Sentinels of the Multiverse
Overview of the Multiverse!
Sentinels of the Multiverse is a cooperative card game where 2-5 players take the roles of super heroes and attempt to defeat a super villain bent on world destruction, galactic domination and other lofty, evil pursuits. Each player’s hero has a unique deck of cards with powers and awesome action-packed moves that are exclusive to that hero. The Villain character “auto-plays” throughout the game and presents the heroes with devastating challenges and deadly conflicts. The game ends when either the heroes have won the day by reducing the Villain’s hit points to zero or when the Villain stands gloating above the smoking, broken bodies of the fallen. ‘Nuff said! Lets get to it!
Set Up
Players choose a Hero they want to play from the 10 available heroes, take the matching deck and hero card, lay the hero card in front of them, shuffle their deck and draw four cards for a beginning hand.
One Villain is chosen from the four available Villains in the base set and that Villain’s two cards are laid out in plain sight. The main Villain card describes that Villain’s powers and lists his or her hit points. The other card lists all the game effects that take place when that Villain has a chance to wallop the heroes. Also, the accompanying Villain deck is shuffled and placed there as well.
An Environment deck is then chosen from four available in the base set. The Environment deck provides the setting where all the action in the game takes place and presents the heroes with unique obstacles and events they will have to contend with while battling the ultimate evil. The Environment deck is shuffled and also placed in the midst of the heroes.
Gameplay
Gameplay for Sentinels is broken up into three main phases or Turns: The Villain Turn, the Hero Turns, and the Environment Turn. Let’s take a closer look…
- Villain Turn: Three phases dictate the actions and effects of the Villain in the game. Effects listed on any cards in play that trigger at the beginning and or end of the Villain turn will activate and a new Villain card is turned over from the Villain deck, usually with really nasty results. Yipe!
- Heroes Turn: To Battle! Each player, on their turn, plays one card from their hand, uses one super power and draws one card from their deck (in that order). Also, any effects listed on any cards in play that trigger at the beginning and or end of that Hero’s turn will activate.
- Environment Turn: After all Heroes have played, it is time to see what effect the Environment has on the story. The top card is flipped from the Environment deck and its effects occur. Also, any effects listed on any cards in play that trigger at the beginning and or end of the Environment Turn will activate.
Sounds simple? It is! The gameplay and turn order is very easy to digest. But, being a card/effect driven game system, the individual choices presented to players through their unique Hero decks, and the interaction from card effects from the three decks can create many unexpected interactions. KAPOW!
The object of the game is for the Heroes to defeat the Villain by depleting his or her hit points to zero. Of course the Villain is trying to do the same to the Heroes! It’s all about causing damage! Throughout the game the Heroes and the Villain will be going to battle against each other and will use powers, attacks and equipment to damage the opposing team’s characters. Damage can take many forms, from electrical (ZAP!) to fire, cold, sonic melee and many more. Often times, card effects will prevent these certain types of damage. The Villain will also have many minions that will attack and can be attacked. Even an Environment card may need to be battled!
Survival and teamwork are crucial. However, even if a hero is defeated, they are not “out of the game.” When a hero is reduced to 0 or less hit points, that hero becomes “incapacitated.” Their deck is removed from the game, their Hero card is flipped, revealing three Abilities of which one can be used during that player’s turn.
Advanced players may want an even more lethal challenge. All Villain cards have an Advanced section on them, creating the ultimate test for the heroes!
Components
Adam Rebotarro’s comic book art styling gives this game an irresistible look and feel. The Enhanced Edition of Sentinels of the Multiverse includes quality cardboard damage and effect counters and a sturdy box that will hold all the cards from all the current expansions. The card quality is great, easy to shuffle and doesn’t warp.
Learning Curve
Low! Shuffle and play. As with all card effect based games, though the turn sequence is quite simple the true “curve” comes when learning the multitude of strategies that manifest themselves when the card effects interact.
Who would enjoy this game?
Final Thoughts
Originally released in 2011 at Gen Con, Sentinels of the Multiverse captured an untapped niche in the hobby market: the cooperative super-hero card game. And it took the hobby by storm… why?
