Campaign Game Non-Recommendations

0:09 Some viewers may find the following video disturbing. Viewer discretion is advised.

0:14 Hey everyone, welcome back to Board Games Unlocked. And today I'm doing another grid video. Uh, this one is going to be specifically for campaign game nonrecommendations. Uh, I really couldn't think of an antonym for recommendations. Uh, so not the cleanest of titles. However, if you're wondering what is this? Well, um I don't know how long it's been. Maybe a month or so ago, I did a video where I did campaign game recommendations where I I took every campaign game that I've played and I categorized them based off of certain criteria. Best my favorite campaign game, best storytelling, best world, you know, things like that. So, if you want to go watch that, then you can definitely go find the video. Um, but this time I'm going to be doing because not all campaign games are created equal. Um, and I'm certainly known for either not finishing campaign games or sticking it out and then not liking them. Uh, because I do a lot of series on my channel and I don't have enough time to stick it out for really bad campaign games. Um, but there's also campaign games that I like that might have something about them I don't like.

1:29 So, a lot of the games that you see that you see I was going to say saw and see in the last video uh are still considered here. Now, will they be put into these categories? Probably not. Uh, but you never know. And I've also included others that weren't considered for the other video because I don't like them. So, why would I? I mean, yes, I guess the opposite could be true in that I didn't like this game, but it could have had a really good story. Uh, but in this case, I've come up with more categories. We're going to start at the bottom and go to the top. And that is uh we're going to go with worst company. I have a few options for that one. I almost had a shorefire one. I I pretty much know what I'm putting in that one. That's why it's here. Worst single mechanism. And that is what is one thing in one of these campaign games that I absolutely despise. Worst campaign structure, so how the overall campaign actually goes.

2:32 Worst items, and some of these are just going to be the complete opposite of what was in the last video. So I had best items in the last one. So I have worst items, longest game. So, whichever one of these is just insanely long, overly long that doesn't actually justify its length. Worst theme uh game that I just don't like the theme. Uh a game no one should play, which that one's going to be kind of difficult. Least favorite art design. Worst character build. So, which one has, if you're not familiar with character builds, it's how you actually build your player character and you know the sheer amount of options for that. Worst overworld, so which uh you know just the the actual world that you're in. Worst combat. Uh worst storytelling, worst beginner game. So that's a game that I would just never recommend for anyone jumping into a campaign game. The least affordable. And then my least favorite campaign game. I have 50 campaign games, which is kind of insane uh to choose from. I think whenever I originally had the pictures here, we had um uh I had 51, but I don't know where where one of them went. So maybe it was a duplicate. Uh anyway, and the real question is before I actually go into categorizing these, why why do this video? Well, I've always held the belief that if you're going to praise something

4:05 and tell people, especially in current economic times, hey, here's something you should spend your money on. If you if you like what I like, here's what I'm recommending. Go spend hundreds of dollars. I believe the opposite needs to be true in that I need to tell you what I don't like or what I don't suggest to save you hundreds of dollars. That's, you know, if you're going to buy one game, uh, then don't buy this one. And these categor categories are meant to kind of isolate one particular game where it's like, hey, this game could have, you know, the best items and the best storytelling, but its combat kind of sucks. then that might be something that appeals to you in that you really really like combat. So you might not enjoy this one because you don't like the combat. I mean a good example, not for me personally, but I've heard many people don't like the combat in Oathworn.

5:01 Okay, they've liked the storytelling and they like the world, but they don't like the combat. Well, that's a big part of the game. So if you don't like the main mechanisms, then you're not really going to enjoy the whole campaign. Anyway, all that being said, I'm gonna try because on the last video I I made it was one game per category. So even though there are many games here that I could put in multiple categories, uh I am going to try to do that here. Um okay. And if you're wondering if you're if you're watching this and you watch the last one, I don't on the last one I had best horror, best fantasy, best sci-fi. Um, I don't have that here because I don't really there's not enough of a sample size to say this was the worst horror campaign game I've ever played or the worst sci-fi. Um, so I try to come up with more unique ones. Uh, okay. I think that's it. So, let's go ahead and get started with worst company.

6:02 Now, there are actually quite a few options here. Um, and clearly I need to say this, this is all subjective and could be just based off personal experience with the company. It was funny enough almost KDM. It was almost uh Adam Poots uh his company, but that was that was rectified. Long story short, uh I I sold my pledge for all the new stuff a while back and uh I didn't realize there was a shipping cost on one of the expansions, but I emailed them and was like, "Hey, you know, I sold my pledge a while back, but the guy, he hasn't received the new expansion." and they the whoever was their help desk guy needs to work on his customer service because he was like um it's actually you're not allowed to sell your pledge uh officially uh under Adam Poots which is our CEO uh so there's nothing we can do about that that's the I mean it was a longer more professionally put way but it was essentially hey you sold your pledge we don't allow that uh so there's nothing we can do I was pissed and luckily I know Adam Poots. I mean, personally, I barely I've I've spoken to him multiple times, but I was like, "Oh, hell no." So, I emailed him and I was like, "Hey, what the hell is that?" Cuz I was not happy. I was like, "Okay, so Adam Poots is the new Sony where I guess we don't own our stuff." Um, but it all got rectified. Uh, and

7:33 long long and short is I'm getting the stuff now sent to me and I'll just ship it to the guy I sold it to. Uh, but so that that was resolved and me and Adam were talking. He's like, "Yeah, I think it was just miscommunication in tone." So, not going to be KDM who it's actually going to be and this is just 100% like my first thought immediately went to Destiny's for Lucky Duck because they're incredibly late on a lot of their stuff. I think that uh they use too much app integration and this is for someone who actually loves uh apps in board games. Um but and this has nothing to do with the games that they make necessarily, but the one I chose, the reason why there's a worst company here is this is going to go with Star Realms Rise of Empire. And this is Wise Wizard Games. it is, you know.

