Gloomhaven | Shelfside Review

One of the best reviews I have ever seen.. So fast, precise, efficient... fantastic

The elephant in the room is that its a consim, and it does a horrible job at it.

(Cover your ears Ashton)
Every so often i come back to watch this video just for the intro, and to hear someone talk about GH who appreciates it as much as i do. And Daniel is funny as hell.

Thanks! Thisbwas a great video!Not even done with JOTL but found a super deal on Gloomhaven, I cant wait to start, but I must, I must wait..

Thank you for the video

I just wanted to stop after the intro and say... my first character was the cragheart, and i loved that someone else noticed his belt says Kyle. It's like the class was made for me!

awesome review...! ain't anyone in the comments going to point out and fuss that Dark Soul is called out while Bloodborne is shown?? reallyyyy? you guys are just pretending.

I use mini dice to track enemy HP

The envelopes are the reason I use house-rules in most games.

I have that table.

Played like 10 scenarios in this game and this video is the first time I noticed the damage tokens have numbers on them. Personally I like to load damage tokens onto enemies as HP tokens and take them off as damage is dealt so it's easier to tell at a glance what is close to being dead.

its really great how many things GH 2nd seem to adress in the negative section.

What I find incredibly odd about this game is how it is treated as disposable. Imagine you buy monopoly and instead of the houses and hotels, it come with a permanent marker and when you purchase a house on Park Place, you just write 'House' in permanent marker on the board. It's ridiculous. Who spends 140$ on a game and then destroys that game as they play it? When you play digital, does the program delete itself as you play? I get that the Legacy aspect of the game makes re-playability poor, but that's up to me if I want to play again, or have 2 groups going at once. Writing on the actual scenario book? one time use stickers that ruin the board and cards for any future play? Who does that? It can only be logically explained as a marketing tool to sell more games.

As a long time gamer (45 years plus) who generally plays more complicated games than this (Hex and counter war games, 300 page rule books, yes, I've even played about 60 turns of Campaign for North Africa) and this is the first time in my life I've seen a game designed to be destroyed as you play it. It's not ok. Yes, I ordered the replaceable sticker set. Yes, I will make copies of things to write on rather than the original. For 140$, it takes real balls and some questionable ethics (at best) to make a game that you destroy as you play, Legacy or not.

i got 700+ hrs in this game with dozens of hours on almost all chars n having tried out all major builds on said chars and still, i couldnt help but watch this with a fat smile on my face. tyvm

Hi! From the future. Frosthaven does a lot of things right. And oooo I just unlocked Coral and now I understand why you’re so excited.

I know that you get a great deal of Gloomhaven done through digital, does that mean you’ll ever get into Crimson Scales and Trail of Ashes? I really dig the dev-blogs about the character creation process for those.

We need a Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy Review

Bro, I would not play a digital board game over an actual video game in any case besides playing with people if we can't get physically together but that seems like a very niche thing.

I started with Jaws and it is perfect for me. 90 scenarios is not really a plus because I want to play other games, I would get bored at some point. As great as the game mechanics are, I probably won't purchase the big box or even Frosthaven but who knows maybe at some point I let myself tempted.

Ive had the big box since 2019... I organized it all with an insert but was too intimidated to play it since it is gonna be solo.. Picked up Jaws of the lion and it makes the game so easy to learn!

Siding with Ashton on this, but enjoying the long form reviews!

I'd just play the digital version at this point

top notch video editing

Bro, gloomhave shines when someone takes the DM role of fabricating an story, and make his own scenarios. The first thing we ditched, was the tiles, and got some hex paper and went to town with a printer. Also added some skills ala DnD 5e and made some scenarios for roleplaying. Thats the coolest reason to have gloomhaven, it becomes a Dnd experience, all in itself, with a ton of structure.

I usually don’t watch 1hr plus review videos, but your charismas make it enjoyable. Keep up the good work. PS this is my 5th video watching (watched from beginning to end: Tainted Grail, Bloodrage, Ankh, Rising Sun and this one).

Amazing review. Funny, fast-paced, and fair.

I have to say I agree wholly with Ashton on this one. I just do NOT get the appeal of the combat in this game. It's the worst part of the game for me. It's so incredibly limiting and as was mentioned in the review, it's all built around not getting hit, which makes tanking useless.

