Great pool of games
There are currently several bases and even more Aeon’s End series add-ons on the market . I’ve been wanting to try this item for a while now. However, I didn’t know where to start. And this is where Portal Games comes to the rescue by releasing New Beginnings at the beginning of this year . The name undoubtedly sounds encouraging to people who have not yet played any of the games in this series. And so, with great enthusiasm, I sat down to this game to find out why it is so popular and why it gets such high marks! In its assumptions, A New Beginning resembles a legacy game, i.e. with each subsequent game we discover new elements. So there are a lot of envelopes and closed decks. There will be minor spoilers, but to be honest, in my opinion, the legacy system in New Beginnings could not be at all, but I will tell you more about it later.
Let’s start from the beginning, which is how it works
Aeon’s End is a typical deckbuilder where you play cards to buy stronger cards. We have three types of these. Crystals generate Aether (currency), artifacts have instant effects, and spells deal damage. The latter must first be placed on one of the four gates, because only in the next turn will we be able to take advantage of the perks of the spell. The most interesting thing is that unlike the classics of the genre in Aeon’s Endwe don’t shuffle the deck. There is no case here. We know what cards we’ve played before, so we know they’ll be the first ones to come back when we flip (rather than shuffle) the deck. In fact, turn cards introduce the most randomness. They decide who performs actions at a given moment. On the one hand, it generates a lot of emotions, and on the other hand, it can sometimes affect the victory (with a wrong layout, the monster can perform as many as four activations in a row!).
Instead of focusing only on the mechanics, I will also present an outline of the plot. We play the role of mages who defend New Gravehold against monstrous creatures from hell. So we use spells to deal damage to the Boss as well as his minions. We harvest Aether to get new spells, unlock gates so we can cast more spells. In addition, the resource is also useful for using special abilities. In retaliation, monsters deal heavy damage or interfere with our deck. Sometimes we can prevent a boss action by spending Aether or discarding a few cards. And so the duel goes on until someone loses all life points. The alternative is to wait out the attacker’s furious attacks. If we remake his deck, we win, too.
Open deck A1 and then A2, which is about legacy elements
The contents of the box look very promising. At the top of all decks is a card that prohibits opening them. In addition, several envelopes with mysterious contents. And something unusual for the series, that is, the story. The whole story is placed on cards and they indicate what we should open at a given moment. When I delved into this story, before the first fight, I scratched my head, because something didn’t stick to me. If we’re setting out on an expedition, leaving New Gravehold, why is the monster we encounter also attacking our city? The second drawback is the shallowness of the presented story. Nothing interesting happens here. We meet someone, we fight a boss, we meet another hero and that’s it.
I saved the best for last! On the card we have the information to go to this and this paragraph after defeating the opponent. However, in the event of a defeat, fight again, and then read the same paragraph again! I thought maybe in the end it would matter which bosses we beat together. And spoiler alert – it doesn’t matter … The plot is completely linear, we read everything in order. Whether we defeat the final monster the first time, the second time or not at all, we will still be happy about winning the skirmish! In my opinion, these appearances of a legacy game make no sense here. I really don’t think it took away the fun of seeing all four bosses before tackling them.
Bosses are the heart of the game!
I complained about the senseless sealed packages and envelopes, as well as the plot that my fellow players did not want to hear. So it’s time to move on to the positive mechanical aspects of this item. First, deckbuilding works great. Building your deck is very rewarding. We have three types of cards that serve different purposes. In addition, some of the effects allow us to support teammates. For example, I really liked the spell called Return Darts . They deal two damage and may end up in another player’s hand instead of the discard pile. The idea of not shuffling the used deck is also great.
Boss fights give a lot of satisfaction, a lot happens, the attacks and actions of the opponent can be surprising. Though it also depends on the monster we’re fighting. In A New Beginning , players will face four beasts. The first attacker is the Broodmaster, a new incarnation of the Hive Queen from the first Aeon’s End. Great starting boss, but could have more hitpoints. The next enemy is specific because it has two phases. In the second one, I have the impression that a lot depends on fate – if the sequence deck is wrong, it’s over for us. The third striker is quite strange and specific. His ability initially seemed somewhat positive to me, but ended up being extremely dangerous. He doesn’t hit hard, but he bites slowly – a great opponent. The final boss is a snowball in my opinion. For that reason, I’m least likely to go back to fighting him. With an unlucky arrangement of cards, in my opinion, the sequence is able to accelerate so much that nothing can stop it. The first fight with him was a complete failure. He lost two hit points, and all the mages died as did Gravehold. I find it a bit too demanding for its liberating ability. So far, I have no idea how to fight him unlike the other three bosses.
The fireball exploded in my hand!
Does New Beginning have any downsides? Outside the legacy system, which works on average and annoying randomness in the deck of order, I would also attach myself to replayability. We build the market with only nine cards, and there are twenty-two types of cards in the box. In addition, we have as many as eight mages, each with a different ability and a different set of starting cards, as well as four monsters and a set of additional cards for bosses. When it comes to mages, they actually play differently initially, some are more interesting and others seem harder or worse. It’s a pity that their special abilities are often weak. Both me and my teammates preferred to buy new cards rather than spend Aether on charges, only to trigger an ability with a weaker effect over time than many spells or artifacts. However, after defeating four bosses, to be honest, I have no great desire to go back to them. As if I can modify the market, choose other characters, but I still think the heart of the game is the enemies, and there are only four in the box. In addition, I caught a slight error in the instructions – when playing with one mage, it was not written how to build a turn order deck.
Magic is beautiful
Fresh Start is very accessible to new players. Just follow the instructions on the extra sheet and after a while you can fight your first fight. In general, the workmanship is at the highest level, I would only complain about a few details. First of all, there is one thing on the cards, I repeat – only one key word. What for? Wouldn’t it be easier to write, for example, perform this action twice instead of the word ‘echo’? Secondly, organizing this game can be troublesome. There are plenty of different decks, it’s easy to get lost every time you open and close the game! In addition, there are dozens of cards in the box depicting all the bosses and wizards from each edition of Aeon’s End. They are used to create your unique expedition. You draw the mages who will take part in it and what monster they will encounter. I honestly don’t know if I would use it even with add-ons, because while creating a random market seems like a good idea, such fun with an expedition is less so. On the one hand, A New Beginning is a good opening for people unfamiliar with Aeon’s End , and on the other, it was clearly dedicated to the veterans of this series.
Is it worth fighting for New Gravehold?
I’m glad that Portal Games made it easy and accessible for me to enter the world of Aeon’s End . Thanks to this, I understood this phenomenon, although I was a bit disappointed myself. It’s a great deckbuilder , the fights are exciting, but this game lacked … claw. The plot is not very engaging, and we have no influence on it. legacy elementsarousing the appetite, but after unpacking all the packages, there is a lot of insufficiency. And despite the seemingly high replayability, after defeating each of the bosses, we do not feel much desire to fight them again. However, the first clashes fought in a larger group or alone gave me a lot of fun. It was very satisfying to discover synergies between mages or individual cards. Probably in the future I will be tempted by an add-on to face other equally demanding bosses.
