New Ravensburger GARGOYLES AWAKENING Board Game Review

I got the chance to play Gargoyles Awakening recently and overall I think it’s a fun game. Growing up watching Gargoyles I was really excited to play as some of my favorite characters in classic scenarios from the show.

I was surprised to learn that the intro scenario titled “Reawakening” had nothing to do with the first few episodes of the show but instead revolved around Coldstone, though I have since learned that this is the title of the episode Coldstone first appears so egg on my face. It just seemed like a weird place to start and as an intro to the game, it is very easy.

I did a two player game and honestly, if you played with any more than that I think it would be very boring. So next we tried the scenario “Information Warfare” and found a much more challenging game that we actually lost. It just had a lot more moving pieces for the villains that made the players think more strategically. 

I have a hang up with a few rules that needed clarification. First of all, as a gargoyle character you can gain extra movement if you glide, but you have to be on a building to do so. Now going up a building costs you extra movement while dropping down does not, but there is nothing stated about if you are gliding from one building to another that are the same height.

There are also attacks that have range, the rules state that unless otherwise specified all attacks have a range of 1, which I assumed to mean adjacent. But there were a few cards that simply had a dash where the range is, so is that supposed to be adjacent and all other attacks can go through with one empty square between attacker and attacked?

Or did it mean there is no range and it can hit anyone on the board? It was difficult to tell, other than those two things everything is pretty clear. 

The board itself is beautiful, if a little cumbersome to set up. Each of the buildings are 3d and you get to build them every time you set up the game. They are pretty fun to build, but if I were pulling this game out often I would not want to have to do that every time.

I understand box constraints though and ultimately I think they made the right call to keep the box smaller to store all the building pieces flat. The miniatures for the game are great, they look just like the characters. I do wish Xanatos and Demona had their own miniatures as well since they are the only villains that are standees, but the artwork for their characters is great.

Something I do really like is that none of the minions require a stand which makes set up and take down that much faster. The last thing I really enjoy about this game is that each character gets their own individualized character deck which means it’s not hard to really lean into what your character can really do. For example, Elisa is all about being able to attack and then move away from danger immediately, so not only does her ability let her do that, but a lot of cards in her deck will let her move before attacking and then you can use her ability to back away again.

It’s always nice when players don’t share a deck of equipment so that you can feel like you are utilizing your character in the way they were meant to be used. 

The artwork in this game is spot on, very true to the original Gargoyles. The overall quality of the game is high too which is something I’ve come to expect from Ravensburger in general. If you enjoy cooperative games and especially if you enjoyed watching Gargoyles, then I think you’ll like this game. I would give this game an 8/10.