Tainted Grail Review: Like a walk in the park, while getting punched in the face

hello everyone this is Johanna Sarah you are watching board gaming ramblings today we're taking a look at tainted Grail which is a big sprawling narrative campaign game which was a huge hit on Kickstarter last year and now we're gonna review it yes let's go it's gonna be the first review video in two months yeah it's been a long time since last time it has because of all these world things happening it's been kind of different on the channel we hope you have enjoyed that and now we are gonna be doing more reviews hopefully yeah going forward we have quite a few new games to review and this is the first and this was chosen by our patrons to review so thank you for for supporting us on patreon that that really means a lot and sorry that this was supposed to be in April and now it's main that means you won't get to reviews and maybe none in April so it's not really a positive thing but basically we need a time to play the game enough to be able to to do this review yeah because it wouldn't feel right to - because it's like we haven't played through the campaign but we have played quite a while and it makes more sense to review it after playing it more at NB yeah so yeah let's get to it let's talk a bit about the game it's basically an overview this game is set in the fictional of Avalon and probably if you saw this you wouldn't think it's this real-life but this is a really cool theme it's kind of a mix between the a turian legend of Arthur King Arthur and the knights of the round table and a fantasy world and land called Avalon and basically the humans found a way into this realm and a thought of the monsters and it made em into made this place into a place for the humans to live and now and everything is fading the lights of the main hairs are fading it's basically what makes this land safe from the weirdness which is this horrible kind of I feel like it's like this plant living plant that's trying to take over everything and consume everything like darkness yeah it's it's like it's a pitch-black darkness and and you are trying to save this world somehow we don't really know what we are supposed to do in the end like the story is evolving over time we're not gonna do any spoilers like that we can like this and suppose this is this basic setup of the game you see the cars and show me some cars later so if you don't know anything before you read the rules that of course you you you cannot see this but it's not gonna be an exposure for the game so basically you are these lowlife kind of horrible people yeah we're not the heroes here we're not the heroes no I love that this game is like it's saying like this hero so that ISM you are not this hero yeah we're in the back-up plan to the back-up plan yeah backup to the backup to the back yes basically it's what we are and we are like the last resort sending out in the world like we are crazy people we are horrible people who cannot really do anything and we're trying to survive in this horrible horrible island it is horrible we don't talk more about that later and so yeah that's like a nice short overview over the game so let's as always it is a review time it's been so long it's strange let's talk about the rule look yes so this game basically has kind of two rule books this is basically a quick start guide I really like this if you should post a play if you play in game solo we are really played co-op so I didn't I didn't read true it but it's really great because this basically is on an open and playing guide so if you're playing it solo you just start from the beginning of this and you will starting playing in minutes so this is really good the rule book is also pretty good it's a long rule look like there is a lot of thing as a rule stammering on the back here it's just like crazy all this stuff because there is a lot of different systems here about the exploration and all that normal stuff you're doing a day that is pretty straightforward really like the rules are pretty straightforward and could explain and the other than that it's like the combat and diplomacy rules which already two kind of mini games so we're gonna talk about those later and then you all basically they had their own sections but it's good laid out I enjoyed the rulebook I think it's pretty easy to travel through and to find what you're looking for when you are and missing a rule alright how did that work again I feel like it's pretty well laid out sometimes it's hard to find something I will say it's all in all a pretty good rule book that's rule books out of the way let's talk about the artwork and components for this game so what do you think about that they're just beautiful and the components you can see here the miniatures they look really awesome I wish I could paint miniatures when I look at this they would look like super awesome painted also the artwork and on the cards really it's a gloomy theme here it's just a little it's not a fairytale Island I've no like so I think that their artwork really suits like the the gloomy theme there is to the game just limbs beautiful I also feel like the the map is very well laid out it's like it's obvious that they made the map and then divided into cards yeah and couple like most of all I love this like if you we have the the Kickstarter add-on which have all the miniatures for the Guardians which are the monsters we will meet with our persistent monsters so those actually add a bit I do have a couple of things I don't like but let's talk about the things I like first yeah so basically all you sent the miniatures looks great and the cars are good have a lot of details and a great great artwork so is there anything you don't like before I take what I don't like with the artwork yeah like the organic components hold on no I don't remember anything that I don't like but maybe you couldn't like me yeah I knew might thing like it's game playing but it's a Copic also decomposing gameplay so first of all when you don't have any Guardians expansion you are supposed to when you find a guardian you have the Guardian car not supposed to be on the on the other card and move it around that's kind