Prophecy

I like the general feel of this fantasy world, as well as the breadth of choice on your turn; however—and this was agreed to by all present—the game was fussy and cramped compared to Talisman. Several players wished out loud that we were playing Talisman instead, as it seems to move more quickly and can support more players with less downtime.

A couple of years ago I was really obsessed with playing Talisman. I was looking for a simpler adventure game than Descent and Talisman looked like it was it. Unfortunately Talisman was out of print and I really didn't want to pay $100 for a used board game. Then I heard about Prophecy.

I ordered it (the Altar edition, I was a true Prophecy pioneer) and it was a hit. I like it's goofy artwork and the glass beads (I think the Z-Man version has cubes?) and the board is a very stunning, abstract map. My only problem are the flimsy cards, but I think the Z-Man version may have fixed that. Oh, another great thing are the character stands! The plastic bases are the best out of any game, hands down.

Game play is essentially Talisman, but better. You have two stats Strength and Willpower which are connected to Health and Magic respectively; get wounded and your current strength is down until you heal. When you spend magic on spells or to initiate battle of wills, then you have less Willpower in those battles. Battles resolve just like Talisman, add your modifiers and see if you get the higher roll than the encounter.

You also get a lot more freedom in movement. A lot. You can always move one space to either side of you for free, pay 1 gold to ride a horse two spaces either way, spend gold to go port to port or travel via magic gates. Also there are plenty of skills that affect movement.

As for skills, each character is a member of two guilds from which they spend experience to gains skills. Any character, however, can have skills from any guild. You just have to pay gold AND experience to get the skills.

The winner is the first person to gain 3 of the 5 artifacts protected in the Outer Planes spaces guarded by a lesser and greater guardian each. If all of the guardians have been defeated, but no player has 3 artifacts it becomes a PvP game. Well, you can still do PvP all throughout the game, but there's little reason to do so.

Prophecy is a simple adventure game, but it does adventuring right. The game can tend to drag on a little long sometimes, so we'll either play with some quick start rules (characters get an item and a skill to start with) or play winner is first to get 1 artifact, or 2 artifacts or whatever.

Currently, I'm a little bored with Prophecy, so I'd really like to give it a 4.5 stars. I really want those expansions to come out and give Prophecy a breath of fresh air.

I think Prophecy it's a great, short fantasy adventure game. If you've played others in this genre you probably don't need another, but still you will want to get this because it's good, plays in about 2 hours and has a great upgrading and specializing system.

Plus the board is easily travelled trough and the movement is very easy so you'll be in no time where you want to , not wasting turns and turns wishing to get a roll like in some other games.

I am a bit concerned for it's replayability, however the new expansions should deal with that.