Review of Streets Of Arkham

Blurb from the publisher: 'A city in peril...

The Streets Of Arkham expansion introduces iconic Arkham locations and the sinister secrets they conceal. Three new scenarios test the mettle of the investigators as they face off against visitors from beyond the stars, forces beyond reckoning, and violent criminals. To drive back evils both ancient and modern, investigators must unlock their full potential using reality-defying spells, powerful items, and strange elixirs. Whatever the cost, the city of Arkham must be saved.'

What you get: Your USD 59,95 or equivalent will buy you Streets Of Arkham, an expansion for the Mansions Of Madness (Second Edition) game line, the reimagining of the internationally acclaimed collaborative horror board game for one to five players that lasts up to three hours, and which is currently in BGG's top 20.

As with the basic game, the expansion is made up by a physical and a virtual component. The virtual component, inside the game's indispensable companion app, is free of charge and requires a single click to activate. At the time of writing this review, the app was available for for Macs, PCs, iOS and Android and supported ten languages.

In addition to the 4-page rulebook that can also be downloaded from the publisher's website free of charge, the game contains the following: 17 Map tiles, 4 Investigator cards and plastic figures, 7 Monster tokens and plastic figures, 11 Common Item cards, 9 Unique Item cards, 15 Spell cards, 8 Condition cards, 5 Damage cards, 5 Horror cards, 6 Elixir cards, 12 Person tokens, 30 Improvement tokens, 2 Door tokens, and 2 Wall tokens.

Gameplay: Beyond The Threshold unlocks three new digital scenarios and Mythos events on your app: Astral Alchemy is this expansion's introductory level scenario. Gangs of Arkham is the lengthiest of the three, dealing with a potential mob war. Ill-Fated Exhibit on the other hand takes place at the Miskatonic Museum where a new exhibit has coincided with a series of unfortunate events. It is puzzle-based, with generous amounts of investigation and not as much combat.

Rules-wise, the first thing the expansion introduces are elixirs. These increase the basic skills, even thought they might have side effects. Increased skills are what they say: the skill is now counted as being one higher. Tower puzzles are a new addition on the app, whereupon one has to construct a ziggurat-like tower by using three different columns to put the pieces in the right order.

The new Investigators are a bootlegger, a reformed cultist, an entertainer and a rookie cop. As expected, they have different abilities. The entertainer can cast a Spell without spending an action, the reformed cultist suffers less horror than other characters, the bootlegger can move before or after performing a Search,while the rookie cop starts with a special item.

Tile-wise, additions are two-area, three-area, and even four area tiles. Examples include the (enormous) kitchen, the library archives and the exhibit entrance. When it comes to monsters on the other hand there are skeletons, star-vampires, hired guns, and the Lloigor.

The rulebook also includes a three-question FAQ.

The strong points: The theme, good grief, the theme! As much as the tiles don't add much when it comes to rules and gameplay, they definitely add to the feeling of exploring a new locale. No matter how many words I devote to the Miscatonic Museum and how it feels to roam its halls, or the libraries and classrooms, or even the actual streets and sewers of Arkham, I won't do this justice. It's mesmerizing; it's gorgeous; it's addictive.

The new Elixirs rule is a rather logical addition; who doesn't wish to have the opportunity to improve his stats? Yet, the designers didn't just rest on this basic principle. They trapped this stat progress. Indeed, you can improve a weak stat or a stat that appears to be important to this game, yet there will be consequences. Improving a stat is not a black and white decision and should not be taken for granted.

The new monsters are good and provide options in classes which were rather undermanned. The normal human enemies is the most prominent example. They definitely get a boost with the Hired Guns.

I do not need to comment on how the Mansions Of Madness expansions breathe new life into the older scenarios. A couple of mock-ups on the app (not a standard full playtest) demonstrated that certain scenarios will get quite the make-over, making the maps more unpredictable and as exciting as when they were first encountered. That's an excellent job!