of a hassle also and that's kind of like the biggest thing I have which it's a negative here is that there's a lot of information on these cards and you were sometimes supposed to turn them all over you don't have to do that big and you probably never will because everything is in this exploration journal over here so the turning over the cards it's kind of always a hassle so I don't really know why they did that because you always have stuff on the car when you want to turn it yeah we don't why would you want to turn the card over because it's gonna be moving stuff over Dan moving and reading it and then always it will say now reading the book so why not just reading the book from the first time around another thing that is the problem is that the courts are big but these are also very big did you place this on air you aren't basically it's gonna be hard seeing everything on the card and if you have minute rivers on there maybe have a guardian maybe you have like a quest dial on there you're not gonna see what's on the card and of course to make that you either had to make the cards extreme we're being and these are big Toro size cards from from from before it would be impossible to make it in a better way I don't really have a solution to that but it's a thing that kind of bothers me like if you have this car here now and you you can't see the name you can't see the action you just you need to move suffer out of there to be able to see what's on there and that kind of bothers me yeah I see what you mean and we had that little anointment with it especially in the beginning not long to live with it and I think like if the solution was to make me smaller I don't like that either so no I want it to be like that but I'm yeah I can't see a solution to it the like right off the bat so yeah yeah I don't think it bothers me that no like it's a problem but I don't have a solution like III probably think that then maybe they thought of it like this might be a problem but then again it's not really anything that can be done with but it exposes you you know it's here yes so these should be bigger these are menacing statues basically that you you are awesome they are so there isn't really lot to say I'm out like the play time here because this is an ongoing game this is like the campaign this is like never ending so you you you playing chapters but it's not like most games during you play one chapter and then this chapter is done and you reset a new player chapter which we found out the hard way I was a surprise to sweet when we were like trying to finish the first chapter we were like out of food out of health we were really low on resources and was just like oh yeah we made the chapter is so good now we can rest no wait we're starting off where we were we're almost dead this is a problem yeah so it's like that you have the opportunity to to save your game and but you can do that in the middle of chapter as well yeah so I like the saving mechanism but yeah it's impossible to do like the time play time here because it's up to you yes I'm like it's kinda like a game that obviously gonna be compared to like seven continent - it's like it's a long game long game but here this feels really like a video game as well like because you you do like this chapter is come like a main quest and then you just you don't stop in the video game and you start over a new place no you just continue and it's like that here you just go on and go on and go on and go on yes which is pretty cool but it's kind of takes you bit aback when you when you don't have if you haven't understood the rules completely when you play the first chapter yeah so really little to say - that we play account it's like if you know us or if you know me I don't know about you but I would never play this in what aren't you I really like it we - because it's a little impossible to say how long a game of this will take and it's really relaxing just being the two of us because then we're just like oh we're in the mood to stop so we'll stop now and we can just keep it on the table and play a little the next time we're in the mood for it yeah because you kind of need to be in a mood sometimes to play this game that is why I think it's I think it would be great solo but it's so cool to experience this story with someone yeah yeah and so yeah to two players is what we played it with them I'm really happy with that but I'm sure like this is a perfect solo game I saw like if you if you enjoy these kind of games you would like this as a solo game yeah so the gameplay is always like the biggest part I like all ever every review like we do all this build-up and we come to the gameplay which is to be the big thing I have a lot of positives and I have a little medical negative so what do you want to start somewhere yeah I really like this I think I prefer this over some incontinence III need to compare those two in some way I think it feels really like a video game in the same way that's heaven continent does and I really like that I really like the exploration when I come to a new place I really like the yeah that tells me what is here what is the where am I and this is the opportunities that I have this is are the choices that I can make and some of them you can't always me know you have to need to have something or sometimes you make a bad decision and sometimes you need to do something like a relay to do the main quest yeah and I really like trying to figure out what to spend your time and energy on because you have to move fast to line up these many years and also falling down this rabbit hole nonsense that just makes you like be out of food before you know it it will happen yeah it will happen this is a harsh game and I I think it's cool that you really need to fight - so why it's been so close - at the end for us oh yeah a lot of times but we've done sanity mmm managed to pull true I just really like the exploration here the story unraveling and seeing more of this wicked land I'm really curious for the end but we can't wait for that you have to review this now yeah or else it would be like a reading because the long game years without so yeah I agree with a lot about you saying like this is more