Marvel Zombies - 5 Things I Like Vs Dislike

in today's video I'm reviewing one of my favorite games of all time and that is Marvel Zombies a zombicide game both hero mode and zombie mode and at the end of this video I will compare the heroes resistance version of the game with the X-Men resistance version of the game I'll also let you guys know which mode I prefer and why with that being said let's get right into this review now typically how I like to do my reviews on this channel is I'll give you five things that I like about the game and five things that I dislike about the game to help you guys decide if this game is worth buying for yourself or not now in this video I just want to point out that I am using my Kickstarter version of the game so I do have some stretch goals that you might not get through retail so keep that in mind as you're watching this video with that being said jumping into the first thing that I really enjoy about Marvel Zombies is the theme and the mechanics now I honestly just love the fact that you can play as zombies for a change with the corebox of the game which makes this different than any other zombiie side game out there and sticking with theme this is based off the Marvel zombie comic line where the disease or virus makes the heroes hungry for human flesh which introduces the hunger mechanic in this game if you don't devour somebody soon then you will soon get hungry and become Rous and you'll start to gain wounds and die sounds gross but it's really fitting with the Marvel zombie theme and how the disease or the virus Works within the comics now the hunger track will control how much dice you get to roll when you attack and it is also increased every single round however when it reaches four you become ravenous and there's only certain actions you can do which is move and devour you have to use the devour action to reduce your hunger all the way back to zero and you can only target one single person when you choose to devour as well and if you become ravenous this and you don't deal with it by the end of your turn you will gain a wound so you are constantly balancing your hunger track when to reduce it when you want to attack because again that hunger track will increase your dice rows when you go to attack and you definitely want to eliminate some of those Shield agents plus superheroes before they stop you from completing your mission and since this is a Cooperative game if one of your characters dies you lose the game now on the opposite end of that when you're playing hero mode It Feels So empowering when you get to save a bander from a horde of zombies this will allow you to fill up your power track which is the opposite of hunger your power track will help you roll more Dice and activate stronger abilities of your character makes for a really thematic gaming experience also with hero mode the game feels a little bit more strategic because you can plan out your actions a little bit more you're not at the mercy of dice rolls because you can power up gain power spend that power to roll and attack however when you do spend that power to roll more dice you hopefully get it on the first dice roll if not then you're wasting your actions and you need to power up again to get more dice if need be with zombie mode you're kind of at the mercy of balancing out that hunger track to get more dice to roll to eliminate more enemies but going back to talking about byst standards again in hero mode what happens when you lose a bystander due to a zombie attacking that bystander then all the heroes will lose a hero trait and they'll also lose either all the power or one single power based off the mission that you play which means just like hey Heroes you messed up you couldn't save a bystander here's the penalty for that so it's just super fitting it makes the game even more challenging so the game just absolutely feels really thematic playing through the different missions saving certain byst standards or eating them depending on what mode you play all of it fls really nice it just leaves for a great gaming experience plus it being cooperative everyone working together that's what the Avengers do now this brings me to a reason why I dislike this game and that is overpowered enemies now some of the characters in the game are super hard to deal with and eliminate for example Thor in the core box I cannot tell you how many times I lost the game playing zombie mode trying to eliminate Thor Thor has a ton of health and when it comes to zombie side it's always one shot or nothing so you need a lot of dice to fight Thor and a lot of successes to eliminate him he is a God after our so it does make sense and chances are when you're attacking a powerful enemy like Thor you're going to become ravenous now becoming ravenous and trying to eliminate the God of Thunder can be very difficult because you only get five dice and fours need to be rolled in order to count as a success which can be extremely difficult to get so best case scenario you get to play as Hulk or a character that helps lower the toughness of those stronger characters to eliminate them which is what I would recommend probably always play with Hulk he's a really good character but when a powerful character shows up you either have a couple of options go deal with them right away or try to complete the mission as fast as possible and hopefully that zombie hero or superhero doesn't catch you in time by the time you complete it especially Thor because he can deal two damage just off of one action now I do find this is an issue in zombie mode the heroes do feel like they're harder to fight against than in hero mode fighting against zombie Heroes but now that brings me to another reason why I like this game and especially if you have multiple expansions for the game and that is the customized ability that you have with this game if I had to describe Marvel zombies or any zombicide game in one word it would be unpredictable and that mainly has to do with the enemy phase and how those