I’ve often said that my biggest gap in my gaming experience is that I’ve still never played a single TTRPG. I’ve never played Dungeons & Dragons, or any of the many other role playing games that keep coming across my attention (mostly thanks to Mark over at the Omnigamers Club Podcast). I’ve even barely touched games based on the D&D system like Neverwinter Nights or Baulders Gate, it’s just a complete blindspot in my gaming history. So when Roll Player, designed by Keith Matejka and published by Thunderworks Games in 2016 is pitched as a whole board game based around the experience of creating a character for a TTRPG, it doesn’t exactly excite me. What does excite me is that in the (nearly) decade since Roll Player came out, it’s spawned its own universe that many of Thunderworks Games have been set in ever since (Cartographers and Stonespire Architects are the ones that come to mind).
In Roll Player, players are crafting a character. The whole experience starts with each player taking a character board, dictating their race, giving them a +2 bonuses in one stat, and a -2 in another. Then, you’re dealt a class, which includes some attribute goals to work towards, a background which gives you a loose blueprint on where certain colours of dice should go in your attribute rows, and an alignment goal. None of these you really get to choose, you just get to play with the cards that life dealt you. A quick seed round in which all players pull handfuls of dice to roll and place, then the game can properly begin.
Each round, the start player rolls dice, one more than the number of players at the table, and arranges them on initiative cards, from lowest to highest. Then, the first player drafts a die, taking the initiate card into their control. They place the die into one of their attribute rows, and takes the corresponding attribute action, which generally will let you modify a die. Either flipping it, swapping it with another one, or bumping the pip value up or down once.
The rest of the table follows suit, drafting a die and an initiative card, then, in initiative card order, each player can buy one card from the market. The market cards include traits, skills, weapons, and armour that will give you special abilities, end game scoring objectives, or even just straight points. Once the market phase is over, you clean up, pass the dice bag to the left, and do it again, until all the empty slots on your player board are full. Highest score is the winner.
I strangely remember Roll Player being quite popular when it came out. Some people proclaiming that creating a character is the best part of a D&D campaign, and how awesome it is that a dice game captures that feeling. I always thought that was more of a scathing indictment of D&D as a game than a compliment for Roll Player, but then again, I am an RPG luddite, so what do I know?
Roll Player feels fairly devoid of agency. You’ll roll the dice, pick the best option, and hope for the best. There’s about 5 different places to earn points from, each one pulling you in a different direction. Sometimes you’ll be holding out for a blue 4 to put into a specific spot, but if it never comes up, there are ways to manipulate your tableau of dice to make things work. As the game comes to a close, your options close up as well. Placing a 3rd die into any attribute row locks it up, shutting you out from that attribute action for the rest of the game. In the last few rounds, it’s not uncommon to only have one or two rows that have empty spaces, making the choices available to you dramatically smaller than what you were presented with at the start of the game.
You’ll buy cards almost every round, provided you have the coins to do so. They’ll give you a small action or ability, but nothing so earth-shattering that it’ll really affect your round. There also isn’t really a great sense of progression or growth, the first round largely feels the same as the last round, except often worse, because in the last round you’re totally hemmed in, stuck with the consequences of all your decisions up to that point.
The only interaction in Roll Player is hate drafting. Each armour sets offers a single bonus point to two different class colours, so if an opponent is playing one of those colours, you’ll compete for the armour set and that’s about it. If you happen to need the same colour or number as another player and take it before they do, it’s just happenstance. There’s no thrill to Roll Player, no excitement. Sometimes you’ll feel a spark of delight when you manage to get one of your attribute rows to the perfect number, but that’s about the extent of it.
Speaking of the attribute goals, they’re pretty mundane goals to strive towards, but they slant the value of dice to needing higher numbers fairly dramatically. The lowest attribute goal is 14, and with only 3 dice to hit that, you’ll need to be placing a lot of 6’s to reach all your goals. Of course, you’re not going to achieve every goal, you’ll need to have a dump stat. But beyond hitting those attribute goals, a few other cards will reward you for having under 8 in a stat, or having all the same number in a row. If you don’t grab those cards though, any number less than a 4 is pretty pointless.
The entire time I was playing Roll Player, I was wishing I was playing Sagrada. At first glance, Sagrada should have a lot of the same complaints as Roll Player. Featuring a shrinking decision space and the only interaction being hate drafting, but Sagrada is a joy to play. The number and colour restrictions are fun to work around, and Sagrada finishes much faster than Roll Player does. Not to mention the beautiful translucent dice and stained glass artwork is so much prettier than the muddy, generic fantasy artwork featured in Roll Player.
