Since there are very few written reviews of the new Clank! Legacy: Acquisitions Incorporated (I'll just refer to it as Clank! Legacy) yet positive buzz on the numerical review scores, I thought I'd share our gaming group's general feelings after playing a few games. It's extremely hard to discuss without revealing things that are best discovered yourself, but here goes!
First, our group. We are by no means strangers to board games, having played for years from Settlers of Catan to Dominion to Agricola to Clank! and most everything in-between. Our group consists typically of me (<PERSON>), my wife (<PERSON>), and two close friends (<PERSON> and <PERSON>). We enjoy deck-builders more than other types of games, and often have short attention spans. Games like 'Architects of the West Kingdom' can be out on the table every so often, but analysis paralysis sets in quickly and cell phones start getting lifted from the table and browsed as other players take their turns. Also, a glass or two (or more) of wine or other spirits might also alter the general mood of the group and what starts as an intense affair can devolve into more of a laugh-fest sharing cat videos instead of paying attention to the game. Not that there's anything wrong with that!
By far, though, Clank! in some form is the game of choice. We typically get together one or two weekend nights a month. There's a nearly perfect mix of pay attention vs. just wing it, and often someone wins right at the very end when they've been way behind all night but decide to get intense. This goes for both Clank! and Clank! In Space, which get alternated depending on our mood. I've bought all the expansions, we have all the promo cards, and the rate they crank out new material is sometimes hard to keep up with.
In general, we prefer Clank! In Space because the game is a little more structured. 366
In the original Clank!, your story is not much more than what you make of it. Am I going to be a big explorer, getting around the board easily and grabbing what I need? Will I be a jerk, grab an artifact really quickly and get out and hope the dragon kills everyone before they catch up? Do I go get those monkey idols again and again? Do I form a tight deck with a ton of skill points and gobble up the high victory point cards?
In Clank! In Space, you know approximately how long the game will last, since everyone has to navigate across the board, activate the terminals, grab an artifact, and then get back to the entrance. It's more of a slow burn and less decision-making. That's comfortable to us, and probably why we are drawn more to it.
Clank! Legacy is the first legacy game that we've played, so this is all a new experience. On our first night with the game we had our normal group plus our friend's college student daughter (<PERSON>), who was home for the weekend. She substituted for <PERSON> and he took over some of the bookkeeping and dragon-cube managing roles but considered himself a part of her team for decision-making.
With all that said, digging into the box delivered huge smiles all around. There's so much in there! It's so mysterious! It's not just a board and some cubes, it's a whole adventure!
But, would it live up to the initial hype? I quickly browsed through the rules to catch up on differences from the other Clank versions (there are a few, but nothing hard to wrap your head around) and felt confident it would.
I was not wrong.
The board is beautiful, the card art is beautiful, and we enjoyed creating our own personas for the game. In fact, we probably spent nearly an hour just debating names. Anyone who has started a D&D group will understand, even though this is all flavor at the beginning and has no real bearing on the actual game itself. That all comes later, which is not a spoiler, since that's how legacy games operate.
My biggest praise of the original Clank! is that it has multiple paths to victory that are all fun and almost always seem balanced. Decisions are fairly simple as you have a few steps to move and usually just a few cards to choose from to add each turn. Make a mistake here or there and you can usually adjust. There's definitely a 'press your luck' aspect with both how long you spend in the depths as well as how much clank you generate and damage you're willing to take. Nearly every game ends with multiple players either making it to safety (or out) on their very last turn, or being one step away and everyone having a great laugh when they die.
Clank! Legacy has all of this as well. 755