Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 Review

Pandemic Legacy is a game that has made a huge contribution to the world of board games in recent years. Although Risk: Legacy was the first game, Pandemic Legacy popularized the choice of "legacy" designs, where additional rules are created each subsequent game depending on player choices, different turns occur, cards are drawn, and the field is described. We finally finished it too - it took us 16 games and a year and a half. Was the time invested worth it - about that in this description. Nothing will be stated in the description.

Subject matter

Pandemics are raging in the world, people are dying and only your brave team can save it. The game is played over 12 months, with each month having a twist that changes the rules a bit and gives both new challenges and tools to combat it.

Components

The theme is very well felt in the game, everything is of high quality and thought out, in principle, if the players have seen the standard Pandemic, then the style has been kept in honor. Milestone cards, extra figures and other elements are very well organized in sealed boxes. There is no way to satisfy curiosity without tearing open the boxes, and they are easy to find when special cards dictate that they be found. My only criticism is about the extra rules, because by the time the extra rules appear, they have to be pasted into the rulebook, which isn't transparent, and then it's hard to find the changes. Every time we started the game, we had to constantly scroll to somehow understand what had changed compared to the base game.

Mechanics

The world is infected with four diseases that spread through cities. For a team of players, the goal is to fight and cure these diseases together, which can only be done by trying to use your four moves effectively. Players can move around, treat diseases, build research centers, or trade cards to collect the right ones to discover cures. Additional opportunities and challenges arise with each subsequent month. Players give names to various things, constantly improve their characters, which is nice and creates an emotional connection to them, especially since the characters can also die.

Multiplayer

There are none, when the game is finished, you can safely look for the nearest fireplace. It's not necessary either - you can count on Pandemic Legacy to be played at least 12 times, which is a lot these days. After the whole campaign, I felt like it was self-fulfilling and no more replays were necessary.

Rating

It will be quite difficult to evaluate the game, because I have dual feelings about it, so I will evaluate it separately, both emotionally and mechanically.

Pandemic Legacy forced us to mobilize and plan ahead for future games. We didn't do that at the very beginning, so between the first and the second session, about 9 months passed with a break, which resulted in us forgetting a lot. This has to be taken into account because the game practically requires 4 players to meet regularly, and there is a risk that maybe one of them does not like the game at all, so either everyone ends the campaign, or you have to find someone else to jump into the game, or there is also one player who grits his teeth and plays all year round. Luckily we didn't, everyone enjoyed the adventure and the pressure to see friends on a regular basis is very nice.

The second problem is with the campaign itself. At this point, I can pretty safely say that the first 8 months of the game are very interesting, every time something new appeared or a card had to be torn, we had a "WOW" feeling, but the updates of the last four months seemed to me rather uninteresting and monotonous, as if the designers would have run out of ideas what to do with the final third of the game. Because if you play half the game, don't worry, the best has already happened.

But while these are certainly significant downsides, by the end of the game you feel like a real team that has actually done it - saved the world and experienced a lot of triumphs and moments of excitement. Of course, you can play many more mechanically interesting games with the time invested, but the feeling and the company in this case can outweigh the shortcomings of the game. It is an adventure that I definitely recommend everyone to try.

So for the mechanics of the game, I give it a 7 out of 10, but in terms of the feel, it's definitely an 8 out of 10.

You can buy the game in Brain Games stores in Riga, K. Barona Street 55 or Rīga Plaza or in the online store: Pandemic Legacy: Season 1

Board Game Geek rating: 8.7

Author: Kristaps Auzāns

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