Immersion. There are no super heroes in the game that you have ever heard of. What designers Christopher Badell, Adam Rebotarro and Paul Bender have done is taken the most appealing aspects of what comic book fans love and created a new intellectual property to explore. Every character back-story, every bit of flavor text on every card adds to this environment and immerses the players into the story and struggle of the heroes. This level of immersion invests the players in the game with ease. This makes for an amazing cooperative gaming experience. You feel the game becoming your own as you play – almost creating your own comic book series as the game unfolds.
Innovation. The three deck system that Sentinels introduced creates a wonderfully balanced cooperative challenge. Each player with their own Hero Deck, their own strategy and strengths (and weaknesses) facing a Villain deck, with his or her own agenda and unique deck interaction taking place in an Environment (deck) that creates unexpected hazards for everyone. The combat system is straightforward and simplistic but a host of game effects and conditions based on different types of damage make for these streamlined battle rules to become anything but simple. The game grows more and more dangerous and desperate as play continues. The stakes rise when certain game effects cause a Villain’s cards to flip which augments his or her powers; unleashing more terrible and dangerous powers – creating true peril for the heroes.
Interaction.Sentinels provides the penultimate experience in cooperative gaming since each hero must be dependent on the other heroes for survival. Although the heroes represent familiar archetypes, players are free to develop their personalities and relationships to other team members. Even though it may seem that some heroes are more powerful than others, each is designed to a unique strategy that interacts with the other hero decks uniquely. This ignites freedom and creativity into the game and its interaction. It’s a characteristic unique to Sentinels. The game has the feel of a superhero RPG where your cooperative relationships develop through gameplay.
From its humble beginnings in an IHOPS restaurant, Chris, Paul and Adam envisioned a game that they wanted to play – not a game that had the most innovative mechanics (although they are) or a game to appease an already established fan base (which it now has) nor even a game that would sell out, reprint and have reasonable financial success (which it did, has and continues to do.) This above all offers an experience that is new, fresh and untethered. A player can feel it in the design and in the gameplay. The game is personal and accessible, with nearly limitless possibilities for replay, and expansion.
Expansion Reviews
Rook City review >
Infernal Relics review >
Let’s Compare
Since Sentinels hit the scene, two other superhero themed card games have been released: Legendary for the Marvel Universe and DC Deck-building game. How do these games compare to Sentinels? Here are some major points:
- The main difference of course is that Sentinels is a cooperative game. This fundamentally changes the focus for players and intensifies the experience of struggling to fight and defeat the Villain together as a team. Winning or losing together typifies most comic book hero teams and Sentinels provides the perfect re-creation of that experience.
- Sentinels is not a deck builder. The hero decks in Sentinels are built and tuned. And very well tuned in most cases – even when pitted against various Villain decks and Environments. This is another quality that focuses the gameplay on the task of defeating the Nemesis rather than building or tuning a deck and strategy during the game.
- Players don’t mix heroes in Sentinels. Players take the identity of one hero and have all they need in order face the scourge of the galaxy. This gives the game its quality of personalization and immersion.
- Finally, the designers have created the world of Sentinel Comics, a new, vivid and unexplored “comic book land” to get lost in. Thus, Sentinels allows you to be more than just puppet master for your favorite superheroes, you are the hero. You create a legacy for each hero you play. What’s better than that?
All of these aspects create a surprising gaming experience. Sentinels is not just another card game or deck-builder. Sentinels of the Multiverse offers a gaming experience that becomes more of a role-playing/story creation game. The personalization of the heroes and the cooperative mechanics actually give the game a feel of a card driven RPG. It offers a grand, adventurous environment for anyone who loves the superhero genre. It’s easy to learn, promotes amazing player interaction and offers levels of immersion, innovation and interaction that just are not found in other similar games. Put on your cape or cowl and challenge this gem of a super hero card game.
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What Is It About? – An Overview of the Game
Sentinels of the Multiverse (SotM) is a cooperative card game for 3 to 5 players. Each player takes on the role of a unique hero and must defeat a super villain and his particular minions. It is a fight to the death from Jurassic jungles to bases in outer space.
What Do I Get? – The Components in the Box
As with any solid card game, there are over 500 cards in the box. This is broken down into 10 hero decks of 40 cards plus 1 character card; 4 villain decks of 25 cards plus 2 character cards; and 4 environment decks of 15 cards each.
