MariaBruno

I’ll tell you right away – I’m not impressed with the game. And I’m not going to explain its rules or tell you how to play it. You’ll learn about it in other reviews.

The rules are poorly written. Considering that I’m a wargamer, that means something. I had to look at them to make sure I was playing them correctly. Even after a few games, when I more or less got the hang of it, I still had to do this because of the various exceptions in the rules in certain scenarios. Thematically the game does not shine, it’s the mechanics that pull it out. In many ways Level 7 [Escape] is comparable to Gears of War. The mechanics here are themed and the game is not overloaded with all sorts of tokens. Also, Level 7 [Escape] is similar to Dundeonquest. Flip over a crayon and maybe you die, maybe you don’t. There were games where I had -1 to shields and +2 to intelligence, which means it’s best not to face monsters. But according to the rules, the more players there are, the more monsters activate before your turn, so you can’t say you’re in control. I also tried playing solo with one character, and the game seemed uninteresting and unbalanced. So, in a solo game, it is better to take 2-4 characters.

The game lacks variety. The characters seem to be the same, although the skill cards bring some variety. The monsters also seem the same. And if you move your characters correctly, the monsters will just stand there and do nothing instead of attacking you every turn (like in Space Hulk). So the game lacks tension and turns into a puzzle game.

The complaints about the game come down to this: the theme doesn’t feel good enough, the monsters and heroes look the same, and overall things aren’t very interesting.

It’s hard to win here, you’ll lose often. I’m usually indifferent to “lost to the system” situations, but here it was more of a bad dice roll rather than a loss.

Everything seems too chaotic in this game, and it distracts from the puzzle problem (which is exactly what the developers wanted us to do), and whether I won or lost, it wasn’t interesting.

Another observation is the components. Tiles are a little bent, but you can live with it. The cards are not bad quality. And the game has no miniatures, although I expected to see them. In games of this genre there are often figurines. For example, Gears of War immediately comes to mind. The miniatures make the game more thematic, which is exactly what Level 7 [Escape] lacks. I won’t even try to compare the components of this game to Space Hulk. It’s just heaven and earth.

At the very least I was expecting thematic games like Arkham Horror, where the gameplay and mechanics serve one purpose: to tell a story. The story in this game is contrived, it lacks imagination. The most positive feature of Level 7 [Escape] is the design. But while the illustrations on the tiles, cards, and tokens are very nice, they look a bit monotonous, and the palette is dominated by too dark volumes.

I haven’t definitively decided yet and will play more, but after five scenarios, I rate this game a 5.5 out of 10. I suppose this rating may change a bit, but I don’t expect any surprises.