Oltry Board Game Review | Zing

After setting the frontiers on fire last time with Heretic: Roanoke Ruin, today we’re taking a slightly different board game format. This time, we’re delving into Oltry’s visually very successful collaboration, where heroes confront an evil that needs to be banished. It’s an appealing idea, but the following lines will tell you how it works in practice.

Number of players: 2–4

Play time: 60 minutes

Price: 1718 crowns (Alsa)

Age: 10+

The Guardians face a difficult task in Oltri.

Oltree is a game set in a world going through turbulent times. During them, humanity was forced to face an immeasurable evil, which eventually won, but at the cost of enormous losses. Now the land of people is protected by Guardians, whose mission is to fight evil during their quests and carry out tasks to raise the world of people from the ashes to its original glory. The order is exclusive, but now such an opportunity is provided to fresh blood, and therefore to you.

At the beginning of your adventure, you will always have to choose who you will actually end it with. There are many heroes and it is up to you to decide which one you will take. They may interest you with their graphic design, their profession or special abilities that primarily distinguish them from their colleagues. The sorceress Selina, for example, uses the service of rolling a profession dice during each of her tests, which makes her quite a strong player. The warrior Gaspar, on the contrary, can get the raw materials of his choice with his actions, so he is not a one-time use either.

The heroes are presented with a world full of various challenges, the form of which is determined by the choice of the narrative (Chronicle) they complete, and above all by fate, associated with the roll of the dice, which one way or another determines how quickly situations will overwhelm you. If luck is not on your side, you can quickly fill individual regions through encounter cards. Of course, the opposite situation can also occur, and the dice will be on your side, which will make it somewhat easier for you to complete the game. However, how you deal with the problems that arise is always primarily up to you, because you solve various encounters and difficulties within the framework of your heroes’ turns.

During their two-action phase, they use dice to cut the Gordian knots, after which the fights can be scored in your favor or, on the contrary, end in failure. However, the fact that something does not work does not automatically mean that there is no reward. Even for failure, the game of Oltry sometimes rewards. In addition, you can not turn away from situations, because ignoring them only leads to loss. However, during their journey through the game world, the heroes worry not only about how people are doing or how to survive an official visit from the authorities.

For the sake of their future, they must also visit the regions adjacent to the fortress and strengthen their positions. It is absolutely necessary to cooperate with the community at a time when it does not suffer from anxiety in the form of problems. Because it is she who brings you the raw materials needed to build structures in the fortress, which can accommodate a lot. It can accommodate forges, barracks or temples. Each of the buildings gives you different options that the heroes can use to strengthen themselves. In the forge, you will receive, for example, another crafting profession cube, and in the observatory you will find a scientist cube.

During your journey, you will face a series of challenges, either dice or conditions. The journey is really long, so you will experience a lot during it. Personally, I really like the effective connection between the wizarding world and the pure medieval times, where people also had their usual troubles. Each chronicle has a certain format of ending for the player at the end. You can succeed or fail in your endeavors in shorter periods. But when it comes to a larger campaign, there are small and large victories.

Oltry’s strength lies in the stories he offers.

The cooperative story game Oltree is one of the strong games that can captivate you at first glance. As soon as you unpack the game, you will immediately be delighted with how the game is designed graphically, because all the components are very nice, and the insert will also be liked. Prim, however, has a high-quality gameplay in which you travel with the heroes, complete various important stories with them and solve various difficult tasks. The difficulty of entry did not seem high to me, so even non-players can start playing.

Oltree is one of the successful co-op games that clearly shows that co-op can rely on a very interesting basis, stories and beautiful graphics. If you are looking for a game where you can fight the forces of evil together, this can keep you busy for ten hours or more. I guess there is no reason for me not to recommend it to myself.

We would like to thank Czech distributor Blackfire for providing us with a copy of Oltree.