It’s time, we’ve gotten decently into Frosthaven at this point, and it’s time to do a true review on this massive game. No, we aren’t through all of the story, yet, but let’s talk about what I’ve played thus far. A number of hours and sessions in that we’ve made some good headway on the new things as well as settled back into the routine of what we loved from Gloomhaven. But is it better?

How To Play Frosthaven?

Scenarios

Frosthaven is very much like Gloomhaven with a few things added to it. Mainly around one phase of the game. In Frosthaven you are going out and exploring scenarios, dungeon crawls, where you are fighting enemies, looting treasures, and sometimes completing goals as well.

This is done through a card play system where you play out two cards. The cards are split into two halves, the top and bottom action. You can do the top or bottom action on either card you play, but you must do one of each. These actions are going to be how you move about the board or attack an enemy, primarily. There are other actions but they are less common and dependent upon what character you are playing. The most common one is that some characters will also have healing abilities.

Town

After a scenario you head back into town where a number of things happen. You activate buildings that you’ve gotten up and running in town. They might have an ability that triggers before anything else. The goal, is, as I talk about this, to not spoil anything.

Then you shop, level up, retire characters, craft potions, and more in town. This might not all be available immediately, but it will come available as time goes on in the game. Each of these actions can be done in any order by the players, so you complete a lot as you go.

Finally, as a group, you spend resources if you want and if you can to build a new building. Building up buildings or leveling them up is how Frosthaven is going to grow as a town. But once you do that, you complete the town phase and are ready to head out on your next scenario.

Frosthaven or Gloomhaven?

This is an interesting question. Mainly, do you need both Frosthaven or Gloomhaven. Or is either game that much better than the other one? I think that thus far there is one that I prefer, slightly. I think that Frosthaven is slightly better. But if you own Gloomhaven, it isn’t enough of a difference to go out and buy Frosthaven and not play Gloomhaven.

Frosthaven gets the slightly nod for me in a few areas. Firstly, the town phase adds to the game. I like what you do in town and I like that you get to decide how you grow your town. That means that how I play Frosthaven and how you go through it are going to be different.

The other areas are around the writing and scenarios. The scenarios are better written. But it is more than just that. There are more scenarios with other objectives. In Gloomhaven I kill everything and the scenario is done. In Frosthaven, that is still often the case. But there is more going on, often times, it is kill everything and complete this objective. Or I guard a location or attack a location in order to win. The main mechanisms are similar all the time, but there are more that provide more than just kill everything.

Is It That Much Better?

But what if you find Gloomhaven to just be okay. Is Frosthaven that much better that you need to get that?

No, Frosthaven, at the core, uses the same mechanisms. The card play and action system is the same for your characters. You find that is most of what you do in a game. The scenarios are still the major part. But now the world offers more choices in what you do. So as you play through, you develop more of a specific path for your group versus the game leading the way.

I think that is a major enough difference for me so that I can say that I like it better. But if you don’t like Gloomhaven and the mechanisms, it isn’t enough for the game. It is an extra 10% on top of the game. That isn’t going to cause the game to switch up on how it feels. 100% of the game of the Gloomhaven system is still in the Frosthaven system.

The New Stuff

I already wrote an article on the new stuff. And I even did a review just focused on that. If you want to see all about the new stuff, check that article out here.

Improving Old Stuff

I find that Isaac Childres and team also have improved on some of the old stuff. Mainly around the characters in the game. The balance feels better. And the mechanisms even on the starting characters is more. I remember Gloomhaven out of the box, characters feeling less interesting than the ones that we are playing now.

I think that some of that is there is an expectation that people know the system. Frosthaven doesn’t feel like it needs to teach everything in the game. It just needs to add in a little bit more and provide a different experience. It goes back to the question, do you need both. I think that Frosthaven, even with the characters, wants you to have both.

I appreciate, though, that the game is mix and match. So if I want to bring in a character from Jaws of the Lions, that is possible. If I want to play a character from Gloomhaven, I can do that. Will I do that, unlikely, but it is possible. Mainly from Jaws of the Lions, if we find that we’ve retired most to all of the characters, I think it could happen. But that is not that likely, nor are we close to doing that.

Final Thoughts on Frosthaven

I love Frosthaven. Clearly from what I’ve written about it, I think that it is just as strong as Gloomhaven. However, you won’t ever see it separate from Gloomhaven on my Top 100 Games (of all time) lists. Why, because the core of the game is the same. So there isn’t enough for me to say that what I do changes or that one game is massively better than the other one. Frosthaven feels like a continuation and iteration on Gloomhaven. And I think that is just fine.

For some, that might not be enough to come back to Frosthaven. If you like Gloomhaven but just beat it, or want to try a majorly different campaign, or maybe are burnt out on campaigns, Frosthaven is unlikely to be what you want next. It is, as I said, mainly still Gloomhaven. But if you love Gloomhaven, beat that campaign and you want a game that does more, but not so much that it feels harder or fundamentally a different experience, Frosthaven is for you.

My Grade: A+
Gamer Grade: A+
Casual Grade: C

Note, this is not a game that if you are a casual gamer you should jump into. I think once you understand the core loop and system of Gloomhaven and Frosthaven it isn’t bad to get going or continue in. There is a learning curve to that, though. If you play with someone who knows and likes the system, they’ll be able to ease that transition along. Or, grab Gloomhaven Jaws of the Lion which has a tutorial built into the game to teach you how to play.

Send an Email
Message me on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here
Support us on Patreon here