Honestly, it’s weird for a game to fall so flatly for me. I’m usually a pretty good judge of what I’ll like, and if a game doesn’t appeal to me, it doesn’t get played (and therefore, doesn’t get reviewed). I’ve played Roll Player a few times now, and I’m not seeing the spark that makes anyone love it. Perhaps an expansion really improves the experience, but Roll Player won’t be sticking around my collection for me to find out. From now on, any game in the “Roll Player universe” is going to be from the “Cartographers Universe” instead.
Long before I knew what “grinding XP” meant or knew what a Phoenix Down was, I was already deep into the world of JRPGs. Back then, I didn’t have a massive library of games available to me, so anything promising dozens of hours of gameplay instantly drew my attention. One of my earliest forays into the JRPG genre was Final Fantasy II on the SNES (It’s actually called Final Fantasy IV, but that’s a rabbit hole for another day). That game kicked off a lifelong fondness for the Final Fantasy series, even if I haven’t actually finished most of the mainline entries.
Well, that changes now.
Armed with my trusty Retroid Pocket 4 Pro, I’ve embarked on a mission: to play through every mainline Final Fantasy game it can handle. And I’m starting right where it all began, albeit with the 2004 Game Boy Advance remake, Final Fantasy I, from the Dawn of Souls anthology.
First Impressions from a Nearly Blank Slate
Aside from a vague memory of beating Garland once years ago, this was essentially my first real experience with Final Fantasy I. And right off the bat, I made full use of modern conveniences: 2x speed and auto-mapping the A button to the trigger so I could turbo through the many, long, repetitive battles. Let’s be honest, those random encounters feel relentless, so anything to streamline them is a blessing.
Final Fantasy I has you playing as a customizable party, and sets your party as the four Warriors of Light, each carrying a darkened crystal, and you’re tasked with restoring balance to the world. Or something to that effect. Like many NES-era games, the real story is half-buried in the game manual and whispered through snippets of NPC dialogue scattered across towns. Don’t expect cutscenes or lore dumps, this is old-school storytelling where you’re expected to connect the dots yourself and let your imigination fill in the gaps.
Lost Without a Guide. And That’s Kind of the Point
I made it about a third of the way through the game before caving and pulling up both a walkthrough and a world map. Final Fantasy I offers little in the way of direction. Instead, it leans on cryptic clues from villagers and a whole lot of trial and error. It reminded me of being on the playground, swapping secrets with friends about how to wake the elven prince or where to find that random witch who needs a magic eye.
It’s charming in a way. When you stumble upon the specific place you need to me is exciting. But it also means a lot of wandering interrupted by constant random battles. Exploration is a chore when every five steps you get warped into another pointless encounter. I know the newest remakes (Pixel Remaster) has an option that lets you turn off the random encounters altogether, but that wasn’t an option here. If you’re not following a guide and don’t know where to go, you MIGHT eventually find the right place to go. And you’ll be massively over levelled when you get there.
Dungeon Design Done Right
That said, I really enjoyed the dungeon design. They’re sprawling, treasure-packed mazes that feel rewarding to explore. Unlike later entries in the series where dungeons sometimes devolve into glorified hallways, these had nooks and cranies to explore. Finding new, powerful loot and immediately smacking a boss with it? Always satisfying.
Thanks to my turbo-boosted gameplay, I ended up over leveled without even trying. I didn’t grind on purpose, I just got lost a lot. By the time I reached each of the four elemental Fiends, they went down in 3 or 4 rounds. The real challenge came from resource management: making it through a dungeon with enough HP and MP left to survive the trip back to the nearest town. More than once at the start of the game, I limped out of a dungeon with my party barely clinging to life. Eventually, even that tension faded as my levels climbed.
Final Boss, Final Thoughts
The only minor roadblock was the final boss, Chaos, whose brutal AoE spells finally gave my White Mage something to panic about. Even then, I managed to beat him on the first try. When the credits rolled, my in-game clock showed 13 hours, and my party was hovering around level 61.
So… how does Final Fantasy I hold up today?
It’s tricky. Evaluating a nearly 40-year-old game with modern eyes is unfair, but inevitable. The magic system feels thin, the stats often feel meaningless, and gear is mostly just a numbers game. Most of the spells go unused, equipment lacks flair, and your Black Mage is either useless or a glass cannon depending on how full their MP bar is.
And yet, Final Fantasy was a revelation in its time. It pioneered mechanics and tropes that became the foundation for the genre. Games I’ve loved over the decades owe their existence to this one.
Should You Play It?
If you’re looking for a polished, modern RPG experience, this isn’t it. But if you want to pay homage to where it all began, to the roots of a genre that shaped generations of gamers, then it’s worth your time. Especially with some emulator tweaks to make the ride a little smoother.
I’m glad I finally checked this one off my list. Even with its rough edges, Final Fantasy still manages to shine. It’s a monument to what came before, a stepping stone in the evolution of RPGs. I may not recommend it to everyone, but I absolutely respect the ground it broke.