8:24 Well, I could put Mythic Games here for Solomon Kane or actually I think that might be their only campaign game, but Mythic Mythic Games is 100% a terrible company. However, they're not really a company anymore. Um, I think all their stuff has been liquidated, picked up by a bunch of other people. So, yes, Mythic Games could easily be here for Six Siege for I mean, technically Solomon Kane and everything else got delivered except for I think hell uh didn't, but that was picked up. So, if someone said Mythic Games is by far the worst, I could easily understand that. However, Wise Wizard Games is still technically a company. And first of all, Star Realms uh Rise of Empire is a terrible campaign. It was horrible. It was clearly a cash grab. Uh that's all they've been doing is with star is pumping out Star Realms. And the only reason they're doing that is so that they can pay back pay for other stuff.

9:24 Hero Realms Dungeons nowhere to be seen. And they keep putting out these probably AI generated uh nothing burger emails of hey we're still play testing. We're still working. where I mean they've been a little bit more transparent of hey we're really struggling with funds but if you're a well-managed company you don't struggle with funds there are smaller companies than Wise Wizard who were hit by tariffs and figured it out and yeah some of them went in and said hey if you want to donate you can and we'll we'll throw in something to give you uh to pay for tariffs obviously the tariff situation got better uh But there wise wizard was mismanaged from the start and they have just been inking out since uh since this. So not necessarily with Star Realms Rise of the Empire uh specifically even though again it's a horrible uh campaign. Wise Wizard Games is probably in my opinion the worst company that is on this this particular campaign game list. Now, you might be wondering, why is that even here for campaign game non-recommendations? Well, um, I needed to come up with something.

10:41 And Star Realms was a campaign. And basically, just don't support Wise Wizard games because you're not going to get your anyway. Okay. Worst single mechanism. Now, this one's hard because I need to think of something in one of these games that I'm not going to use in another category. I might have to come back to single mechanism. Actually, no. I I do know I I just saw a game that I just absolutely hated. Not sorry, I didn't hate the game. I start I started to hate it. Uh let's see. I mean, Kingdoms Flororn's Delve mechanism um wasn't terrible like with its with its uh token like you didn't ever really explore. You just went north, south, east, or west just to get a colored token. That's pretty terrible.

11:35 Technically, that's being worked on for wave two. Um, let's see. Didn't Yeah, I didn't really mind anything in Story Fold. Sleeping Gods. I can't really think of anything. I could kind of see someone arguing Oath Sworn's uh weapon durability where things just your weapons kind of break and you have to hopefully draw one that fits your character for the next level. Um but I think I'm going to go with Time Stories. I think Time Stories with its uh redo system, the time system funny enough in the game. I think that is probably the worst implementation of that idea than any game in this uh category.

12:26 And if you're not familiar, Time Stories, while technically not a pure campaign, it was you essentially had uh different boxes that you played in and they were isolated. So, nothing really carried over, but it was an overarching story between all of them. It just didn't have like any kind of progression. Um, I'm still going to put it here because it has a campaign game kind of feel. Uh, and the problem with Time Stories was the fact that you had certain time, a certain amount of time to do each run. So you you jump into a setting and then you'd have to investigate cards and that would take a certain amount of time that would take down and if you ran out uh all the way to zero, you were supposed to reset the whole box and you would learn what not to do. Oh, okay.

13:20 Talking to this person didn't give us anything. It just wasted time. Going over here using this item didn't do anything. Waste of time. So you get better each run, so you save on more time. But the fact is, you could be an hour, hour and a half in, run out of time, and have to redo it all. Hey, instead of an hour and a half, now you have to spend 45 minutes. It's it's it was a terrible uh system. Absolutely hated it. And I'm pretty sure that was a system that just no one was actually doing. So that's an easy enough one for worst single mechanism. Worst campaign structure. Now, what I mean by that one again is how the campaign is structured in okay, how many playthroughs of something do you have to do? What what's the progression level?

14:05 How many uh phases are there? And oh man, which one did I just find to comp to be completely unbearable? Um, funny enough, the open sandbox ones I'm not super thrilled on. And this is this feels just kind of like an age thing where I like campaigns to be isolated where it's okay. I can pick up and put down, you know, in a relatively short amount of time or I actually No, I know what. Okay, let me just check. Not going to go there. Not going to go there.

14:53 I think I figured it out. Yep. Uh, and it's not going to go in any of these other ones. Yep. I think what I'm going to do is put Kingdoms Forlorn here. I have a stupid picture there. Couldn't find a better one. Uh, Google images really has let me down lately. Anyway, uh, Kingdom's Flororn as it is right now is an unbearable campaign structure. Uh, and the reason for that is because it's broken up into tiers. Uh, and that's kind of like your difficulty level. Um, but the problem is it's structured in that you pick a knight. Uh, so which is a playable character. Every person is playing a particular knight and they have their own story book. Um, [snorts] and that part's awesome, but only one night is going on a quest and everyone else is just kind of t-posing background characters. So, you're only progressing one night's story.

