Revive: Call of the Abyss - Expansion Review

0:00 hello everyone this is Cinema and this is Johannes and you are watching board gaming rambling and today we are taking a look at revive call of the Abyss from important games the expansion to one of our favorite games from last year now there's an expansion and hopefully it's good that's what we're going to tell you about in this video we haven't really done a lot of expansion reviews without quite a few ones because we do not play that many expansions yet we have quite a few experiences on the shelves here and there and so yeah this is not going to be like the normal review where we go to all of the components and player count and all that this is just gonna be like a review of the expansion yes obviously it makes sense it's gonna be kind of like we're gonna go through the stuff that's in the expansion and we're going to talk about them which would make sense to people who usually watch board game videos if this is your first board game video hello welcome to board games with that an expansion for a game is your first video but but if it is welcome to this weird thing just first of all one thing I want to update because people are always like asking is a game fun after a year and stuff like that we have not now gotten the privilege of playing revive more because that's like my favorite part of expansions is getting an excuse or actually taking time to play games that we like so I'm going to ask you a question before we start the review part is revive still fun yes it is I thought it was really fun to play it again after all I think it over a year no almost a

1:30 year because we put a large bill yeah and it's still super super solid it is yeah absolutely you um okay so I'm gonna ask you something now just because it's not planned I mean everything is scripted and you game Revival 9 out of ten last year yes would you stand by that rating Stand By Me Yes easily yes and I'm standing by my 10 out of 10. and you are looking for Scrolls go and check that review uh but yeah rewind all of the the embassy do not take your own reference you even had a banner which said I couldn't there's a squirrel yeah I thought you said scroll like Marvel's girl scroll there's a squirrel that's weird what are you talking about English isn't bad native mother language I'm just being saying words and I hope it makes it just a disclaimer we have been provided this copy from the publisher and we also know the designers of the game yes yes we know they yeah we don't know them anymore who are they we don't know okay so we can talk about the expansion now yes basically there is some new stuff in this uh expansion box we're gonna start by talking about it's

2:47 one out of ten there was nothing in the box and now we are going to start by talking about and four four new factions that are in a video game I'm gonna show them and you can tell me a little bit about them okay cool I've played with it so you can tell the people on the intervals a little bit about them first off we have this one called Kairos yes it is a cat and it has a night day mechanism that you're switching in between and it basically provides different abilities depending on if it's night or day so that was neat so it kind of has six different abilities instead of of three We're not gonna go this is not gonna be like a detailed review of each of these this is as deep as it goes yeah basically these four are going to give you more about the ability that's kind of the thing I'm going to talk more later about if you think it's enough for a military or if you like these factions then we have this guy or person it's actually our machine I think called astorious yes and that is kind of a mole with portals that can block range for other people but it can also make range easier for other people depending on if the portal is open or closed and it takes up three spaces on the board and what you cover up like terrain wise make you go up on the tracks which I thought was really interesting to play with because the tracks are cool when I played with another fraction afterwards I was looking for like these triangles no that is not relevant anymore that's always interesting when you played especially

4:17 the first time you play a game with a like rule breaking ability and then you go and play it again like yes all I was supposed to do this now because I don't know how to do anything anymore next up we have Cody sefiance yes looks like this kind of like a lost of us yeah that's a literature uh it can build on the same expenses and it also actually it benefits from building on the same spaces so it leeches on the others you play that one yes and we were just two players I think this is more interesting win three or four yeah I think this is a really interesting one because you kind of it felt like in the beginning I was like because we were just two I was like okay I want to wait until you build but I also want to block the good spaces but I don't get to use my ability so it's kind of hard to balance that but I I enjoy leeching on people so I like this one and I think it would be like in a four player again this would be fun fantastic well also the four new factions we have give works and that is a guy with the gadgets I don't know if it's a guy or a girl or whatever a being a being a being he wants to use they want to use the liver many times and if you get bonuses from using the gadgets you played with that one so yeah so you can basically every time you use the the lever that you can use to get a resource or copy of one of the other players played cars or a new thing and this one expansion you also can use a gadget which just gives you a one-time ability and then you flip them up again when you hibernate you start with two of them and you can get more so basically like a um

5:48 final thoughts not final thoughts but like a conclusions conclusion I was I was when I was looking for the ones that I play with the cat and the mouse mold cut in a mole and it was fun to play with yeah these are like this adding very variety I like all of that I think all of we played almost all of the factions in in this game I think we actually played all of them up to multiple times not like every single one or something else yeah and I think that is like adding more yeah it's nothing else like and that's good like it's not one about oh that is super better than everything it's just different and giving you some tweaks and twists to how you're playing a game yeah there's also like two two three two five six some things I didn't count I don't know why it started counting no there's some things there's the thing called the devotion track can you tell us a little bit about that yes it's basically a new kind of Point yeah you can get now two types of points which is better than one and devotion points are a little harder to come by yes and when you climb on the devotion points track the bonuses are pretty good yes one of them is that you can get this new type of card which is called a cyphus card and that is a colorless card so every time you play it it's actually not colors like all the colors you can choose which color it is when you play it for like the activation of the the modules and stuff and they also have pretty

7:19 um special like pretty good abilities and you can unlock I think three or four of them if you climb very hard on high on the track every time you you can draw two and choose one I really like those chords and also there's another pretty cool bonus on that devotion track yeah you can do a free populated action and it is a now big area or what is it called large location large location that is com like linked to that tractor yeah so there's five large locations now in the game four on the board and this uh other one which you can only unlock if you get there and you can do some pretty neat things win and that there's another thing in this game now it's legs it Lakes it Lakes it's like it's Lakes let's me let's hear you talk about the Lakes yes so you switch out some of the the small locations with Lakes instead and you get uh buildings for build you know a bonus for building nearby them with a small or a large building and you also collect bonuses from them when you hibernate so it's kind of like the the um water spaces which are in the game from from from the base game you get like a bonus the first time you build in adjacent to and here you can basically get a bonus two times eight you build both a small and a large building and both of those bonuses will all on all the lakes are one devotion point or three to Ocean points and there's different bonuses when you hibernate uh did you enjoy the Lakes yeah I I thought

