Frosthaven is that friend who invites you to a Game Night. You sit down, and they plop this game you’re not familiar with in front of you. You spend the next hour or so squinting at cards, trying to understand what’s going on, while your friend sighs and scoffs. More time is spent comprehending the rules rather than playing the actual game. Which is where I ultimately landed with Frosthaven during its Closed Beta.
So, to be clear, it’s not that I didn’t understand Frosthaven. I always feel the need to qualify my distaste for any one game by proving my credentials with similar experiences. My love for Baldur’s Gate 3 is well-documented. That’s a game with a hell of a lot of rules and mechanics, and yet, I adore it. It has some overlap with Frosthaven in terms of layers and complexity. I also love Demeo, a turn-based dungeon crawler where every turn counts. Overlaps with Frosthaven. At a Halloween party last year, I played the Betrayal at House on the Hill board game, needed a bunch of stuff explained to me, and had a phenomenal time! Still, a lot of Frosthaven crossover. So, what went wrong here?
Well, Frosthaven, for me, doesn’t quite do enough to convince me that playing the full version would be any more gratifying than the snippet I experienced. To quickly break things down in the simplest terms: in the Closed Beta, I could choose from six different classes. The Banner Spear, Boneshaper, Drifter, Geminate, Blinkblade, and Deathwalker. Now, for all the negativity I’m about to go into with Frosthaven, I’ll say this for it: each class felt like a genuinely different playstyle and set of strategies.
‘frosthaven’ is beautifully complex but flawed where it matters most
Some games are content to just tell you that there’s a wide spectrum of variety within a selection of classes. Frosthaven means it with the fullness of its being. You’ve got defense-heavy classes, summon-centered classes, unpredictable chaos goblin classes — if you want build diversity, you’ll have your fill here. I even enjoyed some of Frosthaven‘s nuances. One gameplay mechanic sees you utilizing attack/defense “patterns” to plan your next move. This gives added purpose to the tile-based movement and positioning.
But, here’s where Frosthaven lost me. I played the Closed Beta with Shaun because we’re Chaos Comrades and figured we’d have a ball. Over the following three hours, we spent most of our time reading skill descriptions and status effects. If we weren’t reading, we watched as every City Guard — supposedly, our allies in a major battle — did nothing. Their turns would come, they would stand there, and the next person in the queue would be up to bat.
So, this led me to two conclusions. Either Frosthaven is ironing out some kinks, and these are simple, early growing pains — or, the City Guard chillin’ while their town is suffering is an intentional choice. If the latter is true, which I suspect it isn’t, why put useless troops on the battlefield?
when the disappointment hit, it hit hard
And don’t get me started on Frosthaven‘s “Burn a Card” mechanic. You see, when you take damage, you have some choices to make. You can choose to take the damage on the chin and lose hit points. Or, you can “burn” one of your cards to ultimately take no damage. However, the risk presenting itself is that the cards you burn are gone. Can’t use them for the rest of that encounter. While I’m sure there’s a way to restore “Burned” cards, such methods weren’t accessible to me in the Closed Beta.
Oh, and also, if all your cards have been burned and you can’t play anything else, you lose. Run out of hit points? Loss. I like a challenge! Nothing soothes my soul more than a well-paced strategy/tactical game. And perhaps I wouldn’t have soured on Frosthaven if it weren’t so slow. There’s a difference between “deliberate” and “slow,” and I feel like Frosthaven, for me, doesn’t justify all the tools you need to overcome its trials.
Maybe that’ll change significantly between now and the game’s release. I can see how a particular audience may enjoy what’s on offer. But, as it stands, Frosthaven just wasn’t worth the squeeze.
The post I Played the ‘Frosthaven’ Closed Beta, and It’s a Tactical RPG Juggernaut That May Be for Thee, but Not for Me appeared first on VICE.
