Etherfields Review - The Good, The Bad & The Ugly, I Agree With It All

there's not a lot to say about either fields that hasn't already been said if you love this game there are reviews for you if you hate this game there are reviews for you if you're a smack dab in the middle well then this review might just be the one for you i'm alex radcliffe from board game co and i planned on reviewing either fields before i started to watch shut up and sit down's review of the game i i started watching that and then i realized well i don't really need to review this game because they're saying everything i'm feeling and they also clearly liked the game but they didn't they they liked the game past tense but they they moved on from it and that's not the position that i ended up in you see every single criticism i think every single criticism that i have heard from this game heard about this game from those that have liked it from those that have not liked it i have agreed with basically every single one of them the the net difference though is that other fields is a game that is staying in my collection and i consistently and continuously look forward to diving back into the next dream that this game presents and so this review is going to be a bit out of alignment with my usual format because usually usually i talk about a game than what i liked didn't like and what i can see others not liking but i'm going to switch up that order a bit because i think the context matters a lot in this game and before we get into that in case you are not already familiar with all of that well to begin with go ahead and watch shut up and sit down's review it's a 24 minutes this or something like that that mostly aligns with the negatives that i have for this game will give you an excellent perspective of how i feel mostly about either fields and either fields is going to be a dream crawling sequence game a game that presents narrative dreams one at a time in this kind of escape room mode this journey you go through every different dream being different in this presentation and it's going to go through a few core sequences a bit of a rhythm that establishes itself in which you have have the dream world that you'll be going through then you'll go through additional slumbers as you try to slowly make your way to a dream and then you will finally have the dream the core the meat of the experience rinse and repeat as you slowly but surely unlock the story the narrative being presented here and that effectively is what either feels is along the way you have deck building in terms of slowly but surely building and managing your deck developing it as you progress through the game a lot of puzzles that have presented itself room semi-narrative just a bunch of sequences in the dreams that will be slightly different in the way they mix it up every single time and then that basically in a nutshell is either fields a lot of complexity in this system and and i'll jump straight into the things that i don't like because they haven't said time and time again by both those who like the game and those that didn't to begin with this board the board is well conspicuously absent from my setup over here because the board is a mess the board is practically not functional for anyone who is remotely trying to engage in solo play i can't comment on whether it works for three or four players because well i haven't played it with three or four players but theoretically if you have one person at the other than the table they could manage things but then you'd be left without being able to see the cards which feels like it would be lacking either way you played it but the board is a complete mess in this game which is why i am not playing with a board the game doesn't need a board at all the game perfectly fits on a relatively small space over here with my dreamscape over here my actual dream sequence going on over here a few of my slumber cars and my dreams dream map tiles over there my fake deck my turn deck my individual character over here and then my little handy dandy uh additional cards and rules and wisdom sheet over here everything fits in this very small space and it doesn't need a board and it doesn't have a lac fort the rules for this game the rules are well i can't say exactly just how bad the rules are because honestly i heard how bad the rules were before i even dived into it to the point that i started my experience in either fields with this handy dandy printed out four page manual by i can't remember the name is username but whoever you are thank you this this helped extensively in terms of being able to dive down and even that even that was still confusing because either feels is trying to teach you a course structure around a game that you don't even understand what you're diving into until you play it and so having that four pages that you don't understand is significantly better than having 18 pages that you don't understand so the rules the presentation the ability to dive into either fields it's strongly lacking it's a huge barrier to entry into this game a barrier to entry i was only willing to overcome because i heard how good the game was even as i heard how bad the rules were in terms of the gameplay once you go once you actually have it up and running the rules i haven't found them that bad myself there are certainly times i'll have to make a judgment call there are certainly times you'll look at a card and be like well i'm not entirely sure how this works with that and just i just play it out because to me either feels is about the journey it's not about a competitive head-to-head experience where i have to ensure that we're both playing strategically and optimally or whatever i just want to have fun and keep exploring the dream and so while there are occasional rules issues even once i am involved in either fields i'm now five six streams into this experience and there still will be the occasional question it's not nearly as bad or as off-putting as the initial barrier to entry that the game presents these slumbers the slums are something that has been talked about as well and it's something that i additionally do not like because like i said already the game has the sequence of you you awaken and you're in your whole dreamscape over here and then you proceed to have additional slow and slumbers as you build up towards the actual dream you're engaging in and the slumbers exist to bring something fascinating to this world and it's it really is incredible because even as i don't like the slumbers even as i have taken to mostly skipping these slumbers to get back into that next dream i still occasionally dive into it because the slumbers what they do one of the things they do that is fascinating is they incorporate the dream sequences you're having one at a time adding cards to your slumber so you have these remnants of past memories remnants of experiences you've had as well as experiences you've just missed and they add that to the deck presenting a slightly different narrative as you go through these slumbers again and again before the dream and and i appreciate that enough that i'm willing to dive into it here and there to see what else has been added to a slumber but i'm just not willing to go through it again and again to get to the next dream the slumbers i would say by the time