Curious Expedition

Strategy and board game fans seeking a mixture of challenge, quirkiness, and randomly-generated excitement will find that in Curious Expedition. Although its simple presentation and unforgiving nature may turn off some, it’s a well-rounded, replayable experience.

Curious Expedition is a multi-faceted game, with many layers and visible inspirations from classic games. The premise is actually very simple, but don't let that fool you – this is a difficult and unforgiving roguelite. If you love travel and history, you will thoroughly enjoy exploring a new world in Curious Expedition.

The Curious Expedition is an enjoyable roguelike with a likeable 19th Century setting, humorous writing and lots of content to explore and discover.

While I’m sure some players might find the basic premise of Curious Expedition to be distasteful — and it is problematic, to be sure — the design is thoughtful and challenging, and the turn-based exploratory approach brings a fresh, welcome angle to the combat-heavy roguelike genre. It’s likely to incite some tough conversations, but roguelike fans and boardgame fans should check it out.

There are very few games like Curious Expedition available on the eShop at the time of writing, and that unique identity is something not to be dismissed out of hand. The hexagon map design, punishing difficulty, and focus on emergent events help Curious Expedition build its case, but the simplistic visuals and lack of overarching progression do hinder its appeal. If you’re pining for a more punishing and simpler RPG experience that calls back to the days of tabletop gaming, Curious Expedition is quite literally made for you. If that’s not your cup of tea, then we’d encourage you to more closely examine whether this is something you really feel like dropping the cash on. Curious Expedition is a rewarding and enjoyable roguelite, but it‘s far from a necessary buy.

All in all, Curious Expedition was an interesting title. I’ll admit I found the first 10 minutes or so boring as it involves reading a lot of small text, but once you’ve made some progress into your first expedition, it quickly becomes a lot better. Unfortunately, the storytelling element in this can become a bit repetitive after a while and there were few sections of the game that I thought could have used more of a narrative, but all in all, it’s certainly an experience to check out if you like rogue-like games or even board games as Curious Expedition closely resembles one.

Curious Expedition shines just after learning the ropes, once players can competently enlist party members, make informed decisions, and have a handle on managing their Sanity. Once its bag of tricks begins running dry, the gold rush becomes more of an exercise in repetition than a consistently fresh adventure. Curious Expedition has treasures worth seeking but wise adventurers shouldn't feel guilty to quit while they’re ahead.