Fantastic Beasts: Perilous Pursuit – cooperative family fun

Fantastic Beasts Perilous Pursuit board game — Ready for the beasts within?

The hot new movie out this week is Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.

That’s why we’re excited about reviewing a hot new family board game this week — Fantastic Beasts: Perilous Pursuit!

Often when we see a board game tie-in with pop culture we worry the game play itself may suffer. However, we’re happy to report right out of the gate that Fantastic Beasts: Perilous Pursuit is a great family board game!

USAopoly has done a great job at creating fun game play around the Fantastic Beasts theme.

In Fantastic Beasts: Perilous Pursuit players work together to capture 5 beasts by rolling special dice. However, if 2 beasts get away or one player loses all their Health, they all lose.

We’re big fans of cooperative games for families and we’ve really enjoyed playing Fantastic Beasts: Perilous Pursuit.

How to play Fantastic Beasts: Perilous Pursuit

To begin, everyone chooses one of the 4 characters from the Fantastic Beasts movie: Newt, Tina, Jacob, or Queenie and takes their player board and tokens. The Insight cards deck is shuffled and each player gets 1 Insight card. Then 1 Level 1 beast card, 1 Level 2 beast card, and 3 Level 3 beast cards are chosen and stacked in level order.

On the right side of each beast card is a track that indicates whether they’re captured or they escape. The triangle marker is placed on the Level 1 beast card in the circle spot and they’re ready to start playing.

By rolling dice, players can take certain actions that help them in the game. However, in order to take an action, the player must first Ready and then Set that action. Once an action is Set, the player can then Activate (perform) that action.

Each player board is unique in how many dice of a certain type are required to Ready their actions.

On a player’s turn, they roll the 6 dice up to 3 times. With each roll, they can set aside any dice they choose and roll the others again. Once they’re done rolling, they place the dice on their player board in the matching sections.

If they completely fill a Ready area, they remove the dice used and place their Ready token in the area to designate that action is Ready. If a player doesn’t roll enough dice on their turn to fill a Ready area, they’ll have to try to Ready that action on a future turn.

Each Set area requires 1 die of that type to Set the action. This can happen either on the same turn as players fill their Ready slot for that action or future turns.

Any areas with a token in them remain their until a game effect requires the player to remove them.

If a player has both their Ready and Set areas filled, they can then use a die of that type to Activate that action. The actions are:

Capture: move the beast one space close to the suitcase.
Capture x 3: move the beast 3 spaces closer to the suitcase.
Protect: add a shield to their shield areas on the board.
Insight: draw 1 Insight card to add to their hand (hand size limit is 3).
Distract: roll 1 less die for the beast.
Wild: choose any of the above options.
Beast Reaction: (only on the teal die) the beast performs the reaction indicated at the top of their card.

One limiting element is that a player can only perform an action once on their turn. However, they can give another player a die if both the active player and the receiving player have that action Set. For example, if the active player has their Capture action Ready and Set, they can use a die with the Capture action to activate that action. If they have rolled another die with the Capture symbol, they can also give that to another player who also has their Capture action Ready and Set. This way, the players will get to move the beast 2 spaces closer to the suitcase.

After a player takes their turn, the Beast reacts. The active player rolls the amount of dice indicated at the top of the beast card once and matches them to the symbols at the bottom of the beast card. Those actions are then carried out against the active player (or all players in the case of the Beast Reaction symbol on the teal die).

For example, the Niffler will move away from the suitcase when the Capture and Distract symbols are rolled, will Attack the player for each Capture x3 and Shield symbols are rolled, and all players will lose a shield token from their board if the Beast Reaction symbol is rolled. The Insight and Wild symbols have no effect.

When a player is Attacked, they must move their Health indicated on their player board down one notch (players start at 10). However, they may discard a Shield token from their board to prevent a point of damage.

When a beast is captured into the suitcase a number of things take effect. First of all, the action listed next to the suitcase takes effect for all players. Then the beast card is moved to the stack of captured beasts and they don’t roll for the Beast Reaction. The active player then removes all the tokens in their Set areas. All players then roll a black die and remove Ready tokens in the area indicated by the result. If they roll a Wild symbol, they instead place a Set token in an area of their choice (as long as it’s already Ready).