There are round hit point (HP) tokens along with rectangular tracking tokens to keep all the game changing effects straight. The box has plenty of space to hold two expansions and various promotional material. To help keep everything organized, dividers are given for each deck.
The enhanced edition of the game is the current edition that is available. The original version lacked tokens, card dividers and the larger box to store everything. The rules were also updated with more clarifications in the enhanced edition though some important rules were inadvertently left out.
What Do I Do? – Playing the Game
As with most cooperative games, each player gets a turn and then the game plays against everyone making life difficult. SotM accomplished this by allowing the Villain to go first, followed by each player in a fixed order, and then capped off by the Environment deck also mixing in some chaos. For each of these turns, the order of play is typically resolve any on going “start of turn” effects, play a card (from the top of the deck for Villains and Environments; from the hand for Heroes), then resolve any on going “end of turn” effects. Heroes get two more steps by using a “power” and drawing a card to their hand.
Cards that are played are either “one-shot” events that do something and are discarded or “on-going” cards that remain in play such as equipment, relics, minions, etc. Any card with an HP value can be a target. Most of the cards result in someone taking damage, which is tracked by the tokens (or any other preferred means). Damage is usually not blocked unless a card can prevent or reduce it so it becomes a matter of whichever side staying alive the longest wins. Heroes have around 30 HP, while most Villains are upwards of 80 HP. Minions and other incidental targets are usually under 10 HP and more typically only a few HP total.
Most of the Hero cards that remain In play, including their starting character card, grant some Power: an ability that can be used once per round. This is typically the main way that they can attack the Villain or his forces. But other Powers include drawing more cards, healing others, and even granting more Powers during the turn.
Villains all have a “flip side” which is triggered at a certain point, changing the way they behave. Some flip back and forth endlessly, such as Omnitron, while others are a one-time flip. Their effects can be very damaging especially depending on the team fighting against them. A hero, like Wraith, that is dependent on equipment will find equipment-destroying Villains particularly difficult. Each Villain is (or will be as some are still unseen) paired against a Hero as arch-nemesis doing an extra point of damage each time they battle.
The Environment deck affects everyone about the same and the Villain can find himself the target almost as much as the Heroes. The main benefit of the Environments is another multiplier in the vast number of ways to replay the game.
The game is over when one side or the other is defeated (HP reduced to zero). While a player’s hero can be eliminated, his hero’s character card is simply flipped over and grants the surviving members of the team 1 of 3 actions. This is thematic represented as the standing heroes fighting harder in memory of their fallen brethren.
What Do I Think? – Final Thoughts
Setting the game play aside for a moment, I am absolutely in love with the universe that this Christopher Badell and the design team created. At first, I was put off by the idea of generic super heroes. But the depth of backstory they have given has the edge of Image Comics and the richness of the Marvel or DC universes. Legacy is the archetypical leader embodying the strength of Superman, the patriotism of Captain America, and the family history of Green Lantern. The previously mentioned Wraith is the female version of the Dark Knight: the rich socialite with the array of wonderful toys. Each card has a quote from an “issue” the character appeared in developing the ongoing story. Art previews future Heroes and Villains giving that “aha” moment when new material is released. The art is just tremendous, especially given that it is all done by one artist, Adam Rebottaro. I find myself immersed in the game before I even start to play it.
The game itself is strong. With the enhanced edition, they introduced the “H-factor” – a means to more easily balance the game. And given this sliding scale, it is easy to accommodate players outside the recommended 3-5 with very minor tweaks. On top of that, Villains are given difficulty ratings so beginners can start with the easier bad guys and work their way up. They even rate the Heroes on levels of complexity so new players can take the straightforward characters. As with most co-ops, this can be played solo though a player will want to control a team of at least 3 Heroes. And given the structure of the game turns, this is very manageable.
The replayability is tremendous. Using 1 out of 4 of both the Environments and Villains and typically 4 out of 10 Heroes makes more quite a few possibilities. Each of the decks play so differently that it goes beyond “more of the same” with just a different theme. Tachyon, the speedster, plays off her discard pile giving her more strength as the game goes on. Absolute Zero tries to damage himself to channel a burst of energy against the Villain. Even the Villains play so differently from one another that each game truly feels unique.