of a narrative game at seven continent it's seven continent is much more exploration survival game this isn't as much of an exploration yeah like it's a really slow burning exploration yes you're not gonna insane content you might be going over five six seven ten cards in an hour you're not gonna do that here like this is a really slow burning exploration game you are going to a place you might stay there a couple of days maybe go to one other card and but the narration here is it's what post me true like it's what makes I like the story here I like all of the different things most of it is negative like this is a brutal game like most what you don't you're like oh you did that no you die yay and that is really how the game feels so if you're not into dying and if you don't think the really brutal games ending this is not a game for you because this like you can draw a encounter and it can be like oh that's basically death if you try to fight it it's gonna be deaf so so like overall this is a it's a very very cool system I like the generation I like the looks pretty simple doing the actions moving around taking actions that is pretty simple and then you have the combat and and did the diplomacy minigames those are interesting in in the beginning I didn't really like them I'd like it at all I didn't see like why they would add a system that was so complicated that didn't reward me enough so I didn't find it exciting but when I've played a couple of combats and just like started to get the hang of it and I'm just like oh yeah okay this can actually be something that I can work with you know and when you get new items new weapons that can benefit you and when you can earn XP to get new cards into your diplomacy or combat tech you can actually start to kind of anticipate what kind of moves you can make yeah and when to back out of a fight and when to stay and I think I enjoyed a lot more now than I did meaning yeah it's not my favorite system of all time it's feels like a hassle sometimes but what do you think yeah I think like it's a I didn't like it at all the first time I played it I do say that the first chapter II playlist or the first like session we played I was really underwhelmed yeah I got the whole experience I enjoyed the story ports but the gameplay was come I didn't like the comet thing at all other than the diplomacy at all but I feel like when you learn it it's pretty simple I could say it's a combo card playing thing basically and you're trying to build a deck like when you get experience you can buy new cards for the deck and you can slim it down take out cards you don't like and build up combos that works with your character because you can make the character and it's a real nice character she didn't talk about these basically in components but they're really nice recessed character sheets yeah and you will get better in different attributes and so no more for combat somewhat more for diplomacy and you will be able to make your deck and be kids new special abilities so you have that progression which is also what I really like about these kind of games is you get that progression and an evolving of the character but the the core combat and the diplomacy is really nice I enjoy it as you said not my favorite but it is it is it is good yeah I think like as you said this is a slow-burning game and I feel like I really enjoyed that but it's kind of brave to put out a game like this in times where the consumers need things now and the video games are like it you level up bam bam bam Yahoo and this feels like the opposite yeah leveling up and making your character better taste so much time and effort and go so slow if you feel like oh I'm going to in a while be awesome no you're not because the combats get harder yeah and when you have like a lot of food for a little moment two rounds later you have zero so it's it's just like this constant struggle and I really think this is cool but I feel like that could be a I wouldn't call it a stop for something I can be it's gonna be like it's a big it's not for every website that is it's gonna be a big ops it's really not for everyone there it's like kind of a story mode in the game yeah where you basically pretend that you're one less person playing because a lot of the things you do in the game are harder for more people yeah so so basically you will then basically then do half of that okay yeah which might be the way I would like to play the game through those opposed to continue playing it because the story here is as always what pulls me true so let's talk about some things I don't like I feel like I had some thoughts in my head and then we ended up not going in that yes we could do this for hours I think so let's talk about a couple of things I'm more things I like first and then let's talk about the things we don't like it yeah okay what do you so other thing I like really a lot like these are pretty cool it's just like a map you get that's not really talked about this also the backstory on your character yes so this is the thing I've been really enjoying here you have the same I don't know if you can see it here you have the same shape it on the other side of this you have something called status status so basically I don't know if you see it so I'm not gonna show it well this basically it has all of these different things and this is the way the game remembers which is important in these kind of games you you cannot go to the same place like I know if I go here I would get 10 experience points or I go there all the time so he gave me remembers what you have done it's really nice way and then when you come to somewhere you will say like if you have if you have diplomatic mission for not exponent just reading from the back if you have diplomatic mission for go here basically and it will know what I mean because you have that you got that from a specific place it knows that you have basically maybe you talked to some person and no you can say something you learned from him to him and that is a really neat way of doing it I really love that because it makes you feel like a living role and you you do something and the world change you do something else too in a different way