15:56 And it's not even that. Okay, we did their knight, so now we have to now we'll pick a different knight, and that'll go on to the next tier. No, you have to basically do a main quest and then three side quests. and well while well while everyone else who is not the main quest person is the side quest person. Uh so everyone's kind of getting something but you're stuck in the same tier for four essentially plays before you can move on to the next one. And besides all that it has terrible items or the items themselves are cool but there's such a lack of items that after your first run in a tier you've seen it all. Um, and so then you pick a person's quest and then you go into one of two kingdoms that you have. So you see the exact same thing. I mentioned the delve system. The delve system is incredibly long and boring. And it's that's broken up into two phases of okay, we have a mid mid uh like you do the delve, then you have a fight uh which is kind of like a quick skirmish. Typically, it's a mob fight and then you do another run still in the same kind of delve and then you do a big fight. Um, and that takes hours at least like four to six hours to do one person's quest and then you rinse and repeat. And so, while the kingdoms you go into are interesting,

17:27 you're not exploring them. And if you are exploring them, if you come across a location that you've seen before, well, you've seen the codeex, you've already read it because you're the same knights. So, and everyone can jump in and be like, "Okay, we'll all search to see if any of us know something here." Uh, and the the delve system is horribly boring. So, even while the the writing is really good and the combat is really good, the actual structure of this campaign is unbearable. And I've done a video talking about their updates that they're going to do for wave two. Uh, and all that looks incredibly promising. It's the reason why I still have Kingdoms Flororn in my uh collection. But other than that, it's we we had to stop. We were make getting nowhere and it was just such a pain.

18:24 Okay, worst items. Well, let's see. You might be wondering why I have near and far on here. That's because uh technically it could be played as a campaign. It's literally just play 10 games. I mean, near and far could also go into worse campaign structure. Um but at least those games are short. Okay. So, worst items. Um, what do I want to put for worst items? That's an interesting one because most of these games actually have some decent items. Some of them don't even have items.

19:14 Um uh I kind of do where do I want to put that? Cuz that one is definitely going to be be in here. Um Diggerville doesn't have items. Sleeping Gods has items. Those they're kind of off to the side. Solomon Kane. Um, that one could be there. Element Kane I also thought for worse single mechanism, but that's kind of like the whole game. Let's see. I'm very curious what you guys are put I have I have a an idea but I'm wondering if I want to put that somewhere else because Bloodborne has the trick weapons which are just the best design in a video game ever.

20:20 Uh, oh, Sworn's items, you know. Because I can't think of one that that immediately stands out to me. I might actually put Osworn there. Now, I love Osorn and actually its weapon durability system doesn't bug me as much as it does others, but I think for the fact that you can't get attached to items and the weapons themselves, I mean, because you can get armor, you can get, you know, weapons of course, and the the items you just never get attached to. And it's a system that I don't like in video games because you get these special weapons and then you never want to use them because they're always going to break. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild does has that problem. Um, but Osw, oh man, I finally got this weapon that is perfect for the character that I'm using. And then, well, I took an injury. So, uh, not only do we have to discard an item because I went down, I have to discard another item. and we can only draw so many cards for the next chapter and wow, they were all bows and my character can only use two-handed weapons, things like that. So then you just go into the next fight with nothing. I mean, there are ways to kind of mitigate that. However, since you only get so many items, and actually sometimes there might be a weapon or an item that is good for multiple people, but only one person can equip it. It I

21:52 mean that could go in kind of worst character builds, but I actually have a game in mind for that one. So, the weapon durability that hasounded more uh like other players that I've heard more than myself, I still think this is a good one for the fact that you just don't even really get the option to use and get attached to an item. So, that's what I'm going to put for worst items. Longest game. H. Now, I'm not opposed to uh a long campaign game as long as it's good pretty much the entire way through. Uh but I think now this could also be there might be games in here. I guess I should retitle this. Uh because there might be technically I would put probably Aon's End there because that's probably the longest game that I have here.

22:56 But I think that's good all the way through. So it's more of a matter of is this game's length is it paired well with how good the game is? And um let me check. Let worse theme. That one's going to be interesting. Game no one should play. That was pretty harsh. Technically I should put Star Realms Rise of the Empire. I should have put companies in here. Uh I guess I could put Star Realms somewhere else because this is not technically the the campaign uh the game itself, but the company. I might do that at worst overworld, worst combat, worst storytelling. Now, I might know what's going in all of those, but let's see. I think for longest game I am going to put

23:59 yeah I think I'll put seventh continent and slash7th citadel there. They're pretty much the same game. I would say Seventh Citadel or Seventh Continent is longer. And these games just for some reason just did not work for me. And they should in every way. They just are inc I've shown this to so many people, Citadel and Continent, and they just have fallen flat every single time. Something about it just does not captivate you. at least it or captivate me. Uh the problem with continent specifically is you pick a curse and that's kind of like your campaign structure and you it gives you some idea of what direction to go. But if you want to do any type of exploring, there is nothing designed to keep you in like in the same vicinity. So if it tells you to go north and you're like, "Oh, okay. Well, I kind of want to go west." Well, you can and you can keep going west and you can get lost and then not really know how to get back to where you actually need to go. So, it's painfully long. The you're living in that box of cards nonstop. So, you can

25:29 never fully digest what you're actually in. Um, or at least for me, I could not get immersed into it. So, the curses can just run insanely long, and there's even times where you can finally get to a destination and not have what you need and have no idea what you actually need or how to get it. Uh, so then you have to do a lot of backtracking, and the actual feel of the game just does not allow for any type of fun really. And Citadel does a better job of doing that because it actually has a story book. And the way that's structured is if you want to go if you're told to go north and you go west, well, you can do that. It just gets harder and harder to do so.

