Armello

Full transparency, a friend of mine gifted me the game.
That said, I would rate this game a 4/5, easily!
I would have eagerly bought the game myself if it wasn't gifted to me.
That said, I LOVE this game and highly recommend it. I describe it to friends as "Furry Settlers of Catan"
Steadily over the last month or so, most of my friends have bought this game and rotate to be able to play together, it's a great time and perfect for just hanging out and goofing off with your friends. We literally made a system because you can only have 4 people in a match, so we will do one match with one set of people, and them swap other people in and out the next match. Great bonding time.
The art style is gorgeous, the game runs relatively smoothly, and if even one friend has the DLC, so long as you are playing together, you have access to the DLC too for games. If you care about achievements, they're reasonably challenging and feel rewarding to get. It also had cross platform play.
Tip to new players, make sure you get comfortable playing with the layout the characters each have. You get amulets and rings unlocked as you level up the various characters and do stuff, and they all have different effects. Playing with the layout gives you more variety for play and you may be surprised that a character you struggled with before, works better with a new layout. I win most games with the Favor amulet and the ring that lets me ignore mountain penalties, and my favorite character River. HOWEVER it is worth toying around with and seeing what you have the most fun with.
ADDITIONALLY, make sure to check the in-game shop every day, you get a free chest! And if you have five dice of a set, you can transmogrify them to potentially unlock a dice of the rarity above it. This is great if you have unlucky chests and have a lot of common or uncommon dice. Alternatively, you can buy your favorite dice for literal cents.
FAIR WARNING, there are a few, very minor bugs. The most common you will run into is that when you go to open a chest, it will say your connection is lost and won't open no matter how many times you try. GOOD NEWS, every bug me and my friends have discovered has been fixed by closing the game fully, and booting it back up. Fixes all the bugs you will run across every time in my experience.

Solid gameplay, but the atmosphere is what really makes this game shine.

Devs, what do we need to do to get an Armello animated miniseries from the art team?

Armello is one of the most successful indie games funded entirely by public funds, marking an era within independent development in the mid-2010s. Nowadays, the game hasn't aged—at least not much; the art, music, and creative/artistic direction remain among the best seen in decades for a game of its genre. The stories, written by author Alex Kain, are not only free in the in-game store but are also incredible at explaining the lore behind the four main clans. However, behind the world's epic atmosphere and the visual and narrative style inspired by literary tales and fables, there lies a gameplay that, despite being functional, lacks versatility. It doesn't vary at all, and although the experience depends entirely on the player, its game modes don't offer many opportunities to keep enjoying it, at least not all the time.
This is a board game; that is to say, the ways to win are completely linear and strict, and the established rules are fair (advantages with disadvantages). But in the case of Armello, obtaining victory depends entirely on luck. Despite the fact that since the tutorial (which, by the way, doesn't fully explain how the base mechanics work) we are told that 'skill' is required to break free from traps (perils) and obtain rewards (cards, equipment, and recruits), what it doesn't implicitly explain is that the entire gameplay is based on an algorithmic system known as RNG (Random Number Generator).
In other words, the entire core gameplay depends on 'luck' or on probabilities that the game system itself will decide for you. No matter how well your game is going, with good cards, equipment, and excellent recruits, you don't have total control over how your match should go. At any moment, a bad move or positioning, a Bane or King's Guard, the other players or the game's own AI, and above all, the randomness of the dice in battle, will end up changing the course of your game with even the slightest negative action (and by slightest, I mean literally any action). This is not satisfying since, thanks to this very system, matches often stretch beyond 60 minutes. Basically, luck devalues logic and eliminates the strategic factor within the match.
This game is governed almost entirely by probabilities; these define whether your match will be victorious or if you will suffer a bad omen of ill luck, which is not pleasant for a board game. Generally, turn-based strategy games give you the necessary tools so that you, as a player, know exactly what to do with them at any time. But here, even if you have good rewards and good cards, the dependence on randomness does not work in your favor most of the time; therefore, having patience regarding these highly questionable mechanics will be fundamental to getting through a standard match.
And this is extremely important to highlight: the game has character DLCs, and these DLCs contain probably the best characters in the game, which partially aligns the game as a 'Pay To Win.' Yet, even with such a mechanical system, the game can be (and occasionally is) enjoyable in single-player, multiplayer, or with friends, because as previously mentioned, the experience of a game varies from player to player.
Armello has a universe so vast and unique for it to remain trapped by these kinds of mechanics... This doesn't mean I don't like it, but I don't agree with what it currently offers either, so, consider this opinion as a mixed one. ;>

Fun, cute, and very pleasing to the eye. I love playing this game - especially without timers. no stress, just serotonin

I'd like this game more if MY FRIEND RODNEY STOPPED GETTING ALL THE GOOD ITEMS AND FLEXING ON US HOES. This is just like mahjong all over again.

It's definitely balanced in favor of the player, but it's one of, if not the best board game to video game adaptations ever. I love this game and have bought it on multiple platforms. A must play for solo-board game fans.

This game is great if you have friends to play it with. Last random match I tried took about 20 minutes to find. Single player is playable, but computer AI is a joke. Once you figure out the core mechanics, they won't stand a chance.
Note: the game is no longer supported by its devs. You will encounter bugs like game crashes. If your connection is unstable, do NOT hope to play multiplayer, because there is NO reconnect option.