Arkham Horror LCG Review (Revised Core Set) — Shelfside (2024)

Pros

Visual polish is just everywhere in this rendition of Arkham Horror. All of the cards look great, with all the different colors and art of sickly Lovecraftian things, just phenomenal.

FFG really has polished the roping in experience too, with a clean learn to play booklet, and the 5 player decks are just READY to go in their own separate wraps.

The characters just lend you to the awesome variety of cards: there’s temporary boosts to yourself, Weapons that let you attack in all sorts of ways, Spells that have heavy drawbacks, Allies to summon to help you, and even ways to Barricade areas! There’s even each character’s Weakness card which is fun to think about.

Cards won’t really make you feel TOO strong though, and this is a Lovecraft game filled with a good sense of unease. There’s constant uncertainty around every corner, and you almost never feel secure with your power, which is PERFECT for horror. Like, doing any Skill Check requires players to draw a tile from an included cloth bag that is loaded with negative outcomes, even one auto-fail.

Each turns ends up being filled with decisions as you try to optimize your 3 actions: 7 possible standard things that are repeatable, and you can use actions from cards currently in front of your Investigator. Players will really be stretched to use cards/Resources appropriately with each scenario’s pacing. There’s frequently the question of: “How much should I boost my Skill Check, or boost my teammates’?”

There’s 3 connected scenarios that feel different, with a great, video-game-y deckbuilding system along the way to ease in newcomers. While the scenarios have scary moments, sometimes Monsters/NPCs combine with the card play for a good chuckle.

Cons & Nitpicks

The only REAL con here is the replayability for this being $60. The first scenario is a soft tutorial, so that means that there’s only 2 full scenarios. Then take into account how the game is 45 minutes per player, so if you’re the solo type that only likes to run through stories once, this box is less than 3 hours to complete everything.

Don’t get too fooled by all the cards here: deckbuilding isn’t all that nuanced. You’re still only getting less than 10 types of cards per color, some of which are direct upgrades to your starting cards. Plus, if you add cards as per the campaign rules, when you’re actually only adding cards TWICE, as there’s only 3 scenarios.

There’s certainly some things AHLCG’s base box did to help replayability: from multiple endings and slightly varied events based on what happened in previous scenarios, to a small pool of Location cards, and of course the Encounter flips will be different. In fact, the replayability gets much better with multiple players, where you can mix and match Investigator teams.

Nitpicks come in with the Encounter deck randomness: its not set up in any specific order, so the power levels of what debuffs happen, or Monster spawns, can be all over the place. Sometimes you draw no Monsters for a couple of rounds, and feel like everything is pretty easy. Sometimes you flip a permanent Condition, which are cool thematically, but it can only be shaken off through a successful check, so you could find yourself unable to move or attack for multiple rounds—that REALLY sucks.

3-4 players also gave us some concern, where playing with more players is actually adding a LOT more randomness to scenarios, the SHEER amount of bad from flipping over 4 cards a turn is alarming. Plus, Investigator Skills stats are absolutely tiny to cram it into smaller cards, making it hard to keep track of multiple playes’ cards. We cannot wholeheartedly endorse multiplayer, but we can’t say its truly bad either, especially if you’re playing mostly for story.

Final Thoughts

While we weren't too enamored with this base box, that's the thing... this is just a base box for a HUGE game and community. Arkham Horror LCG has so much possibility, where the deckbuilding possibilities, scenario depth, and overall replayability can become incredible with a little more cash. That's why we couldn't ultimately give a Recommender Score to this base box, and will be re-reviewing this as we cover expansions!