26:16 So, it kind of keeps you in a lane. Um, but then the problem with that one is, okay, well then I can only go from point A to point B. So it was kind of okay, no rails at all, but then they overcorrected and now it's too too many rails. So while it's not the longest game on here, it is still long. Uh the game play just does not justify its length and therefore I just don't really recommend it if you want a long campaign game. Now, worst theme. This could be a theme that I just don't enjoy. Um, that could be a solid one.

27:01 Oh, that could also go there. I might h I do enjoy a lot of these themes here. So, I think for my options of worst theme is is this technically Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to put Clank Legacy. Uh, I'm not the biggest fan of Clank in general. Uh, Clank Catacombs with its expansions is actually uh is actually fun. That's the version I still own, but Base Clank I've never liked. And Clank Legacy jumps in and basically takes Base Clank and just ramps it up to be more base Clank. Uh, however, they popped in this business kind of theme where you're working for a company and then there's a rival company they're going up against and uh they're related. So, they start off being cheeky with with the business theme that it it it starts off as charming, but then it basically completely abandons uh that and it turns into I guess small spoilers, but turns into something radically different that I it was it was the jumping the shark moment. I could have probably went with it if they really were tongue-in-cheek with the business corporation model, but they just kind of ran out of jokes in

28:34 the first game [snorts] and then had nothing else to do. Uh on top of the fact that I mean all of Clank is is you're meant to be treasure hunters, competing treasure hunters, and that's not really the case because obviously this is cooperative. So the theming of Clank I've never been super into anyway. and then you tack on this hamfisted business uh corporation model that I just also did not like. So the writing and the the theming that they threw in or Clank Legacy just did not do it for me at all. So I'm going to put Clank Legacy as worst theme. Now a game no one should play. Um longest game could have been Hapamoka's Victori. that technically has an expansion that a relatively cheap expansion you can get. Uh, okay.

29:30 Well, I have a few options for a game no one should play and it does have and some of them do have some, you know, some merits for it. Okay, let me just check. Worst combat, worst storytelling, worst game. That one's a good one. Least affordable. I know what's going there in my least favorite game. H. Okay, I think I know what's going in all of these. Let's see. A game no one should play. I might cheat here and put a game that I've already picked on here.

30:17 Uh cuz I could I could justify almost every one of these. I can see why someone would like it actually. Okay, I want to put Rise of Empires in here cuz this is technically Wise Wizard games, not Rise of Empire. I kind of want to put Rise of Empires in the game no one should play because it's terrible. And that's kind of what I'm picking here. Even though my least favorite game, um I know it's probably going to go there. The other one I thought of would kind of be a hot take because I know a lot of people like it and it baffles me that they do.

31:15 Um, okay. I'm not going to do Rise of Empires, even though that's the one that should actually go here. No one should play Rise of Empires. It is a terrible legacy campaign game where I'm just going to talk about it because I want to put it there, but I'm going to put something else. Uh, you play I think it's 10 games of Star Realms and it gets tiring almost immediately. The legacy elements of it run out. Legitimately, you run out of things to do legacy components for. And the components for the legacy element are just so boring. There's nothing interesting about it. So, it's basically play 10 games of Star Realms. It's terrible. and then the end of the campaign is horribly put together. [snorts] So, that's what should go there. But, I'm going to do one game per per section. And for a game that I think no one should play, I'm putting Destiny's.

32:19 I despise Destiny's. Um, and the biggest thing is is it had it's a competitive game uh where everyone has like the secret personal goal that they're trying to achieve throughout the story, but like with Lucky Duck that I could have put in worse company. Um, it is so appd driven that I promise you, you don't ever touch your own stuff, especially in solo. If you play it solo, you set up the game, and mind you, this is a board game. You set up the game, and everything is done in the app. Everything. And I have games, campaign games that use an app more for more for than just the narration purposes. Um, and they've never been distracting. Um, hell, even Descent Legends of the Dark had more had a lot of app integration, but you still interacted with the the map and the pieces. Uh, and Destiny's is just ran in such a way, and I've heard this from other people as well, that it's like, oh, I've been on my iPad. I've been an iPad child this entire time. I forgot I was even playing a board game.

