These games are basically like all other deck building games, however, now they are cooperative. Once again they are based on the first ever deck builder: Dominion. You will have probably read my previous post about decking building games because at the time I was not interested in the Marvel game; to tell you the truth I found it kind of stupid. However, once I saw they were coming out with a version based on the 4 Alien movies, I told myself that I had to try this out and I LOVED IT... so much so that I took a second glance at the Marvel game mechanics and found it much easier and simpler than the Alien version and of course they have a villain version for Marvel that is just like the Alien one (I am assuming they based the format on the villain one for the Alien version).
I will start with the Legendary Marvel version:
Legendary™ is a deck-building game set in the Marvel Comics universe.
To set up the game, players choose a number of hero decks from the likes of Spider-man, Hulk, Cyclops, or Wolverine, to name a few. Shuffle them together (since players use only a handful of hero decks out of the fifteen included) allowing the hero deck to vary widely in terms of what's available.
Players then choose a mastermind villain (Magneto, Loki, Dr. Doom, etc.) and stack that particular villain's attack cards underneath it. Next, modify the villain deck as needed based on that villain's particular scheme. Over the course of the game, players will recruit powerful hero cards to add to their deck in order to build a stronger and more resourceful deck. Players need to build both their recruitment powers (to enlist more heroes) and their fighting ability (to combat the villains who keep popping up to cause trouble). Players recruit heroes from an array of six cards, with empty slots refilled as needed.
At the start of a player's turn, he reveals a villain and adds it to the row of villains. This row has a limited number of spaces, and if it fills up, the earliest villain to arrive escapes, possibly punishing the heroes in some way. Some villains also take an action when showing up for the first time, such as kidnapping an innocent bystander. The villain deck also contains "master strike" cards, and whenever one of these shows up, the mastermind villain (controlled by the game) takes a bonus action. As players fight and defeat villains, they collect those cards, which will be worth points at game's end. Players can also fight the mastermind; if a player has enough fighting power, he claims one of the attack cards beneath the mastermind, which has a particular effect on the game. If all of these cards are claimed, the game ends and players tally their points to see who wins. If the mastermind completes his scheme, however – having a certain number of villains escape, for example, or imposing a certain number of wounds on the heroes – then the players all lose.
Do you have what it takes to defeat the villains? Or, will you let them escape?
I do have to say that the artwork on the cards and the board is amazing, I really find it bright and true to its origins. The cards are clear and well defined as to what they do, there are some bolded keywords that the first few times you play you will have to pull the instructions to remember what it does. The one thing I would have done is put the cost of the card on the upper right (looking at the card) corner instead of on the bottom because I made the mistake thinking that that card gave me that amount of recruit points.
Another thing I would have changed in this game is the points system... it is supposed to be a cooperative game yet there is still a winner (the one with the most victory points)... thankfully they changed this with the Alien version (you have no choice but to work together).
I love the fact that this game has a huge replayability factor (with all the expansions); there are tons of heroes to randomly choose to play in the game, you choose the mastermind randomly, you choose the villains and the henchmen and so on.
There is another version of this game: Villains, but I have yet to try it and like I said previously, it is much closer in gameplay to the Alien version.
Speaking of Aliens, we continue now with Legendary Encounters: an Alien deck building game:
First off I have to say that when they say 500+ cards, be prepared to take about 2 hours organizing these bloody cards (ok the Marvel needed some organizing as well but not this long); they are all mixed up. How hard would it have been to place the cards by type in the box? Plus in this version there are strike cards, hive cards, drone cards, starter cards, etc. and the text for these groupings is so small that you almost need a magnifying glass to read them... plus each 'movie' setup has 3 goals to achieve as well and they each have their set of cards with this tiny text... but once you get passed this, you do not want to drop this box and have to do it all over again. However, once you are done a game, you have to sort through all the cards to place them again in the correct groups.
I really love the card illustrations and the playmat (yes a playmat... not cardboard) is very well done... makes you feel like you are in the actual movies.
What I really like about this game is the fact that you get to play through the 4 movies (if you want to) or you can simply randomly choose your three objectives and the 'heroes' you wish to have in your good guy deck and add to that replayibility value again and again. But trust me, you will probably lose the first few times you play because it is not an easy game... and you will want to try and win the next time trying new tactics... Oh and when I mentioned that this game is meant to be cooperative, I meant it; if your partner gets a facehugger and he nor you (not the next player or the one after that) can get rid of it, it is pretty likely he will have a chestburster come out in the next few rounds and die... But hold on to your butts... there is a version of the game that when a player dies he becomes an Alien player using the Alien deck and trying to kill the other players...
I give the Marvel version 4.5 dice out of 5 and the Alien version 5 out of 5...
Enjoy and remember 'In Space No One Can Hear you Scream!'
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