Now, onward to Final Fantasy II (The real Final Fantasy II, not the US version which is actually Final Fantasy IV).
A copy of Wingspan: Oceania was provided by Stonemaier Games for review purposes.
Wingspan has become a titan in the board game world. It’s by far Stonemaier Games’ most well-known and widely played title, earning recognition even from people outside the hobby, though many still refer to just as “that bird game.”
The base game of Wingspan focused on birds from North America, but the expansions have gradually introduced avian species from other corners of the globe. Wingspan: Oceania brings us the birds of Australia and New Zealand, with nearly 100 new bird cards, fresh player boards, new dice, and most impactfully, introducing a brand-new resource: nectar.
Nectar is the biggest change in Oceania, and it fundamentally changes how you play. Acting as a wild resource, nectar gives players far more flexibility in paying for bird cards and activating abilities. It’s incredibly useful. So useful, in fact, that it comes with a small catch: nectar spoils between rounds if unused. That said, it’s rarely a hindrance. Most players quickly learn to burn nectar before any other resource. Its wild versatility more than makes up for the spoilage.
What’s more, many of the bird powers in Oceania are designed to share the love. Many abilities now provide resources or cards or some other benefit to all players, with the acting player getting slightly more of the reward. This small shift encourages more positive player interaction, a rising tide lifts all ships kind of situation, perfectly in keeping with Wingspan’s gentle and inclusive tone.
The new player boards offer subtle but impactful improvements. In the forest row, you can now spend a resource to reroll the birdfeeder. In the wetlands, you can spend a resource to refresh the bird tray. These changes directly address my long-standing complaints about stagnation in the base game, especially when unhelpful cards or dice sit unused for entire rounds. These tweaks breathe new life into familiar systems.
I reviewed Wingspan over three years ago. While I admired its beauty and accessibility, I also noted some personal gripes: a very slow opening round, a hefty dose of luck, and minimal player interaction that sometimes made it hard to stay engaged when it wasn’t my turn. But here’s the thing: even with those reservations, Wingspan kept returning to our table. It’s one of my partner’s all-time favorite games, and whenever we have friends over, especially people new to the hobby, it’s the game that gets suggested. Again and again. And the fact that it continues to hit the table, speaks volumes to its quality.
As a reviewer, I rarely revisit games after I’ve covered them. The constant influx of new titles pulls my attention elsewhere. But Wingspan: Oceania brought me back. And more than that, it made Wingspan feel fresh again.
Wingspan: Oceania is an expansion that doesn’t just add more, it adds better. The new bird cards are lively and fun, their powers promote inclusive interaction, the nectar system smooths out some early-game struggles, and the updated player boards address longstanding pain points. It enhances the base game in every meaningful way.
In fact, I doubt I’ll ever play Wingspan without it again.
An essential expansion that transforms a good game into a great one. If you own Wingspan, Oceania is a must.
Somewhat recently, I made a slightly impulsive purchase that I’ve come to deeply appreciate. I picked up a Retroid Pocket 4 Pro on Facebook Marketplace. I didn’t have any plans for it, I was just thirsting for a new console, and when I saw the Switch 2’s launch price, I decided it was the perfect time to pivot away from Nintendo. For those unfamiliar with Retroid, it’s a slick little handheld device that runs on an Android OS, has a built in controller, and manages to emulate a staggering range of consoles. After firing it up, and following Retro Game Corps guide for suggestions how to configure it, and playing Tetrisphere, I was at a bit of a loss as to what to do. It’s the classic conundrum. With this device, literally thousands of games are at my fingertips, how do you choose what to play!?
The realization that this single device can play every mainline Final Fantasy game up to 12 was a revelation. I’ve always been a fan of Final Fantasy, and JRPGs in general, although my track record on finishing them is spotty at best. Thus begins my newest gaming project: a full Final Fantasy playthrough challenge, from the humble beginnings of Final Fantasy I on the NES, to the fully voiced drama of Final Fantasy XII on the PS2. No skips, no shortcuts, just a steady journey through one of gaming’s most iconic RPG series. I’ll be playing the best available versions I can run on the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro, which, in some cases, means GBA remakes, and in others, full console ports.
Why Do This?
Part nostalgia, part curiosity, and part unshakeable love for the genre. Final Fantasy has always been in the background of my gaming life, from playing Final Fantasy IV on the SNES as a kid and utterly mesmerized by the story, to playing dozens of other JRPGs by Square Enix over the past decades, and seeing the same themes and monsters make their annual appearances. But until now, I’ve never experienced the entire series in a cohesive, chronological way.