33:40 I think the writing is incredibly dull. Uh the the one thing about this game that I hate that was in uh the Fallout board game is because people are competing. You can Oh, I know what was what was here. What what I'm missing here. Um that could also go here, but it's funny enough. It's another Lucky Duck game. I know what I'm I I'll need to add a uh uh a game here, but it's not it's not here. Um anyway, sorry I got distracted. Uh so you can unlock quests as you're exploring the map. You can unlock quests and they the quest objective is like on the other side of the map. Other players can complete that quest and get the rewards for it. I hate that. Uh it's it's bad enough when it's in a cooperative game, but it's not as upsetting because, hey, we're trying to do all this together. So, you can kind of somehow in your head say, well, I called them or I wrote a letter or whatever it might be to let them know, hey, I talked to the old lady. She says her son was missing in the the the valley to the west. Oh, well, I'm already over here. Yeah, I'll go I'll go look for him. In this game, it's, "Hey, I talked to the old lady. She uh she told me about her son missing in the west." And then someone's already over there and they're like, "Oh, cool. I'm gonna complete this objective and just steal the rewards."

35:12 I hate it. So, for the fact that it's way too app integrated, it's expensive, and the competitive nature of this game just does not do it for me. [snorts] I have never been I don't get it. I'm almost positive that the the other YouTube channels who were praising this game and still do so, they must have, you know, a bank account that Lucky Duck just kind of funnels in every time that they mention how good this game is. Uh, that's my conspiracy theory because I just found that there was nothing really redeemable about Destiny's. So, um, while I am see where's this going to pop up? Okay. Yeah. So, now least favorite art design.

36:03 Uh, hold on. I need to find a picture um uh for the game that I am missing because it's definitely going to go on one of these categories. And it makes sense now that uh where is it that I that that's why that's one of the cards uh games I'm missing. Okay. Save image and we'll put that there. We'll do something. Okay. Anyway, least favorite art design. Um that one's I mean that one's going to be more subjective than any of them. Uh, let's see. I like the art. I mean, Madara's art design is as anime and fanervicey as you can get.

36:55 Um, do like KDM. It doesn't It doesn't necessarily have that much art. Uh, Vagrant Song. I love that rubber band or rubber hose art style. Uh, could put Dragon Eclipse here because it might be AI art. Uh, Lands of Galier. I like, huh? Least favorite art design? That one's That one's hard because I've never really went into one of a a campaign game and and on its art. Um, cuz that's the problem is I like Dragon Eclipse's art. I just don't know if it's actually an artist who did it because I'm not going to sit here and defend Awakened Realms because they because I I just don't know. I just don't know how much art that they actually put into um into the game.

37:57 Like Arkham Horror's art. I like Familiar Tales's art. I like Stalker's art and trespasses, of course. Amazing. Um, Vantage, the whole game is about its art, which is gorgeous. Man, this one's kind of difficult. Uh, I think I And of course, Ryan Lockett's art is great. Hm. You know, I think I think I'll put in Earthborn Rangers. No, I can't. I can't because it it is actually good. Like I was saying I was thinking the character models, but uh but then the actual set pieces of your going like when you're looking at stuff and it is actually good.

38:53 Um, this one might be a cough out location because I can't imagine most people are going to be choosing a campaign game only for its art, but I did have best art design in the last video. So, that's kind of why I have it here, you know. Let's, you know, let's Am I going to put this in anywhere else?

39:25 H I think man this one's difficult. I uh you know I'll put Hoplamas Victorium here. And this one I'll be fair this is kind of a copout category. Um, it's not that necessarily I find this art to be bad. Uh, actually, for the most part, I think board game artists uh are really good. Uh, there's not I don't even think I can make a top 10 worst art board games. Uh, I just find this one to be kind of bland. I think the setting is beige. The the map itself is you can't even really see the lines compare uh connecting location to location. Uh the art on the the chips, while looks um better than what it used to, still not amazing, it's a little bit more realistic, I guess, and I'm not super into that. Um I'm really uh really trying here because every every other game here, I genuinely enjoy all of its art. Now again, if someone could definitively tell me every single piece of art we're seeing in Dragon Eclipse or Lands of Evershade is 100% AI instead of generative AI and then they get a artist to come in and refine it, then put any Awaken Realms game in this spot because it's not even their art.

40:54 They just, hey, make me a mystical lightning dragon and gener spits it out and okay, hey, we're going to print that. To my knowledge, Awaken Realms doesn't do that. Uh, but if they do, I'm not going to sit here and defend him. So, until then, uh, I'll put Hoplam as Victorian. Worst character builds. That's 100% going to primal. Now, Primal could go could go into uh another category. Um, but I hate Primal's character builds and that's mainly because I played this as a campaign which otherw I mean you can't play Primal as a one shot and then it probably wouldn't go in here but as a campaign you're so restricted. You're restricted to one piece. I think it's one helmet, one body armor, one weapon, and three potions, and that's it. And throughout the entire campaign, when you fight different types of monsters, you will unlock a different category. So, okay, we fought the flame dragon at the beginning. That's what's available to us. Okay, now we can go fight the poison monster or the frost monster, and we fought the frost monster. So, that gives us frost as an icon. and it generally trickles into some uh resources that you can spend.

42:23 But you would essentially I mean if you find a weapon that you like, you essentially just continue to level that weapon up because you've kind of built around that. But so nothing is ever incentivizing you to ever swap your item or potions or weapon or armor. So you're stuck in the one same thing. Now you can, but then you have to kind of restructure everything. And ultimately, I found that having cuz there's cool items, but you you it's not like you get a backpack and some items are onetime use. So, you just never really want to ever equip them. So, I I just hated the fact that you can only ever have one item in your in your build altogether and then just three potions.