i got to my third dream i realized that i didn't like this cycle that either feels was giving me i didn't like the cycle of going through slumbers again and again in order to get to the meat of the story in order to get to the parts that i liked and so i basically started skipping them i set myself a rule that i allow myself one slumber sequence per session of either fields i might go through two dreams and only one slumber session i wanted i still want to maintain that aspect of what the game has given me to a small degree but i certainly don't want it to turn into a mindless grind where i resent this game and those slumbers more than anything else that i have said or will say about the game are my biggest personal complaint with either feels that idea of having a repetitive sequence that doesn't continuously add to the experience but rather bogs down and prevents the experience from happening and there are a few other repetitive sequences like the slumbers not nearly as bad aspects like the train station there's gonna be this train station you'll unlock throughout the game that also has repetitiveness attached to it to the point that they gave you these item cards that allow you to skip the repetitive sequence they basically put a block or a tedious step in front of you and said and you can occasionally earn the ticket to avoid that entirely which isn't frankly as rewarding as it might sound and then if your character dies and you have to repeat a dream that can be frustrating for me personally it really hasn't been that much of a factor i enjoy the dreams i enjoy the discovery and the way i have gone through these dream sequences is not one in which i try to explore every nook and cranny so when i go through something again which was only happened once so far it's not punishing as much as it is interesting to try to figure out you know i didn't look behind that door this time i didn't go through the pipes last time i went through the other thing that the dream sequences allow so much discovery within them that resetting one hasn't been that frustrating to me it's just been another avenue to explore the game is a drop puzzly but it's a little bit more narrative pushed than decision making what i mean by that is there are so many aspects of either fields in which you're trying to walk down a hallway explore this look at that pick up that and engage in all the different elements presented and there are times there are certainly times where i have seen that puzzle that escape room aspect of the game presenting itself i have seen that that aspect where i look at a card and i'm like you know what i think that connects to that and if i do this that might happen and then i flip through the log book and i read it i'm like yes i got it i figured it out and that does happen and it is rewarding but i would say that might be 10 15 of the discoveries you have i would say a vast majority of the things you look at the things you touch the things you choose to explore the vast majority of them are just proceeding down a narrative sequence a narrative sequence that i enjoy to be clear but at a certain point it just becomes a book at a certain point it just becomes why don't you pick up a great mystery novel or whatnot why are you playing this game and so there's a little bit less of that puzzly aspect that i would like to see in this game and then for my last two complaints the miniatures and this one we've heard as well the miniatures for all the amazing glorious miniatures that they have and they do have amazing glorious miniatures at the end of the day these things are mostly completely unnecessary the core box to their credit awakened realms in the core box of this game did an amazing job of giving you exactly what you need they gave you the core mini spoiler characters and then a handful of random placement characters that you could use for whenever you encounter something and then tokens for those occasional other times and then they sold a box full of amazing miniatures absolutely amazing miniatures but ones that you don't need you'll occasionally put it down in a map square and then proceed to deal with it for a few minutes and then go back to the next sequence they barely have a place so much of this game is about what drives down what stays in your memory and these minis unfortunately do not stay in my memory in fact i would argue the one thing that does stay in my memory is one particular dream sequence in which i took out this guy gigantic guy compared to my tiny little guy it's it's it was intimidating it was scary and he sat there on his car and he never even entered the dream sequence the way that dream sequence played out i happened to not have him enter at all and so that that fear that threat that aspect the intimidation of feeling chased by this gigantic monstrous creature it never even materialized that one time that i got the gigantic monsters creature on the board and then lastly the last complaint is going to be the deck building in this game i don't find as rewarding as i would like and i love deck building don't get me wrong deck building is one of my favorite mechanics in games and yet in this game you start with a core deck and you have a few opportunities to expand it but i never truly never just dropped the wrong word i'm roughly 10 hours into the experience but in five or six dreams i have yet to truly feel that i am building a deck customized around my character so much as i am occasionally getting access to cars occasionally cars that i can afford and then adding them to my deck where they have an occasional presence in that deck and so the deck building in this game which could have been immensely rewarding and immensely satisfying just isn't and i think a big part of that is going to be because the dreams in this game are so varied and because of the way they present such different experiences it's hard to really truly give people cards that have such a unique identity because they have to adapt to every single thing this game throws at you and that's basically everything i don't like about either fields and yet it's staying in my collection like i said already and yet i look forward to every single dream that i continue to play and i think that either feels is simultaneously a bit of a train wreck in some things that didn't have to be train wrecks and yet is still a game that i heavily recommend adding to your collection as long as you are comfortable knowing and understanding that you're going to have to get through rules that are difficult and that i would recommend skipping a lot of the slumber sequences what i would say is i would say play by the rules in the slumber sequences until you realize that you may not want to at which point reconsider but but start with it go with it see if it works for you and that's because either fields is simultaneously like i said a train wreck in some elements and a masterpiece in others the narrative aspects of this dream the unique sequences the unique experiences you have every single time this game is multiple little escape rooms packed into a box and they're all different and unique in the way they play out each one feels like a different experience you have gardens with turning cars back and forth you have narrative cars that you have to be slowly unlocking as you proceed deeper and darker and