The only negative of this game is some of the production. When the first expansion came out, the cards were wider than the original and a more sturdy thickness. With the enhanced edition, they went back to the original size and switched to the heftier cards. But they made a mistake by now making the cards too long. The good thing is that since each deck is independent, it really doesn’t matter. But for an otherwise excellent offering, this is a disappointment none the less.
Overall, this is one of the freshest games I have played in a long time. Not only is the game play rewarding itself, the universe runs through my head frequently between sessions. I look forward to playing this one many years down the road.
What Next? – Other Recommendations for this Game
As hinted at by the title, this is a multiverse with many more places to explore and an endless cast of characters. Two expansions have already been published: Rook City and Infernal Relics each introducing 2 new Heroes, 2 new Environments, and 4 new Villains. At the time of this review, a successful Kickstarter campaign just funded 2 more expansions: Shattered Timelines following the same pattern of new material, and Vengeance introducing some Villains as playable characters in team play.
Of course, what would a comic book be without promos and alternate realities? There are a handful of promotional Heroes, Villains, and soon to be Environments available through Greater Than Games website. There are also many alternate Hero and Villain cards to further change up the way you attack any given set up.
As far as other cooperative card games that have a similar feel, I find Lord of the Rings: Living Card Game is the closest. Both have the fantasy setting allowing players to contribute different ways to win. Both games are driven by a villainous deck working against you. Each have their own form of environments creating a good deal of replayability. The major difference besides theme is LotR:LCG requires building a deck before play while SotM is fixed deck.
Baron Blade and his minions are attempting to destroy Megalopolis using their mobile attack platform! It’s time to join forces with Legacy and the other heroes of the Multiverse to take him down!
Sentinels of the Multiverse is a co-operative card game for 2-5 players, which can be played in 30-45 minutes (although you might just find you want to start another game straight after…)
Gameplay
Each player begins by selecting the character they will play, the villain they’ll be facing and the environment where the battle will take place.
Each hero, villain and environment has their own pre-built deck of cards, all of which are unique to that character/environment, and each hero begins the game with a hand of 4 cards, drawn after they have shuffled their decks.
Game turns work in three stages: the Villain Turn, the Heroes Turn and the Environment Turn.
On the villain turn, any ‘start of turn’ effects shown on all active villain cards are resolved, then a card is played from the top of the deck (this can usually be either a one-off action, a piece of weaponry/equipment or a minion coming into play), then finally any ‘end of turn’ effects are resolved.
The inclusion of effects which take place at either the start or the end of a turn is nice, meaning that some cards start to impact you straight away, and others give you a full turn before you feel their effects – this really keeps you on your toes, as for example a devastating weapon may come into play that you know will decimate you if not destroyed before the start of the villains next turn.
Next, the heroes each take turns to play (in clockwise order). Each hero turn breaks down to: Play a card, use a power, draw a card (although card effects may increase these actions).
Played hero cards usually take one of two forms: a one time action or a card which gives some kind of continuing effect.
When it comes to using a power, each character has their own innate power to use, or they may be able to gain more options through the cards that they can play.
Finally, it’s the turn of the Environment, and again like the villain turn there are usually start and/or end of turn effects to resolve, with a new card drawn and played in between. The environment can help or hinder both the heroes and villains, and adds a great element to the gameplay, often forcing players to choose whether to deal with issues in the environment (Help! A train’s about to crash into a crowd of people or to keep focusing on the villain and leave the environment to wreak it’s own havoc.
The game continues until either the villain or all of the heroes been reduced to zero hit-points and are therefore defeated. Interestingly, as this is a co-op game even if a hero ‘dies’ they can continue to play along, just taking one of a selection of simple actions (often giving extra moves or support to another hero), on the rationale that the other hero’s are fighting harder to avenge their fallen companion.
Another nice touch is that there’s no ‘decking’ in the game – if you run out of cards you simply re-shuffle your discard pile into a fresh deck.
Components
The cards are a nice quality, and feel like you’ll get a bit of use out of them, and you certainly get a lot of them for your hard earned cash! The core game comes with almost 600 cards, which includes decks for 4 different villains to face, 4 different environments to face-off in and a whopping 10 different heroes to play as!