When it comes to the scenarios, Astral Alchemy proves why university campuses are more exciting to explore after dark. The adventure runs on a timer, with the very welcome mechanic of the investigators earning a bit of additional time with each successful interaction. At some point the Investigators might feel a bit like errand boys, taking into account how many objects should be moved from one place to another. At the end of the day however this is a feature, not a failure.

Gangs of Arkham had a very down-to-earth feeling. Interacting with the mob can be tricky when dead bodies are involved.

Ill-Fated Exhibit deserves a special mention. Not only it is a fully investigative scenario with only minimal combat, it actually requires from the players to take notes if they wish to logically deduct the correct solution from all the snippets of information that they unearth. If collecting clues seems challenging enough, wait until you do so without knowing whether you have collected all of them or whether there are more to be found.

Just like in the previous expansion the rules will take the better part of twenty seconds to explain. All you need to do to use this expansion is buy it, read the rulebook while the others set up the game, and play immediately. That is a thing I really like about Mansions of Madness: purchase is a mere minute away from usage.

Just like in the basic game, the art and components are of very high standards. Even though the miniatures cannot reach Cthulhu Wars standards, they still are of a very high quality. Once again, the cover is perfection itself. In a game with Mansions in the title, the covers should better depict mansions, and they'd better look perfect.

The new adventures and game elements do not make the add more difficult to use. Everything you are accustomed to is where it used to be. All the new and fancy stuff are pretty much self-explanatory.

This isn't the game's only physical expansion. Fantasy Flight Games has published another five expansions already. We are examining them together, one by one, at a nice leisurely pace.

The weak points: The price is way off. The box is bigger than it needs to be (I will never understand this practice), yet I don't mind that. As much as Streets Of Arkham has a lot to offer to the game, at catalogue price it costs as much as a big game, something that will discourage quite a few MoM lovers out there. As usual, activating the free part on the app without owning the physical product is not going to really work. You may be able to proxy a few things here and there, ultimately however you will be lacking a lot of information that can be only obtained through the physical game.

The tile collection has grown to a very high number by now (good!), yet there is no cohesive way of keeping inventory (terrible). No matter how you store them, the whole process of finding them and placing them when needed is fiddly, if not an outright pain. This aggravates the disassociation between app and board; things flow a lot slower than they should have.

I was extremely dissatisfied to discover that, if one is using the e-Raptor Insert: Mansions of Madness Second Edition the contents of the basic game and only two out of the five expansions do not fit the box. This, of course, is not a shortcoming of the present expansion. Yet, it is very clear that for two expansions to fit in the basic box, all inserts, original or from third parties, must be removed. I can understand how a third party can fumble here. What I don't understand is why the publisher doesn't facilitate the buyer by creating a basic box that can eventually store everything. It's not that the game's success and expansions came as a surprise after all.

For those enjoying a pure Lovecraftian feel, two out of the three scenarios might feel a bit off. I personally don't mind that; things can't get any fresher if the same concepts get rehashed time and again. What I am perplexed about however are the difficulty ratings of the scenarios. In the past I tended to agree with the designers' indication. That is no longer the case for this expansion. At the end of the day however, this is only a nit-pick. It is only relevant if one wants to introduce new players and does so through an ultra hard scenario, or wishes to experience one of the allegedly most difficult, and comes out to solve it fairly easily.

As much as I liked the new investigators, there is a very perceptible power creep. Mansions of Madness is an action optimization game at heart. Here, we have two characters one of which provides free spell castings (allowing the use of spells which otherwise would have been considered secondary), while the other allows for free movement. I can see other, older characters permanently retiring with two such characters on board. That, of course, is bad design. Characters should be equally useful mechanically-speaking, and not desirable just due to the theme.

As much as the three scenarios expand the boundaries of the game, the main experience is still relatively similar to the basic game. The positives are well-known. On the other hand there is the at times awkward interaction with the app, some long investigations that don't necessarily lead somewhere and so on and so forth.

Conclusion: I like what Streets Of Arkham brings to the basic game both rules-wise as well as when it comes to the theme. On the other hand, otherworldly horrors in a closed museum should be scary. The price shouldn't.

For more info on Streets Of Arkham visit Fantasy Flight Games at https://www.fantasyflightgames.com.

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