The Batman Who Laughs Rising Review: Assemble Your Team!
Intent: Inspire you to try playing The Batman Who Laughs Rising!
The hybrid of Batman and Joker is here. Are you ready to assemble a team of superheroes to defeat the Batman Who Laughs? The Batman Who Laughs Rising is designed by Patrick Marino and Andrew Wolf, the graphic design is done by Pam Weirich and Arlo Hitzemann and the game is published by The Op. In this 1-4 player game you will be playing cooperatively to recruit heroes and defeat villains by rolling variety of fun dice! This game takes a bit over an hour to play. Which hero will you take? Wonder Woman, Hawkgirl, Green Lantern, or Batman?
Overview
In The Batman Who Laughs Rising, your goal is to work together to defeat various villains, recruit heroes until you’re ready for a final battle with the Batman Who Laughs. Your goal is to survive, ensure that enough heroes on the board survive and deal a finishing blow to the villain claiming victory and saving the Prime universe.
You’ll begin by selecting your main hero, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern or Hawkgirl. You’ll collect your team ability card, a deployment token, which will track your hero’s location on the board and your starting dice.
You will then begin taking turns. There are four steps in each turn. The first is placing a team deployment token in the sector of your choice, this will limit the cards you can interact with and and resolve how the Batman Who Laughs interacts with you. The second step is to roll and resolve Dark Knight’s and The Batman Who Laugh’s dice, this will essentially be the villains turn, where they do damage and add trackers to the Dark Knight track (which brings more villains to the game and eventually leads the Batman Who Laughs to appear). You will then roll and assign your dice, you’ll plan to rescue various heroes or do damage to villains in hopes of eliminating them from various sectors in the game. The last step is to resolve hero dice and conclude your turn, this is where you’ll recruit the heroes and deal damage to villains you assigned dice to successfully.
The game ends in victory when you defeat the Batman Who Laughs before the Dark Knight Track gets filled up all the way. It ends in a loss if the Dark Knight Track is filled up with counters, if collectively ten (or more) heroes are defeated or if any one player has all their heroes defeated on their team. Will your team be victorious or be engulphed in darkness?
First Game Impression
Well first of all, The Batman Who Laughs miniature has to be one of the scariest and most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. The immaculate level of detail in it is so admirable and the little chains are eerily perfect for this experience. I got to say I’ve always been a fan of superheroes whether it be Marvel, DC or any other universe. I guess when I was younger and in the closet I really related to and admired the duality superheroes live with their hidden identities.
Now I wish I could tell you that we had a perfect and exciting first game, but if I did that I would be lying. The reality of playing board games and learning new game is sometimes you miss rules and mess up so epically that you end up writing this paragraph over and over because you’re simply too embarrassed to admit that you simply missed some rules.
Well that is exactly what happened here, we misunderstood a crucial rule. Instead of rolling dice and assigning one and having the ability to roll again and assign another, essentially drafting dice one by one on the board, we would roll and stick with the dice we first rolled without having an ability to reroll. How did we mess up this crucial rule? I honestly couldn’t tell you. You can guess what this meant: we lost, and not only did we lose, we lost pretty badly. However, I like to think we’re pretty seasoned gamers so I became suspicious at how difficult our first game was, when we discovered our mistake it was a sigh of relief and we were instantly eager to try again and take vengeance on the Batman Who Laughs.
Thoughts After Five Games
Well after playing numerous games correctly we’ve acknowledged how much fun we had playing this game. The build up was exciting, the combinations between various heroes was well throughout out and there were certainly moments of tension and excitement to go around. I particularly enjoy dice games because it’s always so rewarding to roll exactly what you’re looking for and I enjoy this game because it gives you many opportunities to get that right roll and you can really lean into your probabilities as well.
The art and the darker theme of this game really resonated with me as well, you can tell a lot of intention went into how this game might feel and the graphic design is done remarkably well really capturing the essence and feel of the story. There was a lot of suspense and anticipation to see what comes next, where the Batman Who Laughs points and generally how certain actions end up playing out. We were captivated from the start to the end.
The one aspect I’ll mention is the variability in the build up, there were some games that were perfect in terms up building up in progression, difficulty and winning JUST BARELY which is fantastic! Other games we had a really good build up and a rather disappointing climax, the Batman Who Laughs appeared and it was a matter of just going through the motions to defeat him rather than fearing a loss, which certainly happened in other games. Adjusting difficulty can certainly help but a few, and only a few of the games we won felt rather disappointing. Something to keep exploring in the game for sure.
MERIT Report Card
Overall Letter Grade: B+
Strengths: Dynamic decision making, engine builder feel, forgiving dice rolls and progress and build up is thematic and suspenseful. Engaging game with a unique twist on the Batman universe.
Areas of Improvement: More player interaction would have been nice, essentially was just waiting for my turn cheering on others and it would be neat to get a little more insight of the Dark Knights universe to draw more people into the stories and comics as well.
Memorability: A-
Did this experience stick with me after playing this game? It certainly did, although I’m definitely a sucker for games where the more you play the more exciting the game gets, there were some games were I rolled nearly ten dice instead of four and it was so satisfying to strategize and match to get the most out of my actions. Saving heroes last minute, defeating villains with little time to spare, so many exciting moments!
