Castle Panic: The Dark Titan is the second expansion to Castle Panic from Fireside Games.
It includes a boss monster, the Sauron-esque Aragnarok whose shadow looms over game. Agranok is supported by the Dark Sorceress, Heralds and a selection of other new monsters.
The Dark Titan introduces the Cavalier. A defender who bravely fights outside the castle walls. Bringing vital reinforcements are support tokens that are drawn from the same token bag as the monsters.
Castle Panic is a fun, family focused, co-operative tower defence game for 1 -6 players. However, especially for groups of more experienced gamers’, it suffers with time and repeated plays. The rules are too simple and there is a lack of variety in its monsters.
The first expansion, The Wizards Tower, fixed this issue. Containing a swathe of new monsters and mechanics, The Wizard’s Tower turned Castle Panic into something approaching a ‘gamers game’. This new complexity, however, took Castle Panic away from its roots as a family game.
The Dark Titan represents a half-way house. Aragnarok has scalable difficulty settings that increase the challenge of Castle Panic without changing the basics very much. Providing longevity for families that have outgrown the base game while minimising the risk of alienating younger or newer players.
At this, The Dark Titan succeeds very well. It does nothing, however, to fix the random nature of monster arrival which can lead to some wildly ‘swingy’ games.
Overall, Castle Panic: The Dark Titan is an interesting proposition that brings out the best, and the worst, in the base game. By no means essential and yet, once added, it’s unlikely you’ll ever play Castle Panic without it
This snapshot review is derived from a review first published on the Zatu Games blog.