8:50 they were fine but I I also thought that they weren't like mandatory to build uh like no no you don't have to I like that I could ignore them if I wanted to but they make range more difficult because you can't control range uh through them and also it makes the devotion points like if you're going for a strategy with many devotion points it gives you like another Outlet to get a couple few of those throughout the game another way to get devotion points is The Journey Court which is basically a new kind of a QUEST card that you can get um and basically all of them have most of them have like three different uh tires so you can never have the you need to have loot crates and if you have like two you can get two divorcements if you have three you get three and if you have four you get four and how does this work it's a new thing you can use a lever yes you can Loosely you can lose you lose the lever lose the game you use the lever and you discard one of your active cards out of the game yes and then you can take the the journey card and you can then choose to do the things immediately or you can wait and I like that you have to pay a card for it because the card you don't get super money throughout the game so they feel it it is a huge deal giving one up but the reward is very like satisfying but also it makes is that like you can't take a lot of them because because it

10:22 has a price and also you have to use the lever for it which is true mostly most of the time if you're not getting special abilities you have to hibernate to get that and that is one thing I really like because we've spoken for this many times they're like tough decking of randomly late in the game drawing a card oh I already have that eight points and you are mediating that here by both as you say you're losing the card which can be points or special ability and also you need to use the leverage so it's kind of like it's not easy to just take it when there's a new one coming up it's not like oh I'm just going to grab that which make that and also that the points aren't like huge but it's very helpful if you try to climb on that devotion track to get those uh points basically yes there's some more stuff out of here like these are the big things that are in the game the devotion track which like tries in with the journey chords and the links and you have the four new factions uh which a couple of them also interacts with the devotion tracks you have to play with that if you want to play with this um and then it adds just some more cards some more and machines a new Special Machine as like an exploding machine a one-time machine that you use and then you flip it over and it's a floss and also the journey commercial flasks when you're done with them which helps you with some different scorings and chords and also there's some new followers I think they're called the new cars that you're getting let me just Shuffle into the game and those are the things that are in the game and I feel like we spoke about the bottom and we're going to do like of course the final thoughts but first who might this expansion be for

11:52 what do you think I think it adds variability yeah it's that's why you need an expansion essentially yeah and I think yeah and I think it serves its purpose if you love or like um revive and you want more viability I think this is a nice expansion to get it doesn't change up too much just just the way we like our expansions yeah keeping the core game as like it is because it's super solid and just adding these tweaks and little things to focus on in addition to the main puzzle and I don't think it's an um what do you call it essential expansion in any ways the game is like super solid as is so it's not like it fixing anything right are you on your way to do a final thoughts yes I am because what do you think because we're still not used to doing this after two years and I do it all the time uh yeah no you said all of it so let's go to the final thoughts and if you before that there's something you can do to help us out if you are new to this Channel or if you're watching it and you haven't done so yet there is one thing you can do to help us out in a very big way which might not seem like a big thing because it's so easy for you but it's very very big way for us a big thing for us and that is helping us out by giving us a weekly report and we get victory points when you click the Subscribe button down there subscribe subscribe with a nest subscribe yes and you can also click the Bell gun button to get notifications every time we post a new video and now final thoughts time for this expansion

13:23 you can begin because that's how it works I can I think it's a great expansion I think that when I play real live from here on out okay I might do without the expansion to change it up but I think I will almost like 95 of the time include expansion because like you have one more thing you could focus on because you don't have to have it yeah or which I really like and I thought the new um was cool as well so yeah I like it I think it is a good solid expansion so I'm going to rate the expansion 7.5 okay cool it's a weird rating expansions yeah and I think it's I think it's good because I I think that um you I I haven't played an expansion that I feel like I it's like essential I think the piece floating expansion Norwegians is kind of making that game way better for two people which is the way we play it most of the time that is might might be like the expansion I'm saying like that is one you should get if you want to play the game with two players most other expenses I have played and haven't joined or expansions I feel like okay you play the base game you like that you feel like you explore that now here's something more I don't think a knee like this before you play the game a few times but people are different I'm just putting it out there but people are different but some people like to add it and it doesn't add too much complexity and also like it adds a bit more different parts to take like the devotion track you can ignore that I

14:54 don't think it's going to be a problem if of course if you're going to go heavier for that being location tile then you want to get up to eight of those points to get that big location dial but other than that you can ignore most of the expansion and still win with playing like the normal game like you did and other people might then choose to go for stuff in the expansion and I I really really like that like it's adding a layer basically to the base game for me I liked it I liked it a lot I I I I haven't like deep dived into the different factions yet uh I don't die like this I don't know what that was I don't die that's basically like maybe I think I'm gonna go diving now um I like everything here there's nothing in its expansion I'm feeling like this wouldn't didn't need to be here and also it isn't one of those where I feel like oh this was just taken out of the game because the game is enough and then you add a little bit of complexity in this and a little bit more I really liked it I am going to give it an eight for the expansion if you like rewind and and you're enjoy expansions then you're probably gonna get this that's basically like the bottom line if you didn't like revive this is not going to fix that for you it's just adding a tiny bit of layer to the game that is already there and that is the end yes thank you so much for watching I'm Johannes I'm Cinema and you've been watching board gaming ramblings and bye bye