spawn cards come out because it could feel like you're in a good situation and then one zombie card pops out and all of a sudden either extra activation happens a brute Rush happens and all of a sudden you don't have any power or you surrounded by a horde of Shield agents because they dropped out of nowhere or they could open fire and you're down to like one Health the game can dramatically switch based off of what cards come out of that spawn deck which makes it absolutely either super fun or super frustrating also with customization you can customize missions based off of the challenge level that you want if you don't like those harder missions make them Easier by adding more characters in or take away a special rule that makes it difficult you can mix and match different tiles to create your own missions as well there's honestly really no end to how much you can customize this game and how to play it which is absolutely fantastic because it just keeps making me come back to the table to play this game over over and over again trade cards now when it comes to this version of zombicide there are no equipment cards which I'll talk about later in this video because that is another thing I have an issue with with this game but right now I just want to focus on the trait cards so traits are extra abilities that you can get and use in the game for your hero or Zombie Hero and you gain them through an action by gaining a trait and you can only gain one single trait per turn per character unless editability says otherwise now some of these trade cards are pretty cool they do help you heal they can let you roll more dice things along those lines there's actually a good amount of different variety when it comes to those either zombie traits or hero traits my issue with them is because the game looks so beautiful and has great looking components those trait cards are very basic when it comes to the artwork I feel like Kon could have just done a little bit more than having a generic silhouette of a zombie or hero on those cards I feel like it's just missing something when I look at those cards it's not the biggest Make It or Break It but it is an issue I have with the game also the fact that you can't trade your trait cards makes the game even a little bit more challenging especially when it comes to those heal trait cards if you have a character that's down to one Health and another character has a heal trade ability and you can't trade it with them the chances are you're probably going to lose the game because there's very few of those trait cards that allow you to heal wounds you can always help scule this and sometimes I do this especially with newer players that you could take an action if you're on the same Zone as a character trade different hero traits or just give them a hero trait as an action so they at least have that option to heal and the game will not end soon but as an official rule stance you cannot trade her traits or even by standards uh in this version of zombie side which I feel like is a downside to the game now I don't think I could actually do a full review for this game without talking about how amazing the Miniatures look now I've heard other people complain about them but honestly there's great detail in all these Miniatures even included in the heroes resistance version of the game they're not as detailed but for the price of the game it's fantastic just looking at zombie Hulk he was so much fun to paint even in the X-Men resistance version of the game you get a zombified translucent Iceman and a cool looking zombie Juggernaut absolutely insane and super fun to play all the Miniatures just pop out on the board even when it comes to all the poses of the different Miniatures all them feel very unique and not really generic at all which makes the game feel even better playing with those characters now I will admit some of them are a little bit weird because you are fighting in New York or at the X mansion and you play as a character character like black panther who has like a jungle base which really doesn't make any sense why there's a jungle in the middle of New York that he's up on a tree attacking you but still super detailed looks awesome not that big of a deal now bringing back to that other point I made before in other past zombie side games they used to have equipment cards in this zombiie side version there are absolutely no equipment cards that you can use you only have superpowers which is a little bit annoying but it does balance the fact out with the spawned enemy deck there's only a couple objects you can interact with which is the Avengers sign a and a Central Hand kind of wish there was more but again there's only those two I feel like Marvel Zombies missed out on a huge fun factor for the game it'd be so fun to find Cap Shield news Iron Man's blasters Hawkeye's bow to have an Melee character new a range attack I just think it would bring more to the game and probably make this game a whole lot more fun being able to mix and match Heroes with different hero items now I don't know what I would do with Muer Thor's hammer maybe roll a dice to see if you're worthy to see if you're able to pick up that hammer if you're not then you don't get to use it for the rest of the game but honestly I do wish there was items it would just make the game so much more fun so that is something I do miss in this version of zombie [Music] side now if you played any zombie side game you know that it is fairly lightweight and easy to teach to people but the game can also be pretty strategic I also really enjoy how the easy missions feel like they're more familyfriendly I played with my family uh my wife and my two kids they absolutely love the game granted my son who is only four didn't really play we just got him to roll the dice and move the characters on the game board but he just wanted to new Hulk to beat up Thanos which was super cute plus after he beat up Thanos he made Hulk go lay down in a bed and said he was too tired it was really the