I’m curious to see how the series, and my tastes, evolve: mechanically, narratively, thematically. How the battle systems grow more complex. How the stories shift from high fantasy and simplicity to science fiction political intrigue. How the pixel art set pieces give way to pre-rendered cutscenes and voice acting. Final Fantasy has been around for over 35 years, I want to witness the full scope of what it became, one game at a time.
The Rules of the Challenge
Mainline single-player titles only: That’s Final Fantasy I through XII. I’m skipping XI because it’s an MMO and I hate MMOs. I’m sure I’ll throw in some spin-off games in there, like the Tactics series, or the first two Dissida games.
Best version available on Retroid: GBA remakes, PSP ports, and patched translations where needed.
No rushing: I’m not speedrunning, nor am I working towards 100%. I’m playing the games like I play every game. exploring where my curiousity gets peaked, and skipping optional sections when I hit a wall.
Written reflections: After finishing each game, I’ll post a review-style reflection, highlighting story beats, mechanical design, and my personal experience with each title.
What’s Next?
I’ve already wrapped up Final Fantasy I–V, and the posts are rolling out one by one. From the humble, D&D-inspired beginnings of FFI, to the mechanical joy that was FFV‘s Job system. In the first 5 games there has been a surprising amount of variety.
Next up? The legendary Final Fantasy VI. If the online consensus is to be believed, one of the best games in the series, if not one of the best games ever made.
I hope you join me on this pilgrimage. Whether you’re a longtime fan or just Final Fantasy-curious, I hope my journey through these iconic worlds sparks some nostalgia, or maybe even inspires you to start your own.
I’ve talked about a couple different word games on this blog. Mostly in the context Paperback and Paperback Adventures. Word games hold a special place in my heart, as my wife and I played a lot of Scrabble online when we were in a long distance relationship. My partner adores other word games, like Wordle and Crosswords, so it should come as no surprise that when we visited a board game café together, and she saw A Little Wordy on the “Staff Picks” shelf, it was the first game she grabbed.
A Little Wordy was designed by Ian Clayman and Matthew Inman, and published by Exploding Kittens in 2021. This is a two player, or two team game, where each player is given 4 vowels and 7 constants to create a secret word, then players go back and forth using clues to help them guess the word their opponent picked.
The clue cards vary in ability and cost, the cost being berries that you have to give your opponent when you use them, as well as give more berries when you make an unsuccessful guess at your opponent’s secret word. Once both players have correctly guessed the word, whichever player has the most berries is the winner.
The clue cards offer you a myriad of ways to help you deduce what your opponent’s word actually is. From eliminating letters to confirming the first letter, to deducing the length of the word, each clue card is a tool in your arsenal to help you in your quest to figuring out your opponent’s word.
A Little Wordy is a bit of a race, in the sense that the longer you take to guess your opponent’s word, the more berries you’ll be forking over to them. Some of the most powerful clue cards have you handing over 4 or 5 berries at a time, which is the equivalent of 2 incorrect guesses. With 11 letters to pick from, is it more valuable to just guess willy-nilly, or do you use those powerful clues in the hopes that you’ll only need one guess to pin your opponent’s word to the wall?
I imagine the real answer is somewhere in the middle, but A Little Wordy does offer some fun tension that you don’t usually find in word games. Where most word games feel like a vocabulary test, A Little Wordy makes you feel more like a detective. As you use the clue cards and cut down the list of possibilities, you get a feeling like you’re circling your prey. At the same time, you can feel your opponent getting closer and closer. You need to weigh the benefit of using a powerful clue card against just guessing a word and hoping for the best.
There is some significant luck involved with the initial tile draw. Sometimes you’ll pull a Q with no U, effectively just giving you fewer letters to use. Another challenge is that dreaded S, which exponentially increases the number of potential words by pluralizing everything. In that case, hopefully there’s a clue card that will help you pin down where in the word that S is sitting.
A Little Wordy does manage to be exciting and interactive, which is more than most word games can boast. Yes, having a good vocabulary is going to be a boon, and the luck of the letter draw can tilt the scales one way or the other. But it’s exciting when you start to see the shape of the word you’re chasing start to take shape. When your opponent is idly sliding tiles around and getting closer to your word before moving the letters around again. I felt genuine excitement when I got the word right, and it’s even clever in that just because I guessed the word right first, doesn’t mean that victory is surely mine. If I overspent in berries, my opponent has the chance to keep playing and if they guess my word before the berry supply is tilted in my favour, they can steal the victory from my grasp.
If you like Boggle or Bananagrams, A Little Wordy offers a more interactive experience than either of those two games. It’s less competitive than Scrabble, and is adorned with the characterful art that adorns all the Exploding Kittens games. A Little Wordy doesn’t really work as a party game, though, you’ll want to stick to So Clover and Codenames for that situation. But if you do have a single partner who really enjoys word games and puzzles, the deduction element of A Little Wordy fills a little niche that I didn’t even know I wanted until I played it.
