Super Camelot

Today's review is of the 2019 release, Super Camelot. For 2-4 players, it takes 40 minutes.

Overview

You are King Arthur or one of his entourage, and you seek the grail! Or 40 gems . . . either will win you the game. On your turn, you have three actions- move up to 3 squares, attack enemies/objects, open treasure chests, etc.- and your goal is to acquire 40 gems or obtain the three shrines and get back to Camelot to retrieve the grail. Do so first and you win!

game components; image from here

The game starts with four square tiles. If one of your actions has you move off the existing board, you lay a new tile in the area and populate it with everything shown on that square (bushes, rocks, enemies, treasure). But beware- enemies can move and attack you, so be ready to fend them off! And if nobody is on a given square, everything that's "non-persistent" will vanish, and be respawned if someone revisits that square in the future. 

When attacking enemies or swinging at bushes, you must roll a sword or two (to beat them) *and* a gem icon (to be eligible to draw treasure). Bushes drop 'litter' (which could be gems or potions or keys), enemies drop 'small loot' or 'big loot' depending on their difficulty (which could be more gems or special potions or keys/etc.). You need keys to open treasure chests, which can have special objects (like better swords or other weapons).

Review

From the appearance of the game and the overview, you might infer that this is like Nintendo's original Zelda video game. And you'd be right. It's almost exactly like the video game. The tiles, the art, the rules- it's like the designers thought "you know what would be cool? Let's make Zelda with an Arthurian theme into a board game." But it's not as interesting as said game, unfortunately. Obtaining 40 gems can be difficult (though items you pick up have a gem value that contributes to your total), so this is about getting the three shrines. And there's not that much strategy to do so- you need to explore to reveal the tiles with those shrines on them, then race to get one (there are enough copies for all players, so that's good), and then be the first to get back to Camelot with them. I've found it pays to stick together and mooch off another player, as once a tile is cleared of enemies and obstacles it remains so provided there is a person on the tile. So let your buddy clear it, then run in and get a shrine before he leaves the tile, so you don't have to clear it.

In the end, my kids liked this game, and I think it's okay, but I was annoyed by the overt similarities with NES' Zelda and relative lack of strategy.

Rating: C