Talisman - Legendary Tales

Nice and relaxing adventure game that’s not too serious.I used to play talisman in the 90s so thought I’d try and find a solo game similar. This is quite, quite different but great fun. Like I say I initially bought to play it solo but the artwork and the campaign stories of the game are quite tame so thought my 4 year old daughter might like to join in and she absolutely loves it. She loves the fantasy aspect of dealing with faries, goblins and dragons it really appeals to her imagination and mine for that matter! It’s a quick game about 30-45mins per chapter so is perfect for her attention span too.Setup takes quite a while so would suggest doing it in advance if playing with impaitent children. My daughter loves the fact that each character has a male and female version. From my point of view I like the macanics of it and how you level up your own character by winning loot. The combat is all done by blindly picking tokens out of your character bag instead of dice but again is just based on luck and how much loot you have scored. There’s about 6 different missions with the aim of winning a talisman each time. Each mission is divided into two chapters and you have to successfully complete each bit to move on. Losing is quite difficult really - you are only playing against the games clock. There are three difficultly levels but that’s based on how much time is left. You can replay missions and they can be made quite different each time by drawing different tokens but the stories in each chapter stay the same. All in all a nice tame adventure game you can pick up quickly and children can play too.

Very fun! Much shorter than the standard Talisman game and fun for the cooperative aspect. Good value for the money and a good addition to the Talisman series!

I got Talisman Legendary Tales for my two girls (aged 7) and they loved it. It's a Dungeons and Dragons style adventure where your group of heroes cooperate to retrieve 5 magical talismans. There's 5 quests, each with its own unique twists. Battles are resolved by drawing tokens from a bag of abilities and treasures, maybe you'll get enough power to defeat your foe, or maybe you will get a 'time passes' token that moves the adventure further towards the end. Players get power ups in the form of treasure tokens they add to their bag, increasing their chances of drawing something useful. If you draw too many 'time passes' tokens and run out of time you've failed. I liked a lot of features in the game. I like that each hero had a male and female version and different strengths and weaknesses (within the limits of the game engine). I like that the heroes never really get hurt in a battle, they only get 'time passes' implying they need more time to fight or time to rest and recover. I also really liked that it was cooperative, creating cheers and joy with my kids rather than tears and temper tantrums. I liked that this was made in the USA and that I could get if for more than half off the regular price of $50 (though I think it would be worth $50 now that I have played it). The token drawing mechanism also grew on me, the game comes with cloth bags to draw tokens from and the character's stat card loops right onto the drawstring. Drawing tokens gave the game a bit more tactile function than other games and gave the kids an easy way to cheat, which at their age can be an important way to maintain harmony. The five quests are all different and change enough to make each one feel different. The kids really enjoyed a silly one where the heroes are regularly turned into toads by a witch. I think the presentation on them could be improved though. The rules for each quest is split between the rule book and some large cards and could have been combined. The set up diagrams are sometimes hard to read requiring picking out small colored hexagons on colorful backgrounds. And some of the explanations were a bit unclear. I'd also like it if the monster tokens were a bit larger, it looks like they have some great art but it's shrunk to a half inch size. Even just reprinting the art in the rule book as some sort of bonus monster guide would be great. The heroes and monsters basically have 2 stats - fighting and magic which I think might have been too abstract. Magic seems more like a skill stat since it includes things like bows or trickery. Perhaps it should be renamed? But overall this is a fun game for kids and adults. I would not recommend it for a group of adults, there's not much strategy or thinking. But if you're looking for an adventure with some grade school kids this is a good pick. My girls loved it and pestered me to play through all 5 quests this weekend.

initial unboxing great buikd quality. Have played it now with my kids and we loved it. first quest wa fun. I defo recommend parents / games masters read the whole instruction booklet before first setup, otherwise first play through is a bit slow. My kids aged 18, 13, 11 and 9 picked it up very quickly and enjoyed the way each subquest got concluded and flowed into the next section. One or two holes in the rules could do with more explanation, there are some good articles on board game geeks and other websites, but i couldn't find an official rules addendum anywhere after a quick search online. Still a great game, which might require some quick house rules jotting down and adding to the box.

We love playing this game. We saw it at friend of us and my 6 years old love playing it. The level is ramping nicely and we do bend the rules a bit to make it easier for him. We were missing one black bag but we send a message via the Pegasus website and they sent us a new one without a problem. The parts are durable and the game is so fun to play even over and over, not just once.