Chronicles of Light: Darkness Falls Review: Family Friendly Co-Op Disney Action
Chronicles of Light: Darkness Falls combines co-op action games with a Disney theme.
Chronicles of Light: Darkness Falls is a fun, family-friendly cooperative board game with modular set-ups that pits the forces of Disney good versus the shadowy forces of Disney darkness. Published by Ravensburger and designed by Pam Walls, Chronicles of Light is a new franchise set in the Realm of Light, which has been invaded by mysterious Shadows. Players work together to take Actions, complete Quests, and eventually push back the Vortex for good. While the modular design of the game and multiple quests allows for increased replayability, it also greatly increases the number of components for the game which makes the game seem a bit more intimidating than it actually is. There's also a bit of ambiguity in the instruction manual, although an accompanying video clears up a few unclear bits in the rules quite easily.
In Chronicles of Light: Darkness Falls, players control one of four Disney heroines summoned to the Realm of Light as crystalline essences. Each hero has two unique Actions plus a third that unlocks once they complete their Quest. At the outset of the game, players randomly choose their Quest (which usually involves some kind of retrieval of tokens and taking them to another location) and set it up on the game board, which is also created using map tiles specific to each player.
Over the course of the game, players will work together to complete their respective Quests, defeat the Shadows on the board, and then finally defeat the Vortex that continues to spawn the Shadows each turn. During each "day" of the game, players jointly play a total of six Actions to move around the board, trying to complete their Quests and clear Shadows along the way. While players have to spend an Action token to move or heal, battling Shadows (which players do by rolling two six-sided dice) is NOT an action, while picking up and dropping off quest tokens are considered part of the move action.
Once all players complete their respective Quests, they can focus on permanently defeating the Vortex for good. While the Vortex can't be permanently defeated until all Shadows are off the board, players can "weaken" the Vortex by entering its location and rolling at least six successes (this IS a battle, but not an action). A weakened Vortex stays at one set location for the remainder of the game and produces less Shadows on the start of a new round. This should make clearing the remaining Shadows much easier and sets up an easier final battle as the Vortex only needs four successes to be defeated once weakened.
Players win the game if they complete all Quests, defeat all Shadows, and defeat the Vortex. They lose the game if they run out of days in the Darkness Falls desk or if their collective Team Health board reaches zero.
Chronicles of Light is a surprisingly polished and balanced game, one that should challenge players of all ages. In both playthroughs, my family playgroup didn't defeat the Vortex until the final round of the game, making for some tense final moments. The game also encourages teamwork and cooperation throughout, both with the rotating Leader token (who has the final call on what actions the party should take) and the battling system which promotes teaming up to battle instead of going it alone. The heroes also have different feels to them – Maid Marian is a ranged attacker with the ability to move heroes long distances around the board, Violet negates damage, and Belle is a tech specialist that can weaken foes and deal extra damage. The heroes picked by the players also impact the quests and even the map, which helps to make each game feel unique.
Unfortunately, the instruction manual for Chronicles of Light: Darkness Falls is a bit lacking and leaves plenty of room for confusion and ambiguity. For instance, the instruction manual doesn't explicitly say how players pick up Quest tokens – do players have to complete it as part of an Action or can they simply pick up the pieces for free? Likewise, the instruction manual doesn't state explicitly that the Vortex can only be defeated by clearing all Shadows from board first. For someone that's used to playing crunchier games than this, Chronicles of Light's instruction manual could have benefitted from an extra page or two of more explicit instruction. Luckily, a video that can be accessed via a QR code at the front of the instructions provides much clearer guidance than the actual rulebook, and I highly encourage that anyone playing this game watch it.
My other (much more minor) frustration is the heavy use of components in the game. Each character has a minimum of 33 cards, tokens, and components used for the game, which makes for a ton of little pieces and parts for a family-friendly game. Many of these pieces (such as quest tokens) don't get used in an individual game and other components (the dice, health tokens) are only unique because they're color-coded. Because of all the pieces and a more complicated set-up than other games made for the 8+ age group, this isn't a "quick" game to play and set up. My family is used to complicated games, but I fear that the more complex set-up might turn off more casual players.
Chronicles of Light: Darkness Falls is a fun gateway game that introduces some of the concepts of cooperative play and managing multiple objectives at once to younger players. Although the instruction manual itself could have used some polishing, the game itself is both challenging (in a good way!) and keeps all players engaged in ways that some other cooperative games struggle with. If you're a fan of Disney, a fan of cooperative games, or just enjoy the idea of a crystalline Maid Marian sniping Syndrome from afar using a shuttlecock, this is a game worth picking up.
Ravensburger provided a copy of Chronicles of Light: Darkness Falls for review purposes. The game can be pre-ordered here.
