicated and it being quite inconvenient to access certain information, e.g. to get an overview of all players’ current states. Beyond the base game, there are also various DLCs available for Armello, the most relevant of which introduce several new heroes for you to play as. While these don’t majorly alter how the game plays, they certainly introduce a good amount of additional variation, which I quite enjoyed. [hr][/hr] Overall, Armello was a lot of fun to play for me. While I believe that the amount of randomness present is way too high, its deep gameplay and the charming presentation gave me a lot of enjoyment and kept me hooked for a while. Note: There seems to be a rather common problem with the game crashing during certain interactions when your frame rate is too high. Make sure to enable VSync to counter this.