and that is a really really cool yeah angry that is awesome I also like the exploration journal and there are some pages where you when you do certain things you go to a section that is supposed to be secret secrets and then you have to it doesn't it isn't placed at the location that you're in you have to go to a different page yes I really like that that is secluded so you don't like read something really game-changing just like accidents I like that so there's a lot of positive things that we have talked about now so let's talk a bit about the negatives so like TV ad yeah I don't know if you haven't it exists but lets me talk about go many of you saying it aims or because I am me like mobile everything in the games is because of that but this is a co-op game this is a game that I need to be in a very specific mood to play and when I get into it I do enjoy it but it's very hard to me to want to play it more and I think there's a different couple of reasons right I think if we go back and play the story mode I think I would enjoy it more because that's the more the thing I enjoy most is to explore the story and see where that goes because the story is very cool and I like how the story progresses I like what happening but the game is brutal and like in co-op games I have the tendency to kind of give up you know when like when you feel like you're like in in gloom amen and all these games like oh this is gonna be impossible oh and I kind of give up inside myself and it's gonna and it's really hard for me to get back into it and this game feels like a constant struggle of that because you're almost always dead you're almost always out of food you don't know where to get any more food you need five well how many do I have zero we can I get more I don't know in two rounds the manor is gonna go out and then we just die we don't die bit between duck in complete darkness let me just take two damage and to terror every single round so it's really an easy basically you have to always think about when you want to lit the next minute you need to because they go down like maybe you lit in your menu so hard I'm not gonna talk about specifically how that works but maybe you didn't have that menu for five rounds that's not a lot in this game because in a game you anything I may be able to walk over somewhere do it and counter talk to somebody and I'm done and maybe I got the food or two if I'm lucky yeah somebody just hated me I've died it's really a lot of that comes down to it's because it's it's an encounter based game because there's like it drawing cards because you don't know what's gonna happen it's a very random game you can when you've seen encounters you kind of think like oh maybe it's good to go there but sometimes it's like oh that makes sense to go there like you get five Terror what so we did a very random game it's a game that you it's one of those like it's a choose your own adventure game because you you just go somewhere and you say like okay let's see what happens if I do this and maybe it's good maybe it's bad but the problem for me then is that because it's so much bad and it's so hard to get what you don't it feels like it game is like kicking you down punching you in the face everything anytime you do something like if you just know where you're going like you get five well because that you get one after going through sixteen pages of text try not to die and rolling dice hopefully get one-on-one so there is a lot of randomness and that might be tore that is a lot of things I don't like because it's it's very random and then it's very brutal which are true thing that together makes it kind of hard for me to love so I think because I love the story I love the setting I love the story and we're getting two more campaigns in their mail like with stretch goal campaigns for this game I won't play because it's very beautiful very well produced very good game but all of that the randomness added with the fact that it's so brutal it's so hard to get what you want makes it less appealing to me yeah I think that is a perfect explanation of the game and this is what you get no Johannis but his way of describing the game you have to be prepared for in this game knocking you down after countless times of trying and also and going to hunt for some food and then you meet a guardian that stays on your map and haunts you forever and it's got some randomness and it's very brutal and what I think would really we haven't died yet but I figure we would die soon yes and I when you die and you can stop playing and start on you but I would not do in a game like this I'm here for the story I think you've been game playing itself it works it's good it's just really brutal and I I want to play the nice version on this game and I think that is that is a legit choice if you want to do this hardcore yeah you're a superhuman I don't know how you do it but I think in this game it's totally cool if you just want to do an easy mode and just experience it for the cool story and the really cool universe but this is setting and so that is why I think I agree yeah but when the game is made winning up like opportunity to play the nice way then it no study it's so hard yeah yeah yeah it is it's problem problems and then I kind of forgive it because I know me I want to play in the nice version uh-huh and get to the story let's go yes I think like I think I this might be an answer being too brutal because it's kind of it's a game where you're done you're done you do have like a if something called ol mother's mercy you can't like take that I haven't read what it does because we haven't died but it basically probably makes you survive and you will continue but it all says no that that's not the point so if you continue to die that's not the point of the game so you would probably need to start over and do something I would probably house rule this in this game I would probably if I were playing this solo and I was dying like again okay maybe in the beginning if I died then I would start anew but if I continued to happen yeah and if that could be totally random if you die or not die in this game yeah uh Chiara Spanish man so it doesn't die I don't agree with that