The ‘Enhanced Edition’ (which is really the only version of the base game that you should consider purchasing) goes one step further though, including around 160 tokens for keeping track of character health and status modifiers (and trust me, you’ll really appreciate having all of these as you play the game – there can be a lot to keep track of!)
One of my favourite inclusions with the enhanced edition though is the good sized box and divider cards – there’s plenty of space to keep all of the base set cards, along with the expansions (and the amazing guys at Greater Than Games also include divider cards for all the cards from both the Rook City and Infernal Relics expansions!) – if you like to keep your cards well organised you’ll be in heaven with this package.
At this point I should also mention the card art, which to be honest I wasn’t too keen on to begin with, however I’ve found has really grown on me. The art style is very comic-book-ish, and goes with the theme well, but – in my mind at least- it looks a little ‘amateurish’. Having said that, it is great that the GtG guys have created all of these characters themselves and put together such a great package in-house.
Play time
A game of SotM usually takes a little over half an hour to play, although this will vary depending on how well your team works together, the villain that you’re facing and the environment where you’re doing battle. It’s not uncommon to want to play again straight away though!
Summary
Sentinels of the Multiverse is a fantastic co-operative game, with great replay value. It is steeped in theme, and half of the fun of playing is getting really submerged in the world of the Multiverse (right down to the in-character smack-talk that is surely mandatory when playing this type of game!).
Unfortunately a few small grumbles prevent me from giving the game a higher score, mainly because of the sheer amount of stat-tracking involved (I honestly don’t know how anyone who bought the original base-set managed to cope without the tracking tokens!)
These frustrations mainly present when playing the more complex characters, and may slowly dissolve as our gaming group gets more used to the game. The game creators do at least provide a handy difficulty rating for each character (moving from easy to difficult although annoyingly in the base set there is no medium rated difficulty villain included.)
Despite these small annoyances though, it’s hard to not have fun with the game, and it’s certainly possible to play several games using the easier characters. As is often the case with theme-heavy games the life you’ll get out of the game is directly proportional to how well you can submerge yourself in the theme, and to be honest, if you’re a comic book fan you’d be crazy not to pop Sentinels on your shopping list.
Sentinals is a cooperative card game where a team of superheroes fight against a evil supervillain. The base game comes packaged with no real good way to store the cards once they’re opened so that is one downfall. The other downfall is that every player needs to track their hit points and they need to track the hit points of the supervillian and their minions. The game doesn’t include any way to do this. There are print offs you can find online that help, but the easiest way is probably using mini poker chips.
Players start off by choosing a hero however they prefer. The game includes 10 different heroes to choose from each with their own flavor, and most of them are easy to see which superhero they were modeled after.
The players then choose a villain that they will be fighting and also a location where they will be fighting.
After the first player is determined they flip one of the villain cards and do what it says. After the villain and his cronies will attack if able and then its on to the superheroes turns.
Each player can play one card from hand, some are one time use and are discarded and others persist and stay to buff the hero. After this they have a chance to use one of their abilities. At the start the hero card includes one ability and they gain more through cards played, so your hero will become stronger as the game progresses. After they do their ability (which isn’t always attack) they draw a card.
After all players have taken their turn they reveal a location card and do what the card text says if able. Then they start back over with the villains turn until either the heroes are defeated or the villain is defeated.
This game is super simple and there are no real big elements to make it complex or symbols to be confusing. You open the small box and you have cards and that’s it nothing else, which is a big nose turner to a lot of people. And rightly so for 39.95usd msrp they could have included some type of counters, and it is near impossible to put the cards back into the box once they’re opened. That being said the game is very fun as a party game and for newbies to games.
Hello my little superdudes and dudettes! Welcome to another review by the ever-aging Granny.
First off, I need to explain the disastrous rating I gave this game a couple years ago. I had funded the game on Kickstarter,and had high hopes it would be a fantastic game to play with my two boys. The rules were a bit clunky, and the cards required so much sorting… by the time we got to playing the game we were tired and never fully figured it out. We loved the art and the cooperative aspect, and I gave it a 7 here… because I loved the idea of it… just not the execution.
