Aeon’s End Legacy cooperative game review

If you had the chance to be a Breach Mage, would you take it?

Don’t have a clue what a Breach Mage is?

Neither did we before we dove into Aeon’s End Legacy!

Last year at Salt Con, a friend told me how much he loved Aeon’s End. He strongly recommended that if I ever had the chance, I should give the game a try.

So, when I heard about Aeon’s End Legacy at the start of this year, my ears perked up. And thanks to Indie Boards & Cards and Stronghold Games, we got a copy of the game to dive into.

If you’re one who likes to cut to the chase, you’ll be happy to know the boys and I have loved it!

If you’d like more detail, read on.

 

How to Play Aeon’s End Legacy

The first thing to realize is that Aeon’s End Legacy is a cooperative, deck-building, story-driven, legacy game.

‘Cooperative’ in that all players work together to defeat the game (the Nemesis / Boss) and save Gravehold (the mysterious land).

‘Deck-building’ because players start with their personal basic deck of 10 cards and gain additional cards to their decks that allow them to attack and deal damage to the Nemesis and its Minions.

‘Story-driven’ in that games are played over a series of Chapters. Players begin by opening the Chapter 1 packet and following the instructions. If they’re successful, they’ll move on to subsequent Chapters revealing more to the story line through tougher Nemesis’ to fight.

And ‘Legacy’ because players make permanent changes to the game (characters, minions, and rules) that carry over in future games.

Right from the start players make decisions that change the game to be unique to them. Each player chooses a character and decides which side of the board (male/female), they want to use. Then they write the character name on their board and they’re ready to go.

Aeon’s End Legacy also has a strong story component as the game progresses through the help of a Legacy deck. Players read the front of the first card and it tells them what’s happening and the challenge ahead.

As a Legacy game, Aeon’s End Legacy is also packed with goodies (card decks, boxes, and inserts) that are only opened when triggered by in-game events. And these often include choices between great things. Players pick an option and toss the rest aside. Thus, every game of Aeon’s End Legacy will end up different in the end. Our copy of Aeon’s End Legacy will play out differently than yours.

The basic flow of the game is that on a player’s turn, they’ll play cards from their hand to either cast spells and attack the monsters or spend money to buy additional cards. But to attack, each spell must first be prepped in a Breach. So, on one turn, a player can place a spell card into one of their Breaches and then on their next turn they’ll start their turn by Casting those spells from their Breaches to deal damage.

At the end of their turn, the player places their used cards into their personal discard pile in the order of their choice. That’s important because when it comes time to draw more cards to their hand and their draw pile is empty, they take their discard pile and simply flip it over and place it as their new draw pile. There’s no deck shuffling!

Thus, as players build stronger decks, they’ll be able to work their cards to be most advantageous to them on future turns.

Another twist to the game is that players don’t take turns in the same order every round. There’s a Turn Order card deck that’s shuffled and randomly drawn from to determine who’s turn it is. The catch is that the Turn Order deck also includes two cards for the Nemesis.

When a Nemesis card is revealed, the Nemesis takes a turn. And of course, this means bad things are going to happen.

The players and Nemesis continue taking turns until either the Nemesis is down to 0 life or no cards remain in its deck (players Win) or all the player characters are Exhausted or Gravehold has 0 life (players Lose).

Whether players win or lose, at the end of the game they’ll read the next card from the Legacy deck that tells them what happens next. This may result in players either facing that Nemesis again with some adjustments or moving on to the next Chapter in the story.

 

What we’ve enjoyed about Aeon’s End Legacy

Wow – where to start?

You probably already know how much we love cooperative games. And Aeon’s End Legacy hits it out of the park in this regard. Up to 4 players can play – which makes it perfect for me and my 3 boys (mom and daughter haven’t been interested). While playing, we’re constantly talking about what we should do next with everyone taking equal part.

We’re also offering helpful suggestions on which cards each of should add to our decks or which Breaches to prepare. That’s because players can impact each other directly through their cards. For example, a card’s ability may allow another player to discard a card to Focus a Breach.

Chaining powers among each other is pretty sweet!

We’ve also loved the Legacy aspect of the game where we make permanent changes to the game through our choices. At the end of the first Chapter, when given the choice of abilities to add to our character boards, it’s always a tough choice. All the possible abilities sound really cool. But we can each only choose one ability and all the rest will go to waste. Tough choices, but oh, so fun!

In addition to the choices for each character, there are supply card choices. At the end of each Chapter, players also have to decide which card stacks to remove from the supply and which of the new sets to add to the supply. The removed cards are Banished from the game forever!

There’s a place in the game box to store the Banished cards. And there will be plenty!

Without spoiling too much, we’ll let you know that the Nemesis and their Minions get more powerful as well!

We knew something was up when we saw the front one sealed deck said it was the Evolve deck. Yep, these monsters will Evolve…

Which means that good preparation is key.

And that’s another highlight of the game – the ability to prepare spells and our decks!

At first, we thought it odd that we couldn’t use an attack card in our hand to immediately deal damage to a Nemesis or Minion. Instead, we have to place it in one of our Breaches to prepare it and then Cast it on our next turn. But then we got used to the flow and worked it to our advantage. We could clearly see what all players have queued up for their next turns and make choices accordingly.

Likewise, when discarding our cards, we’ve learned to pay close attention to the order we discard them because that’s the exact order we’ll draw them later.

Of course, we don’t always know when “later” will be because Turn Order keeps changing!

Once again, that’s something we’ve come to love. We can do all the planning we want, but the random draw of which player goes next adds a bit of uncertainty that keeps us totally engaged in the game throughout.

In a 4-player game, there are cards that are shared between two players (red and yellow / green and blue). So, when the first red/yellow card is drawn, the players decide which of those two players will go. Then when the next red/yellow card is drawn the other player goes.

Then throw into the mix the 2 Nemesis cards that interrupt our grand plans. It makes for a fun experience every time.

We also love the little touches in the game that allow players to personalize the game even more. Not only do players name their characters at the start of the game, but players also get to name their newly acquired abilities throughout the game!

The ability stickers that go on character boards and cards have spaces to write in the name of the ability. It’s a nice touch that let’s players take a personal role in the progressing story.

Lastly, we’ll mention how happy we are that we didn’t need to be familiar with Aeon’s End to enjoy Aeon’s End Legacy!

Aeon’s End was published a few years ago, but this Legacy game isn’t an expansion. It stands completely on its own. Players don’t need to know anything about Aeon’s End or breach mages to enjoy Aeon’s End Legacy. The nature of the game’s story and how it’s laid out through the Legacy deck and Chapters draws new players in seamlessly.

 

How does Aeon’s End Legacy score on our “Let’s Play Again” game meter?

If you haven’t guessed yet, Aeon’s End Legacy is a game that scores very high on our “let’s play again” game meter. With the character upgrades and choices at the end of each game, how can we not play another game right after?

The cooperative nature of the game makes it even better – because we’re not attacking each other, but instead progressing with each other.

We totally want to strengthen our characters, pick new and more powerful supply cards, and dive into the next chapter.

Even though we haven’t played through all the chapters yet, we couldn’t wait before sharing our thoughts about the game. And we can’t wait to play again!

If you’re looking for a cool, cooperative game experience with a fantasy story line, pick up a copy of Aeon’s End Legacy!

We’d like to thank Indie Boards & Cards and Stronghold Games for a copy of Aeon’s End Legacy.