cutest thing but that's also another reason why I just absolutely love this game super familyfriendly if your kids don't mind the zombie look now another big issue I have with this game is the fact that there is no zombie Spider-Man and the fact that there seems to be more superheroes that you can play as then zombie Heroes here's a stack of zombie Heroes that you can play as and here's a stack of superheroes now I will admit I don't have all the expansions to the game I'm only missing a few I'm missing the Hydra Resurrection expansion to the game and Fantastic 4 as well as the kickstar exclusive Sentinel strike expansion which I don't think adds that many zombie Heroes to the game plus each of them also adds superheroes not the biggest deal again but I would love more variety when it comes to playing as those zombie Heroes especially if you're somebody that likes to play zombie mode again not a Make It or Break It decision here it just would have been nice to see some more zombie cards to play as especially a zombie Spider-Man now I don't know exactly why they didn't have a zombie Spider-Man I think it was a licensing issue and they didn't want to have their beloved Spider-Man seen as a zombie in a board game even though he was one in the comics but you definitely get more choices of characters playing hero mode than you do as zombie mode don't get me wrong there's still tons of characters to choose from you shouldn't have an issue making a team of Heroes to play a mission but it would have just been nice to see the exact same amount of zombie Heroes that there was superheroes I also really hope Sean does release more expansions to Marvel Zombies there's tons more characters that they could add to the game so hopefully that will come at a future date I don't know anything I'm just speculating and the last thing that I dislike about this game will have to do with the bystandard now if you played this game at all the bystandard are characters that appear on the board that you either have to go and eat or go and save but that's it once you eat them you gain the card you get their ability once you save them you get the card you get their ability the characters themselves don't really do a whole lot some of them do have a combat ability so if they're around a zombie and a zombie tries to attack them you roll a dice to see if they can fight off that zombie or they'll try to hurt you if you are a zombie trying to eat them but honestly they don't do a whole lot I just feel like with the bystanders they could just do a little bit more maybe once you have a bystandard you could send them to do a different action or gain you a different action and actually move that figure around on the board a little bit more then just kind of stand there for a couple of rounds now the number one reason why I love this game is because it always leaves me wanting more and more now this could be a bad thing because this means you're going to be spending a lot more money on expansions but for me because I'm such a big Marvel nerd this game always leaves me satisfied every time I play whether I am playing through the xming trying to stop a rampaging Juggernaut or breaking into the Avengers Tower whatever the mission is I'm always down to play it so with all that being said what game mode do I prefer and why now I actually prefer probably out of the two modes of the game is I actually prefer the zombie mode and here's why I do like the challenge of balancing out my Hunger track to how I can eliminate enemies because if my Hunger track is at three and I get to ones when I go to attack I'm now ravenous and if I eliminate my enemies now I don't have anyone to devour so I always try to keep in mind should I devour first should i t attack first and this is the real challenge to the game I find I also find the missions a little bit easier to play in zombie mode than hero mode I'm not too sure why I think it has to do with the spawn deck and how many enemies actually appear I just think zombie mode has a little bit more strategic thought to it when it comes to how you attack with hero mode you can always at least power up and then attack power up and attack if you have enough actions to do so which really comes in handy now that leads me to talk about the biggest differences between Heroes resistance and X-Men resistance which game is right for you and why well when it comes to X-Men resistance they only add a few more extra rules in there which is Windows which is something that can be broken by zombies and heroes alike if they have line of sight to attack an enemy they also have stairs and elevators nothing too overly all complicated to increase the difficulty level I think in play for X-Men resistance also the spawn decks are different between the two games I find that the X-Men resistance spawn deck has more zombies that will spawn from it versus the heroes resistance but there are definitely some unique cards that come out of the spawn deck for Heroes resistance so it's really just up to you if you really want to play superhero mode which box you want I think the X-Men resistance one is a little bit better you get more tiles you get more characters to play but the price point is a factor so consider that if you guys want to see more content for this game let me know in the comment section down below check out this video right here if you want to see some gameplay and I'll catch you guys in the next video take care bye

Channel: Just a Geeky Dad

Views: 5,878

Keywords: marvel zombies trailer, marvel zombie zombicide kickstarter, Is Marvel zombies zombicide worth it, marvel zombicide gameplay, marvel zombicide cmon, marvel zombicide trailer, marvel zombies zombicide, marvel zombies unboxing, what is the difference between marvel zombie games, marvel zombies guardians of the galaxy, marvel zombies review, how to play marvel zombies, marvel zombies gmeplay, marvel zombies the board game

Id: zuSW9ccCGQk

Length: 17min 44sec (1064 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 07 2023