How does this game resonate with the folks we introduce it to? This is a game we unfortunately have no had the pleasure to introducing to other folks but I am going to keep this question here and once we are able to gather after COVID-19 restrictions are lifted I’ll take some time to update it.
How many memories can be built from this game? Dice games in particular are great in my eyes for building memories because especially if you roll many dice, having that “perfect” roll feels SO GOOD. Beyond that the magnificent miniature, the way the game progresses, the overall feel is just exciting and inviting.
Education: A-
I’ll let you you in on a secret, this is always my favorite section to write on and if you notice my past reviews I always spend more time here then the other sections, primarily because of the value that I see in games when it comes to education. Well, I always like to go for the obvious first and in this case it is probability. The colour of the dice will denote which face is more present than others so it will be up to you to take a look at what you need and figure out the chances of you rolling for it, or when you may need to get a specific die, which one will be best for the sector you’re in. Probability, especially layering probability is always a nice skill to have.
Now let’s chat a bit about the less obvious, here I think it’s the tug and pull between defeating villains and rescuing heroes. You will consistently need to make decisions whether to prioritize being on the offensive and defeating various villains across the sectors or building your team up and rescuing various heroes. I love the gameplay here as it is a fantastic metaphor for so many life moments. I keep thinking of my various workplaces, there’s always maintaining and trying to improve existing systems but then there’s tackling something new, innovative and unknown. Knowing the right balance will allow an organization to thrive. (Boring example?) Okay FINE! How about making the same meal you’ve always made and refining it or taking a risk and making something new in hopes of improving your food making skills? In general, it’s balancing the playing it safe and supporting yourself and diving in and taking a risk for that ideal balanced approach of growth.
Cooperative games always provide opportunities to strengthen relationships, discover new dynamics and learn varying styles of communication. Don’t take these experiences for granted and take a moment to observe how you communicate to others and how they communicate as well, this will help your relationships and communication skills in a great capacity!
Replayability: B
This game is decent at replayability. I wouldn’t turn a game down but at the end of the day it does become quite similar. With varying dice, characters, heroes, and villains this game definitely does all it can when it comes to variability and I’ve had a great time playing this game six times now. I’ll play it again for sure.
The reason it doesn’t have a higher grade here is because at the end of the day all the motions are the same, there’s only really one way to win and even though you can build different teams, experience the journey from different perspectives and attempt to challenge yourself by making the game more difficult it’s still the same set of motions.
My only suggestion is to include various other big villains and what does excite me though is the variety of other Rising games, which I will certainly check out in the future as I generally like the mechanics and drive in this game.
Imagination: B+
Loving the superhero universe being able to create interesting combinations of heroes as a team is extremely appealing to me.
Outside of that this game does have a darker undertone and it’s executed quite well in my opinion! The components, the box, the insert and how things are organized, you can tell there’s a villainous undertone throughout the entire game and it’s your job to save the prime universe.
If the DC Universe or superheroes at all interest you, you’ll enjoy the splash in this game as you’re really able to create your own experience and narrative as you go, some unlikely match ups will happen some team ups will be hilarious but at the end of the day it’s all a fantastic story you can create for yourself.
Target: B+
This game certainly adds to the Rising games and invites folks who are familiar with the DC Multiverse and the Dark Knights. The game itself is exactly a cooperative, card drafting, dice builder fits the description really well.
The game is not for everyone as it is a bit darker, but for those seeking to explore the Multiverse and combine a team of their beloved heroes, this game is lovely! The components, dice, and the grand miniature is delightful and I would certainly introduce this game to various individuals!
No real improvements here beyond wanting to know more about the universe the Dark Knights and the Batman Who Laughs come from, even a paragraph or a mini comic in the rulebook would have gone a long way in my opinion.
Tylor’s Stars ⭐⭐⭐1/2
As a personal preference, I tend to veer away from games filled with chaotic randomness since I am more about the strategy or abstract games. Batman Rising definitely has elements of this randomness so I was initially a little weary about this game. That being said, I am a fan of DC (and superheroes in general) so getting to play in the universe of the Dark Knights was very appealing. Overall, it did not feel too chaotic either so I was pleasantly surprised when we first brought this to the table.
The game definitely ramps up over time and becomes more and more stressful. You will hit these milestones in the game where a twist will occur and in essence, increase your chance of failing your mission. When it came to the dice rolling part, I appreciated the balance of re-rolling, adding more heroes to your team and taking out the villains. The heroes you recruited helped alleviate the randomness I was weary about through their abilities and made the decision process more interesting.
The one thing I would have liked to have seen in this game was more player interactions. Near the end of the sessions, I felt as though turns took longer and there was nothing for the other players to do except wait, help fill damage counters or refill the board with cards. Other than that, I enjoyed playing this game and as always, look forward to introducing this game to more folks!
Final Thoughts: I have thoroughly enjoyed this game, the best element is certainly the progression in the game and the ability to do more, roll more dice, defeat more villains and recruit more heroes to create a combinations of unique powers and actions. The dice rolling is exciting, forgiving and will draw you in with all the various colours. The teams you build are dynamic and the game certainly isn’t easy either, which is an added bonus. Although I absolutely love the theme and the IP behind this game, it’s certainly not for everyone and that’s okay because if the mechanics are appealing there’s many other Rising games you can check out.
MERIT Report Card Letter Grade: B+
Note: A copy of this game was provided to us by the publisher.