43:14 And that's mainly it. I I throughout a campaign where you're so restrictive, you there's just no room for creativity. now to defend Primal. And this has actually been kind of an idea cuz I don't own the game anymore, but I kind of want to pick it up again because I I think anyone who has been praising Primal has only played it as a oneshot. And for that, I can see them being super fun cuz it's a boss battler. And I have kind of come around saying that boss battlers work best as one shots. So that actually gives you some room for creativity. you can try this different weapon with this different item with these different potions and this different deck build with this different character and if it sucks, who cares? It you you lost against the boss, you fight it again and try and tweak your build.

44:07 Uh so it probably would not be here if it was considered a one-shot game. It wouldn't even be on the list. But as a campaign, I think it's horribly done. So that's where I'm going to put for uh worst character builds. worst overworld. Um, cuz I know, like I said, I know where I'm going to put worst overworld. So, like the overworld that Okay, I already know it's Do I Do I Now I actually have a few options now that I think about it. Uh, Arkham's amazing. Familiar Tales is charming. Stalker. Stalker is not great for its overworld. It is essentially I think you go on six missions in a campaign. Um, and the overworld is literally just a stalkers might actually be it cuz really it's just cuz I know I went in worse theme and overworld is the world you're in.

45:22 The stalkers doesn't really do it justice. It literally tries to do some storytelling throughout its missions, but really you just have a map that you put some stickers on and then cross them out. It's kind of done in a in a bad way. So, Stalker might be it. Dante that I was originally gonna pick is horribly done as well because it tried to do the Seventh Continent uh style or or Tainted Grail style exploration, but every single every single section you went to would just have you move to a card and then it would read this nonsense and then it would just tell you, "Hey, move to the next card. Uh, but you're in hell pretty much with Greek gods because that's probably the only uh IP that's open source and it was not compelling at all.

46:30 But I think overworld I think I am going to put stalker there. I think it's overall vibe just does not come through. the missions. Uh, while the gameplay of Stalker is actually pretty fun, something about Stalker was once we were done with the campaign, I had no interest in ever going back. Even though there are campaign games that are technically very linear, Osworn, for example, is very linear. Uh, but the world and writing and gameplay is just so good, I would easily replay it. But Stalker, once we were done, I no interest in I sold it. Actually, I traded it for a full full collection of Unmatched and never looked back. Just something about it didn't drive me to ever go into the locations that you can visit are just quick blurbs of nothing there. So, you just kind of, okay, we went and visited a gun shop and got to pick a gun. Uh, and then you had these locations or not locations, these NPCs you could talk to. that just really it just didn't feel like a fleshed out world. It felt generic post-apoc nuclear apocalypse uh with some monsters and then you really you were just kind of it should have just been a mission based thing.

47:50 Hey, here's a book of missions. Pick the mission. Don't do this campaign sticker stuff. But they did that and I just never felt that it was overall great. Worst combat. Oh man. Okay. Worst combat. So, some of these games just aren't going to qualify because there's no fighting in Cozy Stickerville. Um, there's no fighting. I mean, Solomon Kane's combat is weird. When you are in combat, he has the four virtues that are helping him out, but so it's really just all in his head when you're when you're doing combat.

48:44 So, that's not great. Divinity: Original Sins combat is somewhat creative, but it just kind of the game starts out super super difficult and then goes into insanely OP, so there's no balance. Hell, even Divinity could have been in worst campaign structure. Love the combat in Dragon Eclipse. Love the combat in Fate Forge. Love the combat in Kingdom For even though it's already on here. Stars of Aario's combat is basically X-wing, which is good. Um, do I want to put Odel in here's combat was? I mean, no, because the card system is fine with its dual dual layered kind of top and bottom effect.

49:37 Uh, role players combat is technically just a dice puzzle. I think for worst combat want to put that game there or do I want to put it somewhere else? It's not going to go in worst storytelling. Worst beginner game. No, I Yeah. Okay. I actually will put Solomon Kane, which might not even be a valid pick because it might not even be possible to to uh folklor's combat is also really bad because it's so skewed and unbalanced against you where when you're fighting an enemy, they they have like a 70% chance to hit you and you have a 30% chance to hit them back. Uh, so the dice are just it just not in your favor at all and there's not really any way to mitigate it. But I think I am going to put Solomon Kane's uh has has really terrible combat. One, it's done by Mythic Games where they just did they never ironed out their rules. So you might have just had complete uh you know omitted rules or misprints where they always had to do kind of an arrat pack

51:07 which back in the day with mythic games they would do for free uh you know back whenever they were a good company but the fact and this kind of goes with Solomon Kane overall the writing is pretty good uh and the the narrative choices you can make is is nice but the problem is is no Someone controlled Solomon Cain. You controlled the virtues, justice and patience and whatever they were. I don't remember. But the problem was, so you had these dice that you had to use. You had to get specific icons to be able to get him to do anything. So thematically, he was just always at odds with himself. if he needed to go if he had to move just two spaces, you had you had to roll all these dice just to get him to do that.