then flipping and reorienting and trying to explore your way you'll have darkness and you'll be chased by creatures and that is one of the things this game does so many amazing things differently experiences that i have never really had in other games or at least not to this degree from the cards that overlay your map tiles at random odd angles and i don't even know if that was necessary yet it feels odd it feels mysterious it feels eerie from the way your experience augments your slumbers moving forward that aspect i touched upon already where you have a dream and then those things show up as memories vague fragments of a past that you have not yet really learned to know yourself the way the the explorative aspect of a seventh continent style game but limited to a four by three grid in order to contain it so it doesn't overflow your table it has that mystery it has that adventure and it is contained and manageable like i said you don't even need the board that everyone is complaining about the way you can peek at cards in this game because whenever you start a dream you have certain cards at your disposal and then you have the opportunity both from a basic core action as well as some cards you can unlock as the game progresses in which you can peek at certain cards and take a look at them and see for five seconds what possibly is coming at you and it's so fascinating to do that it has this hauntingness of of trying to figure out where the game is going next and the way you're frequently and consistently and again this guy didn't really do it unfortunately the way you consistently feel pursued in every single one of these dream sequences whether there are creatures on the board you're dealing with or whether they are off to the side and the mere threat of them is there every single dream sequence i have had i have felt the the crunch of time i felt that other things were trying to chase me whether it's time itself whether it's creatures something was after me that i had to figure out how to get out of here before time ran out again time itself or creatures either feels there's so many different things well and it gives you those experiences in vastly different ways every single dream like i said already the the dreamscape i find tedious and boring the slumbers i find to be getting in the way of what i am trying to enjoy here but every time i unpack a new dream in either fields every time i have set up a new experience and every time i have started that experience i have found it hard to stop and the fact that i'm cheating by ignoring aspects of the game has not in any way diminished my experience here it is not in any way diminished how much i enjoy this game you see either fields like i said already five to six streams roughly 10 hours in is a game that i keep enjoying but i sometimes have to keep reminding myself that i enjoy it and that's usually it usually happens at the end of a dream at the end of a dream i sit there and i'm like okay great back to this part do i really want to continue playing this game to a point where i think after my fourth dream or maybe my fifth stream at a certain point i almost sat there and said you know what i might be done with this this is fun but it's time to move on but then when i finally sat there and said i'm done with the slumbers i will only ever engage in this other aspect of the game when i choose to when i want to and i will ignore it when it's getting in my way i will ignore the requirements for keys i will ignore the whole aspect of anything here i will simply grab a few cars add it to my deck and then move on to the next dream skipping some core rules that get in the way of the enjoyment from the moment i decided that i have enjoyed every single play now i still can find myself worth mentioning from shut up sit down's review i still confine myself to the rules of the dream if i die i reset because i understand what their objection was i understand that they had a problem with the idea that once you ignore the rules then it loses its challenge and so i choose to keep enough rules that that that isn't a problem for me either fields is a game where the strategy and the story combined it all mixes together for something that i hardly recommend hardly i've used the word hardly before people hear hardly i highly recommend either fields i highly recommend diving down into this experience i am looking forward to finishing this core box and i'm looking forward to all the stories they continuously provide this is a narrative masterpiece in what it is doing do i sometimes feel a little more guided than anything else yes do i sometimes not understand or know how a consequence can shoot me back to before i began a hundred percent do i enjoy the process of flipping through that log book to find out what happened next yes do i like trying to figure out where i should go and what aspect of the board i should try to touch a hundred percent do they always present a bit of a puzzle that does have a mechanical aspect to solving it as well how to turn a tile how to relocate a tile when to discard one of your cards to dashboard five to run away from the pursuer when to engage the creatures that are attacking you when to run and flee and hide which other aspects of this dreamscape of this land can you try to figure out in order to actually get that journey completed yes yes to all of that either fields is a game that will be staying in my collection at least at least until i'm done with it i i have no interest in playing it again i will say that the the aspect of replayability which others have complained about as well i i do find the individual dreams replayable when i die and there's so much of the story that i haven't touched upon because of the fact that i don't touch every single aspect of this board of this dreamscape that i'm going through because of the fact that i choose what to go with and then proceed there are so many cards that are left unexplored at the end of each scenario i see a bunch of cards that i didn't get to touch or find or in any way engage with and i'm frequently so curious what those are and that does mean that there is an aspect of replayability to this game if you so choose but for myself i have enough games that i don't feel the need to dive back into either fields once i'm done with it but rest assured i will be going or i plan on going through every single dream and i plan on going through whatever other content comes out for this down the road i have been enjoying my my journey through this to the story i do pick and choose the aspects that i feel best give me that journey that i'm looking for but with all that said if you're comfortable with everything i said then i'd still recommend picking up this game until next time i'm alex wrack from board game co i hope you enjoyed this slightly different review than my usual format but that's because there's been enough critiques about other fields and there's been enough praise about other fields as well and so i have the liberty to to go in a slightly different direction than i normally do it is what it is until next time have a good one

Channel: BoardGameCo

Views: 17,885

Rating: 4.9023066 out of 5

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Id: p6eXg3Jln78

Length: 19min 2sec (1142 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 16 2020