LEGENDARY: Marvel's Deck Building Game Leaves a Good Impression
Legendary has been on my radar for awhile now, but not until recently did I get a chance to play it. Being the enormous Marvel fan that I am, I was hoping for the best. After getting my hands on it, I was grateful to discover a great deal of depth and replayability. That said, getting to the good bits requires some patience.
The game comes with a vast array of card types, including hero cards, villain cards, scheme cards, bystander cards, agent cards, and finally the board itself. Overall, it's a pretty quick setup as board games go, and the longest part of the process is figuring out which heroes you can choose from for the game since the roster isn't as big as you'd probably expect. Granted, our group of players was throwing out names like Cardiac (me), Cable (me again), Wonder Woman (not naming names on that one) and other assorted characters that didn't make the cut. Most of the big guns are there though, and with future expansions I'm sure more options will be available. For most though, the current roster will be more than sufficient.
The core gameplay centers around the escape and scheme mechanics. There are 5 spots on the board (which you can peep below), and you start with one villain (drawn from the villain deck) on the right most City square. Every turn you move that villain one square to the left and draw another from the deck, which gets placed in the square he previously occupied. There is also a mastermind slot toward the left where you pick from several major villains, each having their own properties and rewards once defeated. Your goal is to fight the villains before they make their way off the board. Upon every new turn, you also draw a scheme card. Scheme cards go behind the villains on each space until they take up every square, at which point the next one can get drawn and end the game in defeat. As for the heroes, you pick 5 of them who take their space on the hero area of the board. Each card, even if it's the same hero, has different attributes and bonuses (or in Cyclops' case, detriments) when used. You have to have so many stars to recruit different heroes, which you gain in time by cycling through your deck. You also must have the requisite fight points to fight certain villains, who all take different amounts to defeat. There are more intricacies to go through, but that is the basic gist.
Remember how I said you have to take out villains as fast as you can? Truth is that is not as easy as it sounds, as it takes several rounds before you can really deal with even the lowest villain. By round 4 or 5 you finally get 1 or 2 heroes in your deck per round, but its not till round 6 or 7 where you finally start feeling like you can really contribute. While slow to start, patience does pay off, as in later rounds you are taking out several villains at once and have an array of abilities and options to put to use. Later rounds go quickly, and I imagine with subsequent playthroughs the pace of the early rounds would pick up some. After getting to that point, I couldn't wait to start another game.
The cards themselves are well done, with some really nice portraits of the cast included in the box. Some odd choices for costumes stick out, such as Cyclops having his 90's Jim Lee uniform, while everyone else has their more modern suits. Not a qualm really, just personal preference (Cap also has his classic outfit, so no real big complaint there).
The company is working on an expansion based around the Fantastic Four (complete with Galactus) and already has another one out called Dark City, which adds the Marvel Knights and X-Force characters to the mix. What's great about the expansion is that it actually adds a whole other mechanic for the bystander cards (who I didn't really mention because they frankly don't affect much in the current version of the game) and also features several other additions to the current roster of villains and henchmen.
Overall I see a really bright future for Legendary and its future expansions. The game is a great deal of fun to play, you just have to give it a few rounds before judging it.
Domino Card Art by: Adriana Melo