[REVIEW] Fateforge: Chronicles of Kaan: A tight little narrative skirmish game that soars at its best but plummets in its worst

Background: Who I ( u/tarul ) am and my tastes

I love narrative/story-driven video games, but like many of y'all, I'm tired of staring at a screen all day... especially so since I have a little one who is observing my habits and patterns. As such, I've gotten heavily into narrative campaign board solo games! I thought I'd write my reviews to give back to this community, since I've intensely browsed it for recommendations over the past year as I've gotten more engrossed in the hobby.

Quick Note: I am writing this review after having finish a campaign of this game.

Fateforge: Chronicles of Kaan - What is it?

Fateforge: Chronicles of Kaan is a cooperative scenario-based narrative campaign dungeon crawler... yet another in an increasingly crowded niche (that I absolutely adore). The majority of Fateforge is played through an app (no voice reader, unfortunately), which provides a choice-driven story through text and leads into the "board game" scenarios. Scenarios themselves are uniquely short but crunchy - characters roll 4 dice a piece, use said dice for actions, and then try to complete the objective(s) within 3-5 rounds and escape. Scenarios take only 20-30 minutes, with enemies usually being obstacles instead of individual challenges. However, the big catch is that healing is minimal after successful scenario completion (full heals are only available every 2-3 scenarios). As a result, scenarios are tense affairs, where players weigh the clock against their HP pool. Luckily, as players obtain items and skills, they can mitigate bad dice rolls or buff good dice rolls to get better effects. If players were to fail, Fateforge uses a failforward system to continue the plot.

Fateforge has a dedicated solo mode where players control 2 players and enemies are stronger/tankier (due to players knowing the dice results of all characters as opposed to only their own). This review covers solo mode.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Fateforge is the first in a series of games (plot-wise). The overarching plot is not resolved here and continues into the expansions (outside of the scope of this review).

A snapshot of a skirmish. The game is neither small nor a table hog.

Pros:

- Fast-pace gameplay - With each scenario only taking (20-30 minutes of setup), Fateforge offers the thrill of dungeon crawling in a lightweight yet satisfyingly crunchy package. With only 3-5 rounds, players need to plan their turns ahead of time, adjusting their turn-by-turn tactics based on their dice variance.

- Unique characters - Despite only rolling 4 dice, each character uniquely modifies the dice results into actions that separate themselves from one another. I played the Shaman (supporting character who can flex to move / fight) and the Mercenary (an absolute beat-stick who can pseudo-tank), and their playstyles felt very different.

- Hard but rewarding - I played this game on easy and it was still tense! Given the limited number of rounds and enemy turns being mostly known ahead of time (some randomness due to enemy reactions), the game is all about thinking ahead... especially since the damage you take in 1 scenario carries over to the next. However, since turn-order is fixed ahead of time and there are only 4 dice rolled per player, it's hard to get full analysis paralysis.

- A driving narrative - The narrative kicks off strong with urgency, giving you the task of rescuing the forest priestess from the "evil" king. The narrative is action-packed and filled with twists and turns, keeping the player interested in what will happen next. The skirmishes also make more sense narratively, as the tense yet brief nature of small fights/flights is captured.

- Fairly short campaign - I finished the campaign and the side-quests after playing 16 battles (I'd wager <10 hours of "skirmish" gameplay, <20 hours total), and the game felt like it didn't overstay its welcome. The game is very replayable, with 5 characters included in the box and some unique sidequests /branching paths based on player choice.

Cons:

- Setup is soooooo long - Setup takes a whopping 10 minutes per scenario (half as long as the scenario), since you have to grab each enemy card, the enemy disks, the item/objective tokens, and then finally assemble the map with cardboard tiles. I would NOT recommend assembling the map with the exact tiles shown on the app, as that takes incredibly long (since there are ~35 map tiles) but only 4 unique (5 if you count the singular T-bracket). Why isn't there a scenario book??

- Mostly an app game with just a little bit of board game- For the record, I am a big fan of app-companions, with Familiar Tales being one of my favorite games of all time. That said, Kaan is almost entirely spent in the app, with even key events (enemy reactions, opening treasure, capturing objectives) outcomes being entirely detailed in the app. In some ways, I feel like the game would have benefitted from being entirely an app- especially since the app doesn't save battle progress (do NOT close it in the middle of the battle, or else you'll have to start over OR skip your way to the current round).

- Bad dice rolls can instantly make you lose the scenario... and the next - The action economy to complete the objectives in 3-5 rounds is very tight in solo mode, even at the easy difficulty. Although you get skills that mitigate dice rolls (i.e. convert 1 die into another result), bad rolls can absolutely screw you. Early bad rolls are particularly horrible, since enemies will clump, hinder your progress (i.e. lowering your next turn's efficacy since some enemies "block" movement), and make you take damage that carries over to your NEXT scenario... screwing you over there too.

- Yet another generic fantasy world - While the narrative is engaging, the world is fairly generic DnD at the end of the day. The game tries to inject personality by giving "foreign names" to the places and people, but sadly the lore of the world is mostly detailed as "X People from Y place had Z thing happen to them. That is why they want to <do whatever action>." The encyclopedia of the world, included in the app, reads like a high school history book as opposed to a brimming society. Also, the game never explains the races, assuming knowledge from other fantasy sources. What the heck is a bugbear?

- Middling leveling/reward system - While as a whole skills specialize characters into specific niches (i.e. the Mercenary is much better at punching things than the Shaman), they... don't really do that much besides turn X die into Y result. Equipment and items are a particular letdown, as they don't increase the number of dice you can roll (4), but only give you different types to roll. It's simply not as exciting as leveling up in other dungeon-crawlers.

Overall Verdict:

(Context: I rate on a 1-10 scale, where 5 is an average game, 1 is a dumpster fire and 10 is a masterpiece. My 5 is the equivalent of getting a 70-80% in a school test).

Score: 7.5/10

Fateforge is a hard game for me to rate, as its pros and cons are sooooo polarizing. On one hand, this game captures the spirit of dungeon-crawling (narratively and gameplay-wise) in such a tight, well thought package that can be played in short 30 min bouts or longer 4-hour marathons. On the other hand, setup takes way too long for how short each scenario is, the world is so incredibly generic that it weakens the memorability of the story, and most of my time was spent on the app and not the board game. Additionally, for its price-point, the campaign was rather short, though it has great character variety for replayability and a separate skirmish mode for players fiending for new, out-of-story challenges.

If Fateforge fixes the issues I mentioned above (particularly by using a scenario book for map layouts like every other sane narrative campaign in the 2020s), I can see this series being an absolute must-have. However, as is, it'll replace Gloomhaven and its fiddliness in my solo sessions... but won't be beating Too Many Bones, which captures tactics, dice-rolling, narrative charm, and character progression in a more condensed but IMO deeper package.

Should you buy the Deluxe Version?

Personally, I'd say no. The wooden enemy chips are nice, but only some of the tokens are improved (food and gems). Objective markers, gates, and treasure are still standard cardboard tokens. The map tiles are still as wasteful as the retail version (i.e. despite there being 34 tiles, there are only 5 different shapes; they simply have different art for aesthetics). At $150, this package looks far less appealing than Awakened Realms/Chip Theory/any big kickstarter project. I'd recommend the retail version unless something particularly speaks to you.

The boss pack particularly is unnecessary. Boss maps still only take 20-30 minutes, and you usually kill the boss within 2-3 turns. Do you really need a miniature for an enemy who will only be on the map for 10-15 minutes out of the entire 8-10 hours of skirmishes?