We recently finished Season one of Pandemic Legacy. What a wild ride that was! As with my prior posts about this game, this will be 100% spoiler free. I appreciate the effort that many folks went to in order to allow late-comers such as myself to enjoy the game, and I want to continue that tradition. So, what can I say?
I can say that this game was one of the best experiences I have had with board gaming. We started earlier this year and played with the same group for the duration of the game. (We would have done it last year, but…you know. It was already happening.) We had also played regular Pandemic game with this couple so we already had a background in the basics. This both helped and hurt us. The first twist was…interesting. Because we were used to playing “regular” Pandemic, I think it took us a while to really understand that as the game changed we had to change our play strategies along with it. If the game starts to give you a new “thing” to do or use? You should probably start thinking about how to do or use it rather than ignore it. 🙂
Honestly I had concerns about a legacy game. Why spend money on something with a limited number of uses? I justified it by guessing that by the end of the game (and I knew going in there would be modifications to the board and so on, that’s not exactly a spoiler) we would have a unique game of Pandemic that we could continue to play. It turns out that even if that was the case, we probably would not want to. We played somewhere between the minimum and maximum number of games provided by the legacy system, and we loved every bit of it. It felt like a good book, or a movie. It starts with something familiar, and then BAM! 😯 a plot twist. Something you didn’t see coming. You might be getting comfortable with that and then another twist. In a book / movie timing is important. I thought the timing of the various challenges was excellent.
The bottom line(s):
Yes, it’s a legacy game, and when you’re finished you’re done. That’s okay. The entertainment value (dollar per hour) is well worth the investment.
If you are on the fence on whether to buy / play this game, and you are a fan of the base Pandemic game, do it! I don’t think you will regret it.
Matt Leacock and team did a fantastic job with this experience, and I look forward to playing Season 2 (and Season 0) at some point.