Cut to two years later and a completely different experience. If I could, I might give the game a 10… but most assuredly a 9. The new edition of Sentinels includes greatly simplified rules that show you just how easy this game is to learn. In fact, they could have just used the rules on the back in a one-sheeter and saved some money on printing. All the real instructions are on the cards anyway. They also provide handy-dandy dividers to keep all the cards in place… making it easy to organize, pick a team, and get cracking!
How to Play
Umm… 1) Play a hero card and use a power. 2) Play an environment card. 3) Play a villain card 4) Rinse, repeat.
I know… sounds repetitive and stupid, right?… WRONG!!!! This game is the best thing since the invention of Silly-Putty. The collection of superheroes, villains and environments makes for what appears to be an unending supply of game combinations (If you believe math is real, you might argue that there could not be an unlimited number of combinations, and may even give me some EXACT number of combinations… to which I say “BAH!”…you are obviously not taking into account the variable of unending parallel and possibly perpendicular universes a Multiverse contains… ’nuff said.). Nevertheless, once you get over your “logic,” and throw yourself into this mind-blowing cornucopia of delicious gaming goodness… you will truly know my bliss.
My Conclusion
Ultimately, this game may not be for everyone. However, just like chocolates… if you don’t like eating superheroes, there’s more for me. They are tasty… and Sentinels of the Multiverse is the Whitman’s Sampler of superhero games. Sometimes, you might get a bad hero… but there is always a scrumptious caramel around the bend.
I highly recommend this game if you like cooperatives, card games, superheroes, or being tolerable to fellow humans. If you don’t like superheroes… you will probably not like this game. I repeat, if you do not like superheroes… you probably will not like SotM (cool shorthand for Sentinels of the Multiverse).
Another example of this game’s greatness are the expansions. For a measly 5 bucks you can get a new hero, villain or environment deck that expands your endless combinations even further. And, yes, again, you can expand endlessness in the Multiverse.
This is unlike my other reviews, but I have been forever changed by SotM, and will probably look even more critically upon all games from now on… or not.
My only beef with the game is there are no superheroes over the age of 40 (except maybe The Scholar). What happens to old superheroes? Eh… I digress.
Granny says, “Buy this game!”
As a kid, I can remember daydreaming about what super power I’d choose if I could have just one. Would it be flight? Shooting stuff from my hands? Super strength? Telekinesis? I think I might freeze up if ever pressed with having to make such a tough decision. Thankfully in this game, you don’t have to.
One of the great things about Sentinels of the Multiverse is the variety of choices. The core game comes with 10 heroes that are all quite unique. I won’t go into too much detail on each hero as they are well documented in the other reviews. I will say however that I was surprised by how much I grew to enjoy them. Let me clarify. Many of the reviews focus on the fact that each hero in this ‘universe’ is directly comparable to one from the DC or Marvel cannon. For example, Wraith does indeed share some traits with Batman and her backstory is quite similar. She doesn’t feel like a knockoff though. If anything, her character design is an homage with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Once you actually get into the game, you see the characters as themselves. The way they play, how well they team up with others, and their specific strengths in battle are all uniquely their own. You wind up developing a relationship with each character based on previous battles. This is where the game succeeded for me. This is where the replay-ability factor shines.
The villains can seem a little overwhelming. Even the ones that are given a ’1′ complexity rating can wipe the floor with your team given the right circumstances. If that’s not enough, the Environments can be even more daunting. ‘Wagner Mars Base’ had our team of heroes clenching our collective butt cheeks every time we flipped a card from that deck.
It’s not all roses though. It’s important to point out one major quibble. At various points of the game, the number of moving parts and modifiers in play can be quite easy to lose track of. Each and every card in play can (and will) interact with each action in each phase. After a few rounds, the modifiers and elements to keep track of can pile up. The modifier markers can help tremendously, but it’s super (pardon the pun) easy to miss one. We did have to backtrack a few times after discovering we’d miscalculated or omitted a card with a rather obscure effect we’d forgotten about. I’m betting as our familiarity with the game increases, these occurrences will be less frequent. These issues won’t keep me from recommending the game, but it might not be for everyone in your gaming group.
In summation, the theme is fantastic, and you can really get caught up in the struggle of taking down the big baddies. If you can deal with all the juggling, knocking down a 100(HP) villain can be a uniquely rewarding experience.
