Recent reviews by Endarire

Dark Souls is difficult but fair and encourages exploration, practice, and patience - just like many NES-era games!

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INTRO
(Some of what I mentioned here no longer applies due to being patched for Steam.)
Full Preliminary Review[docs.google.com]

Full Post-Game Review[docs.google.com]

BRIEF REVIEW
Knights of the Chalice (KotC) is a party-based turn-based OGL 3.5-based (making it a sorta D&D 3.5-based) RPG. After languishing in obscurity on its author's website for about a decade, the author finally ported it to Steam and patched certain things! (Some of them were handy, like being able to pick a feat and its prereq at the same character level then swap out the prereq feat to no ill effect.)

KotC is primarily a tactical combat game. It's difficult, but fair. Imagine a D&D version of Final Fantasy Tactics, but with fewer choices and a mostly absent or nonsensical story.

I recommend this game on these bases:
-I like D&D 3.5.
-I want to support the game's author and the sequel in development.
-I enjoy tactical combat challenges.

If these points appeal too little to you, reverse my recommendation. Otherwise, keep that thumbs up and enjoy the tactical challenges!

Upon first impression, I -like- Talisman. It feels unique and like a 1980s fantasy story/movie as a Roguelike board game. My Steam recommendation comes with a big HOWEVER: Ahem. However, there are two main sets of deterrents from this digitized Talisman game, mechanical and technical.

Note that this was my first time EVER playing Talisman in any form!

Mechanics-wise, the digital version seems to be an accurate port of the tabletop game. This means, for good and for ill, whatever the tabletop game is, the digital game is too. I enjoyed the ability for each person to have a personal adventure on the same game board while competing for resources and, ultimately, victory. I liked how it was, effectively, a board game version of Dokapon Kingdom (Wii), similar to the card game Munchkin for its randomness and occasional hilarity, and that it was a board game Rogue-lite. Also, props for having a cadre of possible followers, and spells that were rare and powerful!

What did I dislike about the mechanics? There is simply TOO MUCH ROLLING! Want to move somewhere? You must roll and get the exact number you need to proceed! Rolling at locations (board spaces), such as to determine whether at a bar you gain or lose money while gambling, or if you start a bar fight, is more sensical and generally should be kept. Rolling was much less of an issue early game and for me as a newbie since I didn't know what I was doing and was not a stickler on trying to win my first game - at least at this phase. I understood "Be an Assassin, go around killing stuff, level up, and try to win," and I wound up close to winning.

A simple fix would be to allow movement of any number of spaces no more than the rolled number. Did you roll a 3? You can move 1, 2, or 3 spaces instead of just 3.

A second major issue is the need to farm. Yes, you need to farm in a tabletop game originally released in the 1980s - before the release of video games like Dragon Quest/Dragon Warrior that made farming in RPGs popular. Why? Because you simply -need- higher stats, more money, and more treasure to survive random encounters and other players in this game! As a warning to Talisman newbies: You may reach the center area of the board (and achieving this feels quite random), but you NEED a Talisman to complete the game (found at the top left of the inner rectangle) AND enough Strength or Craft to get through the Mines or Crypt respectively. This means boosting these stats via fights (randomly generated) or finding the right items to boost your stats (randomly placed).

Perhaps it was because we used the Grim Reaper expansion, but the victory condition of, "All other players must be dead for you to win, even if you're at the Crown of Command," made the game take -entirely- too long! Since even dying once is effectively enough to eliminate one person forever, saying, "Death is permanent," would have been enough to expedite the game tremendously! (Currently, a dead player character respawns on at the start of his next turn at his starting space with no gear, no level up bonuses, no followers, and possibly no spells. If this happens at the late game, this dead PC may as well be out of the game.) My workaround? A player at the Crown of Command needs to remain in this space for 3 consecutive turns. If another player reaches the Crown of Command, this timer resets. This way, the game does not take 60+ minutes to declare a victor with someone already at the Crown of Command, but allows people to get close and perhaps win.

We had some technical problems, too. The game, in general, worked. However, one of our players was repeatedly removed from the game due to connection problems, and we had to restart Talisman about 4 times within 20 minutes to get the game running with all of us again. (To do so, the host should go to Online Game >> Private Game while the others should go to Online Game >> Resume Game once the game is up. This will resume a game from the last auto-saved spot.)

In addition, the UI is confusing to new players. In the tabletop version of this game, playing a spell card is as easy as declaring you're playing it, then playing it. In the digital version, each player needs to queue spells to go off at the right time. (I accidentally cast Sleep on myself because I assumed it would go off on the next person's turn.) I also felt unsure of what things did until I did them - like gaining followers or fighting things or trying to use the Portal. Sometimes, this was no big deal (like fighting), but sometimes (like using the Portal), I wish I would have known and understood the important bits before I went through with my actions.

Is Talisman worth playing? That depends. I liked it because I also liked Munchkin and Dokapon Kingdom and feel they capture the essence of this game better. Munchkin bypasses the board entirely and go straight for the random danger/delight/treasure in a similar fashion to Talisman, with less die rolling. (As an aside, there is a Munchkin Quest board game which I've not played.) Dokapon Kingdom's interface is generally better than Talisman's, but it suffers from "too long to play this game casually in a group setting" syndrome. Dokapon can be enjoyed in short bursts among friends, but is not at all meant to be completed in a single sitting. (According to GameFAQs, Dokapon Kingdom's full game length, from start to finish, is around 60 hours!) Talisman seemingly -is- meant to be completed in a single session, but around 4 hours for a digital version of a board game made me want to add the aforementioned house rules just to change that to 30-60 minutes. If you can deal with the tremendous randomness, and have supportive friends who enjoy playing Talisman with you, Talisman is a worthwhile game.

Talisman, in its current form, is somewhere between a tabletop board game and a tabletop RPG. It's more complicated than Monopoly, but less complicated than D&D 3.5. A full game of Talimsan (an estimated 3.5 to 5.5 hours) is around the estimated session time of a tabletop RPG, like D&D.

Talisman is something to experience once or on occasion, but it requires a dedicated group to enjoy it perpetually.

IN SUMMARY:
+Competitive fantasy RPG-lite and Rogue-lite adventuring.
+Fun to play, unique in its design, and created and maintained as a passion project.
+Assassin, Ghoul, and Dark Cultist classes are likely to get you a win.
+Less setup and hassle than many tabletop RPG campaigns.
-Way too long.
-Way too random.
-Way too confusing without someone first telling you a lot of the game (how to win, what classes to play, what stats do, the good and bad options).