Pandemic: Legacy – Season 1 (Blue Version)
The world is on the brink of disaster. In Pandemic Legacy, your diseasefighting team must keep four deadly diseases at bay for a whole year. Each month will bring new surprises, and your actions in each game will have repercussions on the next. Will you let cities fall to the diseases? Will your team be enough to keep the viruses at bay for a whole year? Craft your own unique Pandemic experience with Pandemic Legacy.
60m
2 - 4 Players
Ages 13+
143245
A fantastic spin on the traditional Pandemic experience. Without spoiling anything, there are a number of changes that occur throughout the game that I think give it a fresh enough experience that should give even the seasoned Pandemic player something new to tinker with (and that's well appreciated). In particular, I think the Legacy system is really well suited for this sort of endeavor and in the event of a sequel, I wouldn't hesitate to pick it up. If nothing else, to get 15-25 games out of a boardgame which ran about $55 isn't bad. The opportunity cost itself works out to a series of evenings which have wondrous and fresh experiences, even if they do seem familiar. This is one of the few games which really ventures into new territory without dropping the replay value considerably (e.g. TIME Stories). On that note, there are some problems which I think exist here that Pandemic doesn't normally exhibit. First, we find that the game is sort of tied to a group of people so if you find yourself gaming with larger groups and different people each week/month/session then this becomes a much more difficult sell. Second, while the game's Legacy component does overcome some of my problems with how Pandemic became stale, ultimately this game will come to an end, and when it does, it's less attractive than normal Pandemic as the expansions aren't intended for this (but someone might be able to finagle it, who knows). So while I do like this more than regular Pandemic (at this time rated a 6) for the exhilarating romp through a new disease evolution which is unlike most other games, ultimately it's going to end and fall over to the memory pile so I find it difficult to rate it a 9 or 10 when it's not expected to live past the number of iterations or time span that my other favorites have. Second, it's not a game I can suggest for just anyone, it requires a certain group to play (although, with the right group, one of the fall months can be super funny). Finding a rating on BGG sort of implies some sort of replay-ability, and after 16 games of it, I'm glad to be done. In that regard, I think P:L is a comfortable 7, maybe a strong 6.
5ergion
Great game... It's a shame it's not resetable! Oh, fuck the wild, cutthroath, sell-your-mother and screw-your-neighbour-to-get-his-money capitalism...
AaronDrakin
By far the best game in my collection. It starts with a very solid foundation with Pandemic and builds from there. New mechanics are slowly unveiled while previous failures shape all future games until you have a laser focus on certain cities to the point that if someone so much as sneezes there you quarantine the entire continent at the expense of others. Sorry, Riyadh, Hong Kong is our baby, not to mention all of Eastern Asia is slowly sliding off a cliff. And that is to say nothing of the twists. The narrative is fairly basic but enough to chew on but when the first twist drops, it's kind of obvious in hindsight but the first time it blows your mind. And then the other shoe drops. In short, just a great all around game leaving you desperately struggling to stay above the rising flood of cubes while occasionally tossing you raft or just chucking a rock.