The 2020 version Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion is already much better. Yes, it has fewer scenarios, fewer different monsters, fewer characters. But there being less stuff, and the scenarios being printed in a book instead of having to be assembled with tiles and tokens makes Jaws of the Lion a lot faster to set up. And the gameplay, once you are past the tutorial scenarios (which the original was lacking), is identical to the big box game. Jaws of the Lion also comes with a big plastic insert in the box, a plastic tray, and a stack of plastic bags. You can sort all of the components into the provided trays and bags, and have a much easier time storing the game, and finding everything back for the next session.

Today I am unpacking Agemonia, a Kickstarter game delivered this year. Not really related with Gloomhaven, but it is another scenario-driven campaign game that comes in a box which is even bigger and heavier than the Gloomhaven box. But this box contains 15 plastic trays and two cardboard boxes with inserts. While it will take me a good amount of time to punch out all the tokens and sort them into their respective trays, there is a helpful flyer showing exactly which token goes where. The trays are designed to both enable me to store all the parts easily in the box, and to provide easy access to all necessary tokens during gameplay. Each player even gets a separate tray for his hero, and all the cards and tokens for that hero, which makes character setup very easy and fast.

I paid nearly $150 for Agemonia, including shipping, and if you bought it today, it would cost $200. Today the big box of Gloomhaven with shipping is also around $150. And I must say that these days I wouldn't buy a big box game like this if it *didn't* come with a built-in storage solution. I can understand that $30 - $50 retail games at best have plastic bags included (and I frequently end up buying plastic trays for these games for storage). But for the big and expensive games, storage trays are more important to me than miniatures are.