Sunderfolk Review -Inspired Game With Friends

Sunderfolk truly excels when enjoyed with friends, especially while lounging on the couch during what could have been a dull weekend afternoon. The game captures two of my greatest loves of tabletop RPGs: teamwork and memorable storytelling. While it struggles to maintain excitement in solo play, this seems to miss the mark, as the game is designed for collaboration, making it engaging when players unite to strategize their respective skills and personalized card decks to effectively tackle challenges.

In Sunderfolk, participants assume the roles of six whimsical heroes: an arcanist crow, a pyromancer axolotl, a ranger goat, a bard bat, a berserker polar bear, and a rogue weasel. Following their triumph as bouncers in a tavern, these heroes unite to defend their village, Arden, from escalating dangers and strive to halt the encroaching corruption of the magical tree protecting them from darkness. This familiar fantasy narrative sees aspiring heroes stepping up to embark on adventures when others decline, and for the initial hours, Sunderfolk doesn’t significantly stand apart from current tales.

However, as you delve deeper into the NPC interactions, Sunderfolk’s narrative begins to leave its mark with a rich array of characters, all voiced by actor Anjali Bhimani, replicating that enchanting experience of a tabletop adventure with a Game Master portraying non-hero characters. Bhimani excels at shifting pitch, tone, and accent, breathing life into each character and making it easy to connect with allies while despising villains. My friends and I became deeply invested in saving the village and uncovering the plot, especially after encountering an endearing one-armed orphan penguin named Amaia, who was striving to manage Arden’s mines while dodging her deceitful uncle. We vowed to protect her and harbored hopes of confronting her uncle as the true antagonist, with much of our emotional connection stemming from Bhimani’s exceptional portrayal.

Playable on both consoles and PC, Sunderfolk utilizes a free app downloaded on players’ phones or tablets. The game unfolds on a computer monitor or TV, while players check their devices for available actions. The core gameplay involves heroes undertaking missions that often center around eliminating every enemy on the board, while additional objectives could include defending a location, rescuing an ally, or exploring. Each one of the heroes possesses a distinct set of powers represented as cards on their devices. In each turn, players can select one card, plotting movements and attack targets with their touchscreen. On easy difficulty, you can simply execute actions, but higher difficulties encourage players to strategize their moves together, ensuring they make the most effective combination to defeat enemies. Once a player begins their turn, it prevents others from proceeding, but anyone can exit their action mid-way if the group feels a different order is more beneficial. You’re committed to your choices only after initiating movement or attack, and to my knowledge, there isn’t a way to completely retract a move once committed.

The emphasis on teamwork is Sunderfolk’s standout feature, making it especially enjoyable when played with at least one partner to exchange ideas and tactics. For my review, I tackled the initial two-thirds of the game with friends, playing as the arcanist. This class delivers formidable lightning and gravity strikes and can manipulate multiple targets while teleporting themselves or others. However, many of these moves depend on a mana resource, which I had to carefully monitor. The arcanist naturally accumulates mana at the start of each turn, but not in large quantities, often compelling me to skip playing mana-consuming cards or prioritize those that generate mana to maximize future turns. One of my favorite options allowed me to teleport, generating mana based on the number of adjacent creatures nearby—often, we’d kick off battles with me moving strategically close to the main party to generate a significant amount of mana for a destructive subsequent turn.

Every hero is uniquely crafted, ensuring each player can shine within the team. While they remain rooted in their individual identities, they excel when forming synergies with other heroes. Our ensemble included the pyromancer, capable of inflicting widespread damage; the bard, skilled at healing, buffing, and enchanting allies and foes alike; and the ranger, who delivers devastating ranged attacks. We had a…

Your squad is designed to gather foes and inflict significant damage, a tactic we embraced as we unlocked new cards. For instance, I selected a card that allowed the arcanist to draw numerous nearby enemies into a compact group before teleporting away, which synergized perfectly with the pyromancer card that enabled them to leap to a location and unleash a fiery blast surrounding them, increasing in potency with the number of enemies affected.

In Sunderfolk, players progress rapidly, with each level often granting a new card, resulting in enthusiastic discussions as everyone excitedly shares their newfound abilities. This lively chatter is soon followed by a hush as individuals deliberate which existing card to replace for the new addition. Furthermore, one-time items discovered during missions or exchanged in town, along with upgradeable weapons, contribute to a continuous sense of progress and evolution. There’s constantly a fresh strategy to explore or a build to refine, and having three friends by your side enhances this experience, adding further complexities to consider.

After missions, your party convenes in Arden, the central hub area. Here, the experience diversifies a bit, allowing players to pursue their activities. Interactions with fellow Arden residents unfold silently on your mobile device, which somewhat diminishes the narrative’s impact; it’s apparent that Bhimani’s contributions elevate Sunderfolk’s storytelling. Player choices influence the tone and direction of conversations, potentially affecting your hero’s relationship with other characters. You can visit shops to purchase items, attend the tavern for meals that provide temporary boosts, or customize your hero’s appearance (cosmetic only) and weapons (which impact gameplay). Initially, Arden seems quite limited, but players can donate resources to construct or enhance buildings and unlock more options. Sunderfolk restricts each player to three dialogues per visit to Arden, ensuring that time is managed efficiently, before allowing the group to vote on which mission to embark on next. You won’t be able to experience every mission or engage with every character, creating an incentive for replaying the storyline.

Missions can range in duration but generally conclude within thirty minutes, making Sunderfolk an easily accessible game to start and pause, as well as perfect to introduce to friends who want to experience TTRPG without committing substantial time and finances. With this in mind, it makes sense that Sunderfolk’s narrative is quite straightforward—without extensive preparation, you can jump into the action from virtually anywhere and comprehend the storyline if you’ve encountered any high-fantasy narrative before. I value how this feature makes Sunderfolk significantly more user-friendly than many tabletop-inspired video games (attempting to dive into the middle of Baldur’s Gate 3 or Citizen Sleeper 2 sounds daunting), yet I wish this simplicity didn’t compromise the storyline’s potential for bold narrative shifts or engaging twists. It occupies an unusual middle ground that is neither entirely a party game nor strictly story-driven.

The most remarkable moments in Sunderfolk’s narrative are frequently created by a player. Occasionally, the game designates one player randomly to name a building, assist a townsperson in recalling a rare ingredient’s name, or generate a title for a type of enemy encountered, allowing the player to provide a response that becomes part of the game world and is then reflected in other players’ conversations or future missions. This aspect is cosmetic, but it fosters a sense of community and ownership towards Arden and its inhabitants. My friends and I fought passionately to protect the chirping, turret-like insect guard dogs we named, celebrating in later missions when they returned. It felt rewarding when the forgetful character I romanced gifted me an item I had mentioned in earlier conversations—despite realizing it was a set-up, at that moment, it gave me the delightful impression of being valued and remembered.

Such moments intensified while playing Sunderfolk alongside my partner and friends on the couch, and it’s evident this is how the game was intended to be enjoyed. It can be played solo, but that diminishes the thrill of the experience, akin to attempting to engage with a TTRPG independently. The diverse heroes and their unique card decks are designed for cooperative gameplay, and collaborating with friends to devise new strategies and experiment with different builds is as enjoyable as witnessing the success of your intricate plans. Sunderfolk excels at mirroring the essence of engaging in a tactical tabletop game with friends, where the most memorable moments arise from the creativity shared amongst players, rather than solely the narrative conveyed by the Game Master.

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