because it doesn't feel like it this hasn't been because we haven't died yet and we have been undergoing so it is a lot of risk management yeah but it could be random yeah it could be around a bit like if you know me I have no life left and you go anyway I'm gonna fight this big monster then you will probably don't but if you do then you need to not move it's it's still in the both and don't like so I don't agree with that completely but I understand what you mean yeah probably then just like forget that I died I want to experience this cool story yeah let's try again and decreased it difficult to learn something but there is so like there is an interest rules for it when you write so there is probably a way for you to survive I think I'm gonna go as far I know this is gonna be a completely different game but I'm gonna go as first I think I would have enjoyed this better if you just did this oh yeah took away any manners oh yeah I'm not sure honey you can just explore and and and do this story and don't have to always get new resources always get things that will make these appear on the board again I know that won't happen I didn't want to work because like a lot of games is it surrounded around this but I think that for me personally I think I would enjoy it more if it wasn't and this is a lot of the brutality of the game basically so but I think it will help a lot to do the story mode where basically you play ask you are one person when we are two it would help a lot with this as well but these are very cool thing but they add so much of the upkeep so much of this stuff to the game that isn't for me the fun part but it's so strange because I have enjoy I enjoy I kind of enjoy it and I kind of not enjoy it if you know what I mean like I enjoy the oh no we need to race to that to get that but the problem is that when we need to do all of that it's also how to do the other things that you also need to do which is the point of the game because again we're a bit super simple in all things it would have been like like it would have been a completely different game and being the the excitement like the the race feeling there's a lot of feelings around these as well so I'm kind of conflicted of how much I like the game but I I think I would like to play it again we'll continue playing it with these story mode so I think we have been through most of it is anything about the gameplay because no for me I'm just starting to say the same thing yeah yeah I just agree with you the things that I like about it brutality and the story is also one kind of yeah you need to be in the right mood yeah and to really enjoy this game and I really want to play more of it but I can see that being difficult with more games coming and not being in the mood and with me losing and yeah but I'm excited for the new scenario so yeah I think we've talked a lot about this this is gonna be a long review but it's a lot of stuff to say about this game basically yeah it's really good but at the same time you yeah it's not fun to be like kicked in the mud like seven times in roll if that's not what you like if you enjoy playing Dark Souls so you don't playing those kind of like games right I played Dark Souls and PlayStation 3 I died in five minutes yeah so yeah so should we go to Firefox yeah do you want to talk I think we're all ready yeah we'd absolutely I I just it this was in my top 50 so I obviously like it and I obly obviously want to play it again and play it more yeah I I want to recommend it but I also want to warn you yeah dude you didn't know what you were going into basically yeah I I don't think I did no but this is I really love video games with and this feels like a video game I could play this solo I think I would probably do that if I couldn't play it with you yeah and I think it's hard to write this case I think it's really hard but I really like it but you have to read it yeah I do I and just for me personally are you gonna are you gonna do a run a rob thing always that split rating yeah Rob does that run from from blue peg pink paint oh listen to me if you don't already great podcast the best photos he doesn't split rating sometimes okay well it's like he kind of kind of like he's taking the game and also the like objectively oh yeah yeah you can do that is okay for me this is an eight I really like this thing game this is super cool I'm not going to do a spliff raking thing this is my opinion I like that I have to work for the positive things the few there is in this game and I think it's really I just I just love so many things about this game the original I know nullity in the mechanisms on the many errors in the universe and also in the exploration is so many things are long and so it's gonna be an eight but we've talked about all the things that I have a little problem with but I was so low it's hard to talk about this game yeah so I'm gonna give it a four oh no I think I'm gonna give it like I hate doing this seven yeah I was like it was kind of like balancing between a six point five or seven I think of seven is good for me for now because I think the game is very good I think like if you like this kind of game it's not my genre of games usually it's an everything thing is my thing but the other things the crushing co-op games because co-op games are supposed to be crushing and this is super crushing this is hard on a hard level for us it's just crushing it yeah this is crushing it yeah so I'm gonna give it a seven for all the reasons we've already talked about not gonna rehash DOS and yeah that's the end of the review yeah if there's something that's we missed or you miss us talking about please write in the comments and we can respond to them there yeah because there is probably some things when we're rambling in our head that we forget to talk about probably and if you have some questions just let us know and that's the another video thank you so much for watching i'm johannes you've been watching board-gaming ramblings and my life

Channel: Board Gaming Ramblings

Views: 3,458

Keywords: TaintedGrail, Boardgames, Boardgamereview, bgg, board game ramblings

Id: IIIkzA3RF6s

Length: 32min 43sec (1963 seconds)

Published: Mon May 11 2020