Sunderfolk Review - A Great Tabletop-Inspired Game With Friends

Sunderfolk feels at its best when you're playing together with friends on the couch during what would have otherwise been an uneventful weekend afternoon. The game embodies two of my favorite aspects of tabletop RPGs: strategic teamwork and memorable anecdotes. It does struggle to be fun when you're playing solo, but that feels like it's clearly the wrong way to play the tabletop-inspired, turn-based tactical RPG, which really only comes together when different minds are working together to coordinate their respective perks and customized deck of card-based abilities to strategically accomplish the task at hand.In Sunderfolk, each player takes control of one of six anthropomorphic heroes: an arcanist crow, a pyromancer axolotl, a ranger goat, a bard bat, a berserker polar bear, or a rogue weasel. After proving themselves capable bouncers in a tavern, the heroes band together to protect their home village, Arden, from a series of escalating threats and try to find a way to prevent the growing corruption of the magical tree that keeps everyone safe from the coming darkness. It's your typical run-of-the-mill fantasy setup, with would-be heroes rising to heed the call of adventure when no one else will, and for the first few hours, Sunderfolk doesn't do much to differentiate itself from contemporary stories.You can play as the spellcasting arcanist, supportive bard, high-damaging ranger, bulky berserker, sneaky rogue, or explosive pyromancer.But then you get to really know the NPCs, and Sunderfolk's story starts to make its mark with its varied cast of characters, all of whom are voiced by actor Anjali Bhimani to replicate the experience of playing a tabletop adventure with a Game Master who is portraying all the non-hero characters. Bhimani does an incredible job adjusting the pitch, tone, accent, and speed of her voice to add a distinct flavor to every character, injecting a feeling of life into the narrative that makes it easy to love the heroes' allies and effortless to hate the villains. My friends and I were far more invested in saving the village and discovering what was going on upon meeting an adorable, one-armed penguin orphan named Amaia who was doing her best to keep Arden's mines running, especially once her cruel and lying uncle was introduced. We vowed to do everything to save the little bird (and desperately hoped her uncle would be revealed as the true big bad so that we'd have a chance to destroy him), and much of that emotional investment, as well as our feelings about the other characters, was derived from Bhimani's portrayal.Continue Reading at GameSpot

Apr 18, 2025 - 20:07

Sunderfolk Review - A Great Tabletop-Inspired Game With Friends

Sunderfolk feels at its best when you're playing together with friends on the couch during what would have otherwise been an uneventful weekend afternoon. The game embodies two of my favorite aspects of tabletop RPGs: strategic teamwork and memorable anecdotes. It does struggle to be fun when you're playing solo, but that feels like it's clearly the wrong way to play the tabletop-inspired, turn-based tactical RPG, which really only comes together when different minds are working together to coordinate their respective perks and customized deck of card-based abilities to strategically accomplish the task at hand.

In Sunderfolk, each player takes control of one of six anthropomorphic heroes: an arcanist crow, a pyromancer axolotl, a ranger goat, a bard bat, a berserker polar bear, or a rogue weasel. After proving themselves capable bouncers in a tavern, the heroes band together to protect their home village, Arden, from a series of escalating threats and try to find a way to prevent the growing corruption of the magical tree that keeps everyone safe from the coming darkness. It's your typical run-of-the-mill fantasy setup, with would-be heroes rising to heed the call of adventure when no one else will, and for the first few hours, Sunderfolk doesn't do much to differentiate itself from contemporary stories.

You can play as the spellcasting arcanist, supportive bard, high-damaging ranger, bulky berserker, sneaky rogue, or explosive pyromancer.

But then you get to really know the NPCs, and Sunderfolk's story starts to make its mark with its varied cast of characters, all of whom are voiced by actor Anjali Bhimani to replicate the experience of playing a tabletop adventure with a Game Master who is portraying all the non-hero characters. Bhimani does an incredible job adjusting the pitch, tone, accent, and speed of her voice to add a distinct flavor to every character, injecting a feeling of life into the narrative that makes it easy to love the heroes' allies and effortless to hate the villains. My friends and I were far more invested in saving the village and discovering what was going on upon meeting an adorable, one-armed penguin orphan named Amaia who was doing her best to keep Arden's mines running, especially once her cruel and lying uncle was introduced. We vowed to do everything to save the little bird (and desperately hoped her uncle would be revealed as the true big bad so that we'd have a chance to destroy him), and much of that emotional investment, as well as our feelings about the other characters, was derived from Bhimani's portrayal.Continue Reading at GameSpot