When comparing Ghost Stories vs XCOM: The Board Game, the Slant community recommends Ghost Stories for most people. In the question“What are the best co-op board games that work best with 4 players?” Ghost Stories is ranked 1st while XCOM: The Board Game is ranked 5th. The most important reason people chose Ghost Stories is:
From the start the game feels stacked against your team, which is on purpose as it gives a feeling of impending doom and destruction. The game is a balancing act of what to do each turn as the team tries to fend of the ghosts which leads to never quite feeling like you are winning.
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Pros
Pro Gives a sense of impending doom
From the start the game feels stacked against your team, which is on purpose as it gives a feeling of impending doom and destruction. The game is a balancing act of what to do each turn as the team tries to fend of the ghosts which leads to never quite feeling like you are winning.
Pro Designed well with beautiful artwork that exemplifies the horror theme
All of the pieces of the game are colorful and have much attention to detail.
Pro Expansions available that extend gameplay
Ghost Stories offers two expansions (there was a third but it was limited and not available anymore) called White Moon and Black Secret that extend the gameplay for users that would like to add more complex elements to the gameplay or are just looking for a different experience within the same theme and world.
Pro Quality construction to the game that feels very solid
All of the cardboard components have a nice weight to them and a glossy finish over the art.
Pro The gameplay is tense and frantic
Each round is divided into 2 phases: A timed action phase, where players takes their actions, followed by an un-timed resolution phase, where everyonegoes through and resolves all of the actions from the previous phase. During the timed portion of each round players are forced to take their actions as fast as possible by the app, which will punish you if you take to long. This gives your decisions much more weight since you won't always have time to do everything you want to and must make tough calls on where to focus your efforts.
Pro Excellently captures the feel of the video game
Fantasy Flight did a great job capturing the feel of the PC version of this game and putting into the boardgame version. Decisions are meaningful as you decide where to deploy your troops, what to research, and how to allocate your resources.
Cons
Con The rule book is really poorly written
Unlike most Anotine Bauza games, the rule book for Ghost Stories is pretty terrible. This means that, unless you're learning the game from somebody already familiar with it, the first few games will probably be a slog of constantly consulting the rules.
A game like this, which uses symbology heavily, should also come with some quick reference sheets.
Con Difficult to win
The game is pretty difficult to beat, especially if played with a group of casual players that are not extremely familiar with the game and its rules of which are difficult to understand and may take a few watches of Youtube videos to really understand all the mechanics of play.
Con Requires using a seperate (free) app
For some players, having to use a phone or a tablet to play a game can be a major turnoff and might make them reconsider this game.