There are a lot of Superhero RPGs out there and, let’s face it…most of them fall pretty flat. I believe because more classic-themed role players have a growth level that runs counter-intuitive to the hero themes of comic lore. Examples: Superheroes don’t change. They don’t gain more levels and gain more powers…the comics keep them fairly static for decades. So what are you shooting for in playing? Further, unless you have a wickedly good narrative system in place, heroes are all there for the good of mankind. They don’t loot corpses, they don’t fight do the death amongst themselves. But, the fighting is the high point of most comic book themed rags…and SotM does this very…VERY well.
The villains are alluring. Further, they are borderline unstoppable. The game mechanics built in to the function of the villains make them unique from one another and DEMAND communication and dynamicism from the hero players. Nowhere in the gaming universe are you going to find as comprehensive a strategic superhero experience as this game (and its expansions…don’t pass those up).
My only complaint is the game’s dependence on status checks, specifically regarding hit points. Obviously how close a hero is to defeat is integral to the team’s ultimate goal. Somehow this system needs to consolidate how to quickly change and display a hero’s health as many of the villains (Hello, Matriarch) can hit several heroes with multiple damage, and what their HP is from attack to attack can determine if they are the next target (example: at 26, HP Bunker has the most health. He is hit for 4 points, because he is the highest, by one of the villains weapons, knocking him to 22 hp. Now, a villain’s minion hits him for 2 ice damage because he is now the lowest health of the group, and so on).
I am certain experienced gamers can create their own workaround process for this using dice, cards, whatever they can fabricate.
But don’t let that slow you down. If you want the best superhero bang for your buck…this is it!
I’ve read lots of glowing reviews for this game and knowing that a few markers aside this was a game all about the cards…. So many cards, i approached with a massive dose of scepticism.
Sentinels is a co op game, the main game comes packed with cards all of which separate out into three types of deck – heroes, villains and locations. The box also comes with dividers which means that you can get an unreasonable amount of enjoyment from just opening the decks, sorting them and then perfectly dividing them into your perfect box of loveliness.
The instruction manual is in comic book format (i love those sort of touches) and is irrationally short and concise – it can’t be that simple? Surely? The entire game is summarised on the back of the rulebook.
Yet it is, but that’s not the best part, i’ll get to that.
So you choose a villain deck, a location deck and then a hero deck for each player. You draw a few cards for each hero. Then you follow the instructions on the villain setup.
The game then proceeds like this: the villain plays a card and follows instructions, the heroes play a card, play an effect of one of their cards in play (a power), and take a card. Then play a card from the location deck. Rinse. Repeat. Prepare for bitter defeat.
This game is hard, or i’m not very good yet. Probably a bit of both.
Oh and the best bit, every review bangs on about the ‘thematic’ element of the game. And they’re right, but its not the art or the comic book style quotes. Its the way the cards work.
The first game i played we were against the big evil sentient weapons factory. The card simply says that at the start of the villain turn flip the card. Ok you think, a bit odd. On the reverse is a new description where the weapons factory turns into a big robot. Next turn it goes back to a factory, but at the end of turn randomly brings back into play a drone from its discard deck. I was confused. Then like a moment of divine realisation the game spoke to me.
So the robot rampages for a but, then transforms (cue retro sound effects around the table – just me?) and then becomes a factory, repairing its damaged minions and pumping them back out to the battlefield before turning back to a rampaging robot. Who doesn’t love that?
And this is the beauty of the game, the cards are so well thought out, their effects and the way you play them bring this game to life. Oh its so good.
My scepticism has gone, now where are those expansions….
I picked this game up on a whim, after hearing so many different critics laud it. I had been wanting a good cooperative game for a while, because there are only so many times you can stop infectious diseases and escape sinking islands. It came down to purchasing Sentinels or Legendary–and not to knock Legendary, as I haven’t played it yet, but I am SO glad I bought Sentinels of the Multiverse.
Mechanically, ths game is sublime. I wasn’t sure how all the characters were going to interact with one another, but in just the first game my friends and I had as much fun beating up on the villain as we did figuring out how all of our heroes worked. It is a giant gold star on this game that each character, both villain and hero, have different mechanics and play styles. It not only makes it a challenge to play your character optimally, but brings about unique situations of certain characters finding that perfect kink in the villain’s armor, all becuse of a few powers you have that fit so well against the oppressing forces.
