Oh Unmatched.
I talked about this on a podcast I'm doing with Quackalope, it's on our Patreon but you can listen to it for free here:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/39381955
But assuming you don't have an hour + for some amusing back and forth, I'll get into it here as well.
Now don't get me wrong, I tend to be hard on skirmish games to begin with, often feeling like they can be uninspired back and forth, pinging at each other, and feeling more victim to the circumstance rather than master of your own fate.....so I'm coming in with a bias. But it's a bias that Unmatched did nothing to unseat.
I do like skirmish games, I'm just super picky about them. And more often than not I want my miniature adventures to be cooperative instead. But I figured I'd give Unmatched a try. It's getting rave reviews, people love it, the art is clean and appealing, the characters they bring in are super fun and I'd love to play with them all....and yet it just feels like I'm drawing and playing the obvious card with minimal to no real choice that I care about at all.
I know, I know. There's tons of strategy (I assume), and the depth comes from knowing your opponents deck (I assume), and if I played it more my rating would change (I assume). But I don't care about any of that.....I don't care for games where I have to know all the nuances to feel like my decisions matter. And I'll also note that thousands of logged plays with this system do seem to demonstrate a strong imbalance in character strength. So I don't feel the need to keep at it. Instead I'll just wait here for my copy of Super Fantasy Brawl, and hope that I get a different experience out of that one. Or heck, I also need to give Funko Pop a try....not for the game in and of itself....but my kids do love Harry Potter and Batman. If nothing else they may just keep the Funko Pop minis on their shelf which is enough of a win for me.
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Curious as to what your favorite skirmish game is.
Hard disagree on this one. I love Unmatched. The art is amazing, and I find character balance to be one of the strengths of the game so far. Also, I find the game super easy to teach, even to people new to the hobby. I’ve had a ton of fun with the game with both newbies and more hardcore tactical minis gamers.
That said, I agree that there is a significant advantage to knowing/understanding the opponent’s deck. However, that takes all of about one game far each deck, which brings me to another huge strength Unmatched has, in my opinion: game length. Most sessions take around twenty minutes or less, but I still walk away feeling like I had a full gaming experience.
Obviously, opinions and tastes differ, so I like that you’re able to clearly show why Unmatched isn’t your cup of tea, but it very much is mine.
Strongly agree, I was not impressed.
Alex – I so appreciate your frank unbridled honesty and willingness to not thumbs up popular games. Thanks for being a dissenting voice out there sometimes!