This was a real easy match up for me. I like the original Love Letter. But if you followed the count down of my Top 100 games you will have noticed that Love Letter did not break into the list. It actually sits ranked at 119th. Whilst Archer (I’ll call it that for brevity) came in 63rd. That’s a big gap. Aren’t they basically the same game? To some extent yes they are. But it is the differences that make all of the difference!

Let’s start with the components. In the original Love Letter you are keeping score with red cubes. Whilst in Archer those components are rather cool looking dolphin tokens.

I actually prefer the artwork from the Archer cartoon to the original. But that’s personal taste.

But those are cosmetic differences. Each version of Love Letter usual has a tweak to the game play in some way (unless it’s the Adventure Time one). And it’s these differences that I really like. 

In Archer the card that is normally put to one side is now part of the game play (called the Hidden Identity) and some of the card actions interact with that card. One of them allows you to try guessing the Hidden Identity, if you do, you win the round. 

I love that change. I feel they took the idea from Lost Legacy and removed the bit from the end of Lost Legacy that Jonathan doesn’t like, the investigation round (I think I covered that in more detail when we played Lost Legacy yonks ago).

So it’s the combination of art, components and tweak to game play that made this such an easy one, even no brainer in choosing Archer over the original.