Give it up to Greater Than Games, too, for paying attention to details. From the stylized art, to the flavour text (with issue numbers!), to the sheer fact they’ve created an entire world, not just a vague set of characters with paint on them. Tachyon not only plays differetly than Haka, they FEEL different. They feel vibrant and intense, and that theming is beyond beyond.
If I had one gripe, one little grievance, it would be this: I’m glad I picked it up when the Enhanced Edition was available, because the deck dividers are gorgeous and perfect. But the box inlay itself can be a little unfortunate at times. Thankfully I have tiny ziploc bags to put the different HP chips and status effect bars in, because otherwise it’d be chaos in that box. The foam blocks don’t keep things in line as much as I’d like to, and while I don’t have to move the box at weird angles a lot, when I’m transporting it to friends’ houses for game nights, some of the cards tend to become…entropic, to say the least. I know there’s only so much you can do with a box inlay with an ever-increasing set of cards, but it can get a little bothersome.
But seriously, that’s my only issue with the entire game, and that’s such a negligible thing to me. I have seen far worse box inlays, and it doesn’t affect the way I play the game.
In short? Buy this game. Whether you like superheroes or not, BUY THIS GAME. It has a great, variable skill level, so anyone from your best gaming friend to your parents can understand this game without more than a few rounds of teaching. We taught ourselves in one round, and were playing fluidly by the end.
This game I bought for my wife and I to play- mainly because its a co-op game. Most co-op games we have or have played aren’t quite like this one. Sentinels of the Multiverse is an actual co-op game where you have to play out attacks, maybe the villain has taken away a few hit points and one of the heroes has a group heal, or that crazy doomsday device is in play and you want to destroy it before it destroys you! First off the game says 2-5 players. From our experience, in a two player game both players should try taking two heroes each for a total of four heroes. With our first game we both lost our hero after the third turn and where trying to figure out where we went wrong. We just finished saving the day and defeating the villain with 4 heroes in play. Granted there is a bit much to remember with all the cards in play but overall we both really enjoy this game.
It is a card game where you start out drawing 4 cards from your hero deck and able to play one card a turn (unless a card says otherwise) then you can use a power (which is labeled on some of your cards as “power”) then you can draw 1 card and thats a turn. Villains and environment have similar turns but the villain always starts first and the environment ends the game round. The game ends if the villain is defeated OR if ALL the heroes are incapacitated. Heroes are incapacitated by loosing all their HP (hit points) which is labeled on each hero card, once a heroes HP is = or <0 then they loose all their cards in play and the player flips over their heroes 'stat' card. The stat card will give each hero 3 different things they can do a turn, but only choose one of those options a turn. Think of it in 'real comic book life' the hero has been beaten up pretty bad but is still able to defend him/herself, all the while the other hero(es) are fighting as hard as they can to defeat the villain.
Overall:
1. If you like comics you should enjoy this game, the artwork puts you in the comics, the font is the typical comic book font, each card is very animated and the villains and environments are just too cool and even funny at time to draw a card and read the outcome.
2. If you like co-op games, you should love this game
3. If your looking for a simple but challenging game you should enjoy this game
Sentinels of the Multiverse has been repackaged and it now stores the cards easily in the box. (I even placed plastic protectors on all of my cards and they still fit in the box.) The box art has been updated, as well as some of the card art. The updated games also includes color card separators which makes it easy to find your superhero, supervillain, and environment easily.
Also with the updates comes cardboard chits which you can place on a card so that you can easily see that it takes “+1 damage” or “does +1 damage.” This was a great and much needed addition to the game.
The base game is very easy to teach and was correctly reviewed by Jared. With each expansion additional complexity has been added, making the game increasingly challenging. The updated rules has a great chart that rates the heroes, and villains. They are rated on a scale with 1 being the easiest and 4 being the current hardest.
Everyone I have shown the game has enjoyed playing. I start with a basic easy set of characters (the characters rated a one), and if they would like to play with added complexity we play with the rook city expansion or Infernal relics. The 39.95 usd price I think is very reasonable when you think about the number of cards that are included.
The game is great fun, and can be played by all levels of players.