Tag: pandemic-legacy-season-1

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.

If you have read anything about Pandemic Legacy then you probably already know that the game plays out in months. You get two tries to “win” a month and then you move forward, no matter what happened. We have just finished July and wow. Just. Wow. The game is amazing. I can certainly see why it stayed at the top of the Board Game Geek ratings for so long.

There are mechanisms in the game that help keep it balanced. If you lose a game, the next game you play has a little bonus. Win too often, and the game starts taking things away to make it harder. Knowing how to play regular Pandemic helps when you get started, but it doesn’t take long for the game to start throwing you curve balls. Learning how to react to those (and use the new variations to your advantage) is a huge part of the fun for us.

We lost two games for June. Both times I could look back at the game as it played out and say, “There. Right there. That move, that decision we made, that’s what lost the game for us.” Last night we played a game and this time I could say, “There. Right there. That was the move that won the game for us.” It was a nice switch.

We are just about to start August. I’ll let you know how it goes!