Part of the fun of engaging with a system built around different characters, classes, species, or any other mode of substantive differentiation, is finding the build that’s right for you. Everyone who likes Root has a favorite faction, everyone who plays Magic has a favorite color, and the wonderful thing is that these preferences are almost always deeper than mechanics. If you’re lucky, if everything clicks, your chosen avatar feels ‌like an extension of yourself. There is something about playing as the Lizard Cult that elicits a deeper joy for me. Am I going to win? Probably not, but boy I’m going to have a great time. Blue may leave me with no friends, but I’m enjoying myself.

Leviathan Wilds has been my favorite cooperative game for a while now, and while I was equally fulsome in my praise of the first expansion, it is only now with second expansion Shattered Peak that I can say I have found the Class for me. The Geomancer, one of three new Classes that join three new Climbers and eleven new Leviathans in this box, feels like home. All the builds in Leviathan Wilds are about running around and smashing infectious crystals, but the Geomancer is the first to mess with those troublesome fungal blooms. He can manipulate their values…

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Here at Meeple Mountain there’s a spectrum of opinion on the merits of Restoration Games’ Unmatched. I lean towards the positive. Partly because of the system’s easy rules, snappy fights and gorgeous production. It’s a hard game to hate.

But I’m also the ideal audience for Unmatched. I don’t play player-versus-player fighting games, as a rule. It’s the head-to-head combative nature of them; it’s just not my jam. Sure, I’ll happily block your perambulation in Tokaido, cut you off in Through the Desert and strand as many of your meeple as possible in Carcassonne. I can be ruthless as I claw towards victory, but that victory isn’t dependent on you being eliminated, just inconvenienced. Perhaps it’s less honourable than looking you square in the eyes as I punch you in the face, but a game where the entire point is to whittle you down to zero health does not my boat float.

Unmatched is the exception. With its sleek rules and sharp turns, I don’t have to invest much energy into engaging with a genre that doesn’t thrill me. The stakes are lower, which conversely means I’m more invested in enjoying the experience itself. And there’s a lot to enjoy.

Unmatched: The Witcher – Realms Fall and Steel & Silver Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.