For example, if a player rolls the black die and the result is Capture, they must remove the Ready token from their player board. They’ll have to Ready and Set that action again on future turns before being able to perform it.

If a beast escapes, that beast card is removed and counts against the players. Another random beast card is drawn and placed at the bottom of the beast card stack. The active player removes all Set tokens from their board. Each player rolls the teal die and removes the Ready token of the area indicated by the symbol. If they roll the Beast Reaction symbol, they instead remove the Ready tokens from the 3 shortest sections of their board.

The game ends when either the players have captured 5 beasts (win) or 2 beasts have escaped (lose) or a player has lost all their health (lose).

Can the whole family enjoy Fantastic Beasts: Perilous Pursuit?

As we mentioned at the outset, Fantastic Beasts: Perilous Pursuit is a great game for the whole family.

The game is easy to learn and fun to play for both old and young alike. And since it’s a cooperative game, kids even younger than the recommended age of 8+ can join in the fun. They’ll easily pick up how to roll the dice and match them to the symbols on their player board. And they’ll love capturing the beasts into Newt’s suitcase.

This is one of the great thematic elements for young players as well. Even though the game involves beasts, you’re not fighting them!

Instead, players are simply trying to capture the beasts. Sure the beasts will “attack” players, but players themselves aren’t doing anything harmful to these strange creatures. And that’s a big plus for families with young players.

While rolling dice and allocating them to player boards may seem too simple for adults to enjoy, we’re happy to report that’s not the case. That’s because the game is still challenging to keep all ages engaged.

We also like that not only do player turns move quickly so there isn’t a lot of downtime, but since players can also allocate their dice to other player boards, everyone stays engaged in the game on each other’s turns as well.

At first we thought the need to first Ready and then Set actions before you can use them was a pain. But as we played the game, we quickly saw that’s where the fun challenge lies.

At the outset of each game, before players can take actions to get their protective shields in place, you can take a beating even by level 1 beasts. Before you know it, you’re losing health and hoping you can survive. Little by little you’ll get some shields to protect you from beast attacks and you’ll capture a beast or two.

Then in the middle of the game things may get dicey again. That’s because when you capture beasts, you may lose your much-worked-for Ready slot and have to start that one over. Plus, you’ll now be trying to capture beasts that deal tougher reactions. You’ll face turns where they may attack you 4 or 5 times in that single roll. So you better be ready!

Game Components

We’re also big fans of the quality of the components in the game!

Again, many games with pop culture tie-ins get the short end of the stick when it comes to components. Not here!

The card quality is strong for both the Insight cards and Beast cards. And the dice are nice and chunky and feel good to roll. (We also think the Capture symbol looks a lot like the Triforce in the Legend of Zelda.)

But the part we love the most are the player boards!

Rather than just being a sheet with icons that you place things on, the areas on the board are actually inset. So when you place your Ready, Set, and Shield tokens on your board, they stay put!

Nothing slides around on the board even when bumped.

Plus, all the spaces and tokens to fill those spaces are clearly labeled and color-coded to the different characters. These little pieces of detail may go unnoticed by many, but we think it’s that level of care that make it a quality produced game.

How does Fantastic Beasts: Perilous Pursuit score on our “Let’s Play Again” game meter?

If you can’t tell yet, Fantastic Beasts: Perilous Pursuit scores very high on our “let’s play again” game meter.

It’s a fun cooperative game with easy to understand and remember rules that’s also engaging to play. The challenge during the game is deep enough to keep players of all ages interested in the outcome.

It’s also fun to mix up which character you play. Since each character has their own strengths, changing up which character you are in the game can lead to slight changes in what actions you focus on to help the team.

The only downside is the limited number of beasts in the game. There are only 12 beasts included in the game and since players face at least 5 beasts every game, after a number of plays we’d love to have more variety.

All in all, Fantastic Beasts: Perilous Pursuit is a game we highly recommend for families!

That’s why even though we just got it this month we included it in our 2018 Board Game Gift Guide. Go ahead and grab a copy for your family!