You sir, may now be one of my favorite reviewers. Please keep it going! Your Alien Artifacts review inspired me to get a game that is quickly becoming a favorite! Congrats on your engagement by the way!
For two players, Above and Below really does feel like the king 😎 love it to bits! And the expansion made it better too with another book and the possibility of getting a new interesting encounter with some extra stuff
Great video, it is nice to see a reviewer going against the dominant opinion about the games. That said, your camera cutting a piece of your head bothered me very much XD
As many others said-I absolutely appreciate how you pretended to go with the grain, but really broke down the difference. It’s like I wouldn’t tell someone not to get Blood Rage if they own Rising Sun...ok-now obviously those look a little different than these 2, but I really hate the need people have to say ‘game x’ is a ‘game y’ killer. It happens, but games are so subjective. One final thing I like to add for Above & Below is how Near & Far + Islebound offer extra characters to A&B-not sure I heard you mention that, but that’s a nice bonus to owning those games...
I only play Near and Far whit the Amber Mines expansion! After five plays whit the base set only, the game just became to simple for me and my girl friend. The storyes was great, but it was not enough to keep the game fun. Amber Mines changed that, now it became more of a game, whit a lot of choices! We still pick up alle of the stories, as those are both fun and the best way to get fraction tokens. But if you only play the game for the storyes, then you dont need that, but then I think there are better true story telling games out there?
I feel a redesign project in the making, one that I myself will be examining, namely: How To Maximize The Narrative Elements of AaB and NaF and then combine the two games into one! Yes, I am a madman and I will make this monster! Mwuhahahaha. .... Seriously though...I'm going to try this. Seems fun.
This is a very good review, and I agree with most of your points. However, I would be careful with assumptions about how N&F is "supposed" to be played. Having been part of Red Raven Kickstarters in the past, I can tell you that the RR team is VERY responsive to their backers. Many of the elements you find confusing as obfuscations of the storytelling aspects of an assumed storytelling game could be directly traced to feedback from backers and play testers about what they wanted to see in the game. And some reviewers (Rahdo) have talked at length about the Euro nature of this game and the balance of that with the story elements (his basic point being that the point and action Euro game should be the focus, as that is the only aspect that creates tension to the choices of the quests, which, unlike A&B, are nearly impossible to fail). This review is very timely, as I was just this morning discussing these games with my wife. She prefers N&F and is less of a fan of A&B's randomness. My point to her was that A&B could be viewed in the same way as Arabian Nights, a game she really likes but is VERY long, and also has a lot of randomness in its encounters. I'm getting ready to try A&B with our children. I feel N&F has a bit too much going on for them (they are a very advanced 5 & 6), but the stories and simpler mechanics of A&B might just work. And your point about the availability quests for all at all times in A&B is spot on. I enjoyed your review a lot. Thanks for your hard work!
I agree with ultimo. Why put this unnecessary bad language in a DT video? This is a family channel. It is not something I would want to show my family. I really like the video (even though I still think N&F is the superior game). But, I am annoyed that the creator doesn't respect the family friendly nature of the channel.
