Unmatched Adventures: Tales to Amaze

Unmatched is one of my favorite head-to-head skirmish systems, so I was genuinely excited to see it turned into a cooperative box, cryptids and pulpy monster-hunter theming against Mothman and a Martian Invader. Nine solo plays in, I like it, but I like it the way you like a good cover of a song you already loved the original of.

The core problem is small but it never goes away. Human opponents in Unmatched are unpredictable because they’re making the same kind of decisions you are, bluffing, holding cards, adapting. The AI enemy decks here don’t run out of cards and mostly just hit or defend on a predictable rhythm, so a lot of what made competitive Unmatched sing, the cat-and-mouse read on another person, gets replaced with something closer to a math problem. It’s a fine math problem. It’s not the same thrill.

Where it does earn its keep is the roster expansion. Four new fighters, all of them fully usable in regular 1v1 Unmatched too, so even if the co-op mode itself doesn’t fully land for you, the box isn’t wasted. That’s real replayability variance, this thing has value outside its own stated mode.

Player-count sweet spot is two, playing two characters each rather than true solo with one. A single hero alone felt too thin, options too limited to make interesting decisions, but doubling up gives you enough hand and board presence that the combo-click moments Unmatched is known for, a well-timed defense card into a devastating counter, still show up. Just don’t expect the Mothman fight to go easy on you, I still haven’t beaten it clean.