51:59 So, I think it would have just been cooler if this was a solo game. And the combat with the the enemies was just convoluted. They had all these different steps that just you had to live in a rule book or an icon iconography sheet to understand what they were ever really doing. Um, and whenever he took damage, you had to roll dice to again try to prevent that damage or to heal him. So neat idea, but in execution ultimately just made the combat very uh just very convoluted. I just never really got into it. So I think they I mean there is a game that I think has worse combat but I want to put it somewhere else and that is going to be uh there. So worst combat I will put as Solomon Kane.

52:55 Now worst storytelling. This is a game that I missed uh whenever I was originally making making the list. Now I just need to find it. Boom. There it is right there. No, not my least favorite game, although it could go there. Dark Corridor was atrocious. Uh, but it's that's easily the worst storytelling. Let me double check. Um, no, no, no, no, no. Uh, nope. I don't think so. I mean, Stars of Aarios was just kind of generic a little bit. Uh, Gloom Haven's not necessarily known for its storytelling, but I like it enough. Uh, storyfold storytelling was really good. Grails is amazing. Um, yeah. Yep. Dark quarter.

53:44 Uh, horrible, horrible writing. Um, came off as some edgy pre-teen trying to write um, just cringe excessive dialogue. It it was there were moments in this where it felt like a a teenager first learning how to cuss and swear and it just does not fit. But this was written not by a teenager and by a full-g grown adult that this must have been their first foray into it. Uh, which was a shame because this is also a Lucky Duck game and they had Van Ryder uh coming in from Final Girl doing the writing. Well, upon doing the uh the gruesome deaths in Final Girl where if someone, you know, NPC dies, you know, one of the little meeples or the, you know, the final girl or the the villain whenever they die, depending on how it happens, you can go into a gruesome death book and read it.

54:54 The more I read some of those, the more I should have known that the writing for this was going to be bad. And the the shame of it is it's a really cool setting. It's this voodoo New Orleans kind of mystical setting, but the characters are just horribly written. Uh generic uh just tropes of characters. Oh man, you have a detective who's an alcoholic, but he can kind of see ghosts. Okay, that's uh that hasn't been done before. Um you have Taylor Swift, who is a vampire, part of some she left her coven. Uh and that is basically Underworld but worse. even though those underworld movies got terrible. It it's basically written like the the later Underworld uh movies, but then they had these really just horribly put jokes in there.

55:56 I it was abysmal to have to listen to this and a lot of it is story unfortunately unlike some other games where the I mean Dante Dante's Inferno uh is also terrible uh with its writing. Um that that also just made it unbearable because Foreller was actually just outright broken for it. Uh that that was a horrible experience. I hated Dante Inferno. Uh but I also hated Dark Hoarder. And Dark Hoarder is unfortunately mainly storytelling. There's very little game to it. So you're stuck in terrible writing for a majority of the game and that's why it's there.

56:43 Now, worst beginner game is actually going to go to my favorite game, if it's even on here. Do I have it on here? Am I missing it? Oh, it's right here. Yeah. Uh, A on Trespass Odyssey is easily the worst beginner game. Uh, 70 to 80 page rule book. Um, expensive to get. uh incredibly complex for a lot of its rules uh that no person coming into it, you know, incredibly long. Uh now, all that stuff is horrible for a beginner uh jumping into a campaign game that if you are not familiar with campaign games at all, then you're just going to have this would just be insanely overwhelming. Not only do they unfortunately have it broken up into the core box, which is the first three cycles, you need to find the expansions that will give you the fourth and fifth cycle that rounds out the entire experience. Now, I'm all in on Aon Trespass Odyssey.

57:57 It's, like I said, it's my favorite game. All the stuff that I just said is horrible for a beginner is all stuff that I absolutely love for this. You can go watch my campaign game recommendations where I talk more in detail or all my series on uh Aon Trespass Odyssey, but I would never tell anyone, "Hey, you've never played a campaign game before? Oh, you got to try Aon Trespass Odyssey. Uh, go spend $1,000 and study a 70 to 80 page rule book and still forget I have read that rule book so many times. I have watched Paul Grogan's uh five video series on the how to play. Every single time I take a break from Aon Trespass, I I have to constantly remind myself and I still get stuff wrong. Um so that alone is makes it worse. But yeah, it it just would be insanely overwhelming for it. So yeah, Alon Trespass Odyssey worst beginner game.

59:02 least affordable is going to be what inspired atto and that is Kingdom Death Monster. Uh out of every game that is on here, I think uh KDM is the most expensive. Now, I will say you could buy the core box and leave it at that. Uh, I am choosing KDM on the likelihood that you would buy more stuff and it dwarfs atto because I think for a on trespass odyssey you get everything at least back in the day when I bought it was 500. It was five or 600 for just the cycles.

59:46 [snorts]

59:46 Um, now I think I've spent about a,000, maybe 1,500 total, but that's also with their 12 cents of Heracles, which is not even out. Uh, KDM its core box is 400, but then you really need to get the gamblers's chest. Um, that seems to be the new must-have expansion where it basically brings KDM into a 2.0. And then the Campaigns of Death expansion, which isn't out yet, is supposed to bring all old KDM stuff into new the new version. Um, so those two alone would just be almost necessities and that would bring you to about a thousand. And then there's also about tons of other expansions that are be going to be coming in to give you more variety. Now, this is not necessarily anything that's bad. In fact, I actually I didn't like KDM for the longest time, but then with the Gamblers chest, uh I actually now really enjoy KDM. But they nickel and dime you all over the place for just miniatures that give you a card and none of this stuff you have to buy, but I would still say it dwarfs all these other games for affordability. Uh now on a one to one ratio, Odelin could probably go here because Odelin with its painted miniatures is also insanely expensive uh and actually comes with least like

1:01:18 less content than core game uh KDM, but you uh you really need to get all the expansions for it to really have a full lifestyle experience with KDM. So unfortunately, even while I think the game is good, just like I think ATO is good, uh it it is the least affordable. And now my least favorite game. What campaign game could I pick that I just would not ever touch again? And it's actually pretty easy. Uh because I mean, yes, there are games on here that I would never play again because they're more of an experience base. island and something shiny. I would never play again, but I loved the story, so it's obviously not going to go there.