If the rules allowed you to use either the top OR bottom half of every card, it would be a little better, but programming out actions while forcing you to limit your own options as time goes on (discarding and burning) seems to contradict itself.

I have to say while I also like the Digital version of Gloomhaven with my friends we all agree that digital will never beat physical for us. Its just simply more fun for us personally to play with each other face to face and actually touch the components. But the one bad thing I will say is that the game absolutely benefits from an organizer as it makes the setup way faster and efficient. So if you are gonna get this already expensive game a organizer is highly recommended and it ads more to the overall price. Is it worth it still? In our humble opinion absolutely yes and me and my friends cannot wait for Frosthaven.

It's funny to me watching this because... well... The comparison to Descent 2nd edition and liking it at the end. I actually vehemently hate playing Descent 2nd edition lol. It feels so mindless, so shallow, the fact that you're always just trying to complete an objective and ignoring monsters is a mechanic I just hate. It's occasional in Gloomhaven that you don't have to kill everything but I feel that's a good balance. I really like playing Gloomhaven by comparison. (My personal score was 8/10... I really don't like Forgotten Circles though)

This guy's hyper anime spirit is just entertaining to watch. Wonder how he got so much energy to talk nonstop I'm constantly hooked! LOL!
xD

I have been on the fence about this game for a loooong time. I love the idea and I love the art and the idea of getting into something like it. For someone like me I love dice rolls for
Combat and defense it’s just what I’m used to, cards just feels a lot less of an intensity. But I’ll probably still buy it so when I rewatch this for the 8th time I can all the more understand the pain of how huge the game is.

Screaming under the approach of Hero Quest made me crack up so badly. 🤣

A friend suggested me this review and as an avid gloomhaven player, I must say sir you got a new subscriber, you have raised very solid points

What a staggeringly incisive and comprehensive review. I can only begin to imagine the amount of work that went to it. As epic and monstrously detailed as the game itself.
Oh, it was bloody funny, too.
Incredible.

Yea

Agree that "kill all enemy" scenarios are way too common, but if those rare objective quests feel like "kill all enemies" it's because you're playing too low of a difficulty

so im 4 sinarios (well, im on the 4th one) into JotL, and man... now i kind of want to get the beeg box. i want to wait for a sale though cuz ive seen it on amazon for like $100. anyway, amazing review! i didn't think i'd watch a 90min review video today but here i am. u defiantly sold me on the game, even with all the cons. my only worry is that i'd probably end up playing mostly solo. i didn't know about the adding players if u want thing though, so i might be able to invite my siblings every once in a while. but its all thoughts now, i should probably finish JotL 1st. anyway (again) thanks for the review, and keep up the amazing work!

So happy to see a fellow Circles lover! I feel like it has a bad rep as being weak or difficult but I found it to be the most satisfying class to play by far.

That intro! Omg. I subbed just based on that. Great commentary too. Very funny and open review. Great point that everything you need for this massive journey is all in one package. I’ve spent more on lesser games going through expansion content. GH isn’t for everybody, but it ticks all the boxes for me... in a giant box.

maybe the best gloomhaven video i've seen

So first of, thank you for the wonderful video.

Secondly, unless I get it for dirt cheap, I am never getting GH the board game.
There are so many better games out there, it's not worth my time and money.

Music in intro makes me want to have a chill drum break

All envelopes open except Saw, hmmm... If you know you know

The sit down & shut up mat saying "its a little rat" in the intro <3

Thanks for breaking the game down man! The real question, though: have you looked....UNDER the black box insert?

Watched this a second time while making some food. Such a great overview of a large game! Nice job! 👍👀👍

god damn daniel, this is a masterpiece!

I wish my friends and I had this video before we order Gloomhaven. Our game group just setting on being a DnD group after years of doing a back and forth because of how bonkers this game is. I got Jaws of the Lion (only $25 thanks to deals), because it had solo, so I assumed I could get it to the table, just to discover that I still need to double hand it.... this is not a game that I want to double-hand...

Kudos to the best gloomhaven review ever. A++

Best review I've seen of this game. Looks neat but i dont think it's quite for me as for this much upkeep I'd rather play a video game but I'm super happy to see board gamed hitting this point where they can basically be an offline video game. Awesome job.