A Ravishing Update Of A Divisive Board Game
I experienced the Mandela Effect with Talisman: Digital 5th Edition. Having played several rounds, I thought I would return to Talisman: Digital Edition, Nomad Games’ first attempt at a Talisman game on the Xbox. In my head, it was only marginally less good-looking than this version: an incremental downgrade. But when I went back, it looked rubbish, like it was made out of cardboard. My memory had completely failed me.
I put that down to Talisman: Digital 5th Edition’s graphical revamp. It’s both authentic and timeless, like Talisman’s fantasy world has come to life. It feels like it’s always been this way. Going back to the original is stuffy, like lifting an antique board game out of the loft, while this is a true video game. The art on the cards is fantastic; the regions vault off the board. It’s safe to say that if you’re here solely for the visual upgrade, you will come away happy.
There’s a minor sacrifice that comes with the visual upgrade. While the first game is drab-looking in comparison, a few of the spaces were easier to identify. For example, in Talisman: Digital 5th Edition, it can be hard to spot the Sentinel, a vital space on the board because of the ability to hop from one ring of the board to another. In the original, it was a huge colossus above the board; here, it merges in with the fields, woods and plains. The same is true of the corner spaces, which look too similar to each other. The commitment to fantasy-realism means there’s a slight loss to legibility.
More Smooth Than Rough
That trade-off is the running theme of Talisman: Digital 5th Edition. It tends to take three steps forward, but there’s often one step back. The forward momentum is massive – this is undoubtedly the better, more polished game – but issues, new and old, can still be found.
Players of the board game and original Xbox game will spot the other, less aesthetic improvements. It’s possible to amend the adventure deck, for example, which brings it in line with the board game. It’s possible to selectively choose expansion cards to include. We immediately removed Poltergeist and Witch, two of the most un-fun of cards.
Failure and falling-behind feels better. Losing a battle nets the player one Fate (used for rerolls); while that Fate can also be used to move to anywhere 1-6 spaces away. After dying, a player can buy life points to return to the game with some chance of competing. These are all welcome and address one of the biggest flaws of Talisman as a whole – that bad luck can snowball to the point that it’s not worth continuing with a game. Even trophy-gaining has been given diminishing returns, so that successful players can’t run away with a match.
Hail The Gods Of RNG
But it doesn’t quite feel enough. My biggest criticism of Talisman: Digital 5th Edition is not the video game’s fault: even with the changes, this is still a massively luck-based game, and there are minimal choices that a player can make to alleviate bad luck. A first-turn transformation into a toad, a poltergeist/witch latching on, or a thief stealing a critical item can leave a player well behind the curve. Talisman is a game which gets increasingly forgiving once the player has levelled up stats, but you need the right cards to get on that levelling curve in the first place. It’s still too easy to fall behind and feel that you could never feasibly catch up.
But for all the grumbles about losing, Talisman is still adept at creating glorious stories. We were taking the talisman to the dragon, only a few spaces away, when – through a miracle of dice rolls – a thief player teleported to our location, stole our talisman and scooted back to their original position. In other games, we have killed boar while transformed into toads, and been turned evil so that we were forced to drop holy lances before a battle. Cards and effects compound and synergise in wonderful ways.
A Classic Board Game That’s Far From Perfect
That’s the joy of Talisman, and players new to the experience will either excuse its randomness or hate it. It lacks the D&D accent on choice – effectively you have two or three choices per turn, as the board lets you go left or right on a ring. But give in to the whims of the adventure deck, where items, enemies and events can occur with equal likelihood, and it has an anything-goes charm. There’s a feeling that is unique to Talisman, of racing to level-up in the first half of the game, and then risking a run on the inner-circle of the board where the real danger awaits.
There are a few flaws that are the fault of Talisman: Digital 5th Edition. The text is very small, more so than the first game, and we can only imagine what it looks like on smaller screens. Some card effects are more invisible than they should be: you can be under the effects of someone else’s spell but not know why (a popup on the player’s turn would have solved it straight away). And it’s too complicated and finicky to perform some simple actions. Using the axe to make a raft when in the forest should be a simple prompt and button press, but it’s hidden in menus.
The Port To Play
If you’re a Talisman enthusiast, then Talisman: Digital 5th Edition is the superior port of the board game. It looks gorgeous, the fiddlier elements of the game are automated, and online matches mean that you don’t need friends huddled around a board. It’s got some legibility issues and could have tightened up some elements, but generally it’s everything you’d want from a board game conversion.
If you’re new to Talisman then the board game’s an acquired taste: heavy on RNG and occasionally cruel, but easy to pick up and capable of hilarious moments. Personally, I’ve acquired that taste: Talisman: Digital 5th Edition is something that will perpetually be on my hard drive, available for just one more online match.
*Edit – Initially we mentioned that Talisman DLC doesn’t carry over from the original game to this Digital 5th Edition, but that was incorrect. Review has been edited to remove this inaccuracy and we apologise to Nomad for the initial confusion. Review score does not change.
Important Links
Talisman: Digital 5th Edition Brings The Legendary Board Game To A New Xbox Generation – https://www.thexboxhub.com/talisman-digital-5th-edition-brings-the-legendary-board-game-to-a-new-xbox-generation/
Buy from the Xbox Store – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/talisman-digital-5th-edition/9N3KN2WLLFBT/0010