1:02:11 Odelin is a contender. I really I found Odelin to be so painfully mid and just not finished. That game could be good. It has merits of being good. It just needs to be It needed more time to cook. But from what I know, uh, they had this clause with gamefound or with backers or something where if they had to give you your tracking number at a certain time period and once they did that, then they they basically just didn't design the game as much as they could have because they had this weird clause. But apparently that is they no longer have that. So hopefully their future games are just not atrocious. So Odell is up here.

1:02:58 Um, but there is one Divinity didn't like Dante. Inferno. I hate, but oh man, do I want to put Dante there? Okay, there's there's now two. Dante infuriated me for there's two campaign games that I've done series for that I quit quit doing series for. none of these. Mainly because like I said, I was actually able to put a different game in each category. But I think my least favorite game is Isoparian Guard because one Oh, so I'll give one thing. I actually like the story of Isoparian Guard. It was enough. It was the only reason I kept trying to play through it.

1:03:55 Hell, I don't even like the story for Dante Inferno, but the biggest difference is Dante Inferno was could have was like nine chapters and they were relatively short. Isafar and Guard has so many things going against it. The main thing is it is painful to play uh true blue where you're meant to walk from one node to the next and draw a token from a bag and maybe you'll get lucky and it's a and it's a compass which get puts a cube on the region you're in to have an event but more often than not it's going to be a fight and isoparian guard is grind city where you could I kid you not you can move one space and you have to travel from node to node to be able to get to where you're going to complete either a side quest uh you know a major side quest or minor or the main story.

1:04:58 So you could be on your way land on one node and have an hourong fight. Uh, you can actually have a two-hour long fight like I had because we happen to have to fight piranhas and they just keep spawning themselves and you can't even kill them because there's a croc in your way and he prevents you from attacking and he regenerates health and then by Oh, hey. Okay, we finally beat this this fight. We moved one space. We got some resources. Okay, we're going to move another space. Oh, another fight. Another hourong fight. And we have 15 nodes we have to move to before we can even get to where we need to go. And lo and behold, we got to where we're going. And it's more fighting and we're beat up. So, and we're our packs are full of resources. So, technically, you're supposed to trek all the way back to your hub area, drop those off, and do the exact same thing again. It was atrocious. so atrocious that clearly it wasn't play tested um enough that they came out with two revisions to fix the grind and they still didn't get it right because the first revision was just some quick way you can implement it with stuff right then and there um where then they they started adding NPCs cuz it's not just your guards in the hub area.

1:06:26 You have people that are helping keep up with it, NPCs essentially. You could send people out to go gather resources for you, but by the time that they because it's not just, oh, okay, they go out, then they come back. You had to wait for the story book to tell you when they they were coming back. And by the time that they came back, you could have just gone and got it yourself. uh or just better yet just say you have it. Uh then they came up with a cinematic mode that allowed you to skip combat and stuff, but then they they again that up because instead of just saying, "Hey, if you fought this before" or something, you just you can kill it uh and just kind of move on. Uh they made you fill your bag up because it's a chip bag builder. They made you fill that up with negative tokens. So by the time you do get to a fight you have to do, you're up, it they punished you for their bad game design.

1:07:30 So while I think that the combat itself is serviceable enough, you know, their skill trees and XP that you can gain to where you can go a decent number of builds for your character, although there are some characters that just are horrible uh to play until late game. Uh, so that's not really fun for anyone. I hated the the this was also almost into consideration for Overworld. But I like the world. I like the storytelling. The voice acting and the foreller stuff is amazing except for one character. She is just the most bland person I've ever listened to. Um, which again was told to me that, hey, that's how we instructed her to be. It's like, why? Why would you tell, hey, can you read this as if you don't want to be here? Um, yeah, that's what we want. Yeah. So, there was just nothing redeem. I have so many videos on ice guard uh that there's just no shot I would ever have any type of uh working relationship with uh the designers ever. Um, but I just I cannot stand the way Ice Vanguard is ran. And the combats, while they're fun, can run long and then it goes and you're just playing going through the motions. So, my least favorite campaign game, second place is Dante Inferno. Uh, but is overall Isafarian Guard because I find nothing about it to be fun except

1:09:03 the story. So, that's it. Those are my picks for campaign game nonrecommendations. Uh, I hope you enjoyed. Hope this has been helpful uh to any of you. And uh let me know what games you would have picked for these uh these categories in the campaign realm. And if you guys can come up with any other ideas of where I can use this grid system, then let me know in the comments below. Other than that, like, comment, share, and subscribe. And have a wonderful whatever time of day it is for you.