There are some excellent reviews already on the rules and game play of Fury of Dracula (FOD). I'll focus on my first impressions based on a 4-player game with all new players.

First off, the rulebook is a monster. The instructions are extremely repetitive and tedious to go through if nobody is familiar with the game. At the same time, it was hard to figure out some of the game mechanics, such as catacombs and combat - we keep having to re-read these sections over and over again. Still, after going through the rulebook, the examples are well-done. And I'm sure a player aid from BGG will expedite a rules review for the next time we play.

Our first game took around 5 hours with a detailed walkthru of the rulebook and a pizza break. If we can get the game down to 2-3 hours, I think it'll be worth it in the long run.



Potential Issues?

I'm not sure if my first game was atypical, so I'll chalk the following down as potential issues:

- We didn't catch up to Dracula until very late in the game. For us, this didn't happen until the third day, which ended up being the last day.

- We didn't fight any agents until very late in the game. And again, not until what ended up being the last day. For some reason, I was under the impression that we would be battling agents all over the map.

- I hated the train mechanic when it came to rolling an X, since I had to stop with no action phase at least 3 times... And I was the Lord, who had an extra roll if wanted. I'd prefer it if the X penalty was a choice of turn end or discard of an Event and/or Item card.

- The game seemed like the slowest chase ever for the hunters. One of the hunters got the hurricane event put on him, so he ended up far away from the action. It took forever to move back into game play. Sometimes it feels like the movement action of 1 city by road, 0-3 cities by train, and several moves to complete a sea voyage seems restrictively slow.

- I'm not sure if I'm fond of the combat mechanic and the dice modifiers.

- I prefer to have some wooden bits instead of cardboard chits. For example, the hunter hearts kept shifting around since the player boards are used to store the cards - a wooden bit would have been better for this. I'd also prefer wooden bits for the Consecrated Ground, Holy Host, Road Block, and Day-Night markers.

- I would have liked to have a different color background on the inside side of Basic items and Play Immediately Event Cards. For organization purposes, it would make the card sorting and identification easier.

- I'm not convinced that Dracula is a fury to be reckoned with, at least until the very late game.

Pros

- Fury of Dracula has a beautiful map. I love games with maps, and this one is fantastic!

- With 3 players playing one hunter each and working together to play the fourth, the feeling of co-operation was high. We collaborated on that communal hunter and had fun time doing it.

- The different characters and the miniatures added a nice thematic element that contributed to the player banter.

- Overall, the theme let us immerse ourselves in a Dracula vs. vampire hunters story, and added an element of pure fun that a dry, abstract game with a bunch of bits cannot do. I do like those abstract-type games for pure game play, but once in a while a richly themed game is a nice change.

- Not sure if this is pro or not, but it reminds me of how much I liked Scotland Yard, which I'll pick up the next time I see it!

Overall

Now that we know how Fury of Dracula is played, I would definitely play it again as a theme-rich, co-operative game for 4 players. I can usually tell right away if I never really want to play a game ever again (it ends up on my trade list), and this was not one of those occasions. I would enthusiastically try this game again.