Legendary: DC Deck Building Game Review: Nth Time is the Charm
Transcript
Hey everybody, I'm Tom Vessel.
I'm Z Garcia.
I'm Joey Evans. Today we're taking a look at Legendary. Well, is it? Yeah, it's just called Legendary. Does it is it called Legendary DC?
It's Legendary, a deck building game, and you just have to know it's DC.
Yeah. The whole thing is if you do comics, they just assume they're DC because they're the best comics. So, but then the Marvel, you have to put Marvel on there to let them know it's not the real comic.
Not going to rise to debate. But
yeah, on the back it does say Legendary, a DC deck building game, but that's only in the
Yeah, it's interesting, but that's what it is. Legendary, which has existed before in many iterations.
Yes.
Now welcomes the DC universe to its pantheon, so to speak.
Yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited.
Yeah. Well, it's a standalone game uh that uses the new Marvel Legendary did like a 2.0 version, although it's really like a 1.2 version. Um, but it's using that new version with some twists to it. They're slightly compatible as in you can use heroes and stuff from one and the other, but there is
a new element in this one
which Marvel characters will not participate with. You can you still do stuff with it and DC characters might refer to it and it's not in the Marvel one.
Yeah, there's some clunkiness. The new element is nth medal.
Z is about to show you what's in the box.
So, here we're taking a look at a game already in progress for two players. Every player is going to have their own deck of cards, uh, their own discard pile, and then also every time they knock out a villain or rescue a bystander, they keep that in their own stack, uh, so that they can keep track of that cuz many cards will reference that thing. Plus, if you want to, at the end of the game, you can score those cards up and see who the ultimate winner is, or you can just ignore all that and play fully cooperative. So, in the game, you're going to have a mastermind, this character right here, in this case, Deathstroke, and then a scheme, something that the mastermind is attempting to do. That combination of those two things gives you sort of the the tone and tenor for the game. You're going to make up a deck that goes over here, the villain deck with various parts, and then a hero deck also with various heroes based on the player count. So, you're going to shuffle that up. Uh, and then you are pretty much ready to go. So you're going to have a starting deck of cards and you'll be using that as a the basis of your deck and then building up on top of that so that eventually you're taking fantastic turns instead of very lame turns at the beginning of the game. You'll also notice over here there is this hope and fear track a brand new thing to this edition of legendary and I'll talk about that in a little bit. So the general flow here is on your turn and we're going to have this players next. uh they're taking a turn. Uh you are going to first of all just uh um uh draw a card from the villain deck. So the
villain deck here is going to have a combination of different things, but most of the things in here are baddies. Okay, villains, uh thugs, uh maybe some of these scheme twists or master strikes. In this case, it happens to be a villain, Golden Glider. Here you're going to draw them and they're going to slide into the city. The city is these spaces right here. If you need to push a card over to make space, you will do that. If you don't need to, you don't. If you ever push a card out of the city, then it goes into this escaped deck over here. And a couple of bad things are going to happen. You ideally don't want to let them escape. It comes into play if it has an ambush ability. You're going to deal with that right now, which in this case it does. It says it captures a bystander and then ice skates forward through all empty city spaces until she reaches another villain or the bridge. Okay, fine. So, she captures a bystander. We're going to put that underneath. And then if there were empty spaces in front of her, she would skate.
But there is none. Uh we have some hive soldiers right here. Okie do. So, she does that. She came into play. Now, it's our turn to do some things. We have our hand of cards. And our hand of cards is made up of our starting cards. These right here with a zero cost and fairly weak abilities, cards we have purchased from out here and added to our deck of cards such as this Nightwing card. Uh and then also possibly some wounds which are bad. We've we've been given these by the villain or some of the uh maybe the mastermind. And then in this case, I happen to also have a daring sidekick here, which is a card I can buy from this dedicated deck of cards, uh, if I don't have anything particularly good to do because they are cheap and plentiful.
So now I would play these. Now, the order in which you play these does matter because often times a card will reference a symbol and if you've played that symbol previously uh, in the same round, then it will trigger. playing that symbol after the trigger will not do anything. And so perhaps I'll do this. I'll play this card that says draw a card. And now I'm going to maybe I'll play this card right here, which says it gives me two damage. And if I had that symbol previously, it would give me more damage. I don't. So that's all I get. And now I'll play uh this batarang card. Gives me two damage. mention if id played that symbol previously then I would keep this near my deck and I would draw it into my upcoming hand the batarang comes back don't have that either unfortunately and then lastly I do have this uh checkmate knight over here so my total strength right now is 1 2 3 4 5 six I also have in my hand these two cards with the stars symbol and that would be purchasing power to acquire these things down here. Now, if I do absolutely nothing on my turn, I don't do any recruiting and I don't do any fighting, I can clear all the wounds out of my hand. I would just put him back over here. I'm not going to do that now because I have a pretty good turn. But sometimes you end up with two or three of these in your hand and you just decide, you know what? I'm not going to do anything else. I'm just going to get rid of these things. They clog up your deck of cards. They don't they they mess
you up. So, I am going to use my six attack to attack something out here. Our ultimate goal is to take down the mastermind. The mastermind has an amount of health right here and four cards beneath that. Every time you hit the mastermind, you draw one of these four random cards. It'll say it does something and then you put it in your score pile over here. Once you knock out all four of these, we the players will all win. And again, if you want to compare scores to see who the ultimate winner is, you can do that. Or you can attack any of these people out here. So I have, what was it? Six. So I am going to attack, let's say, I'll attack this character right here, Cheshire, for five. I will spend five of these. So I have one left.
She's going to go over here. I don't get anything else right now. If that person had had a captured bystander with them, then I would take that bystander as well and score that with my one leftover attack. I'm not going to do anything. And now I have a purchasing power of two. Uh, I'll buy that Starfire card. I'll put that in my discard pile over here. And then I clean up. All of these cards go in my discard except for the daring sidekick that specifically says after you use this, put it back in the pile. It's a one-time thing. And I am done. I would draw my new hand of six cards. And it is now the next player's turn who is going to flip a card. See what it is. If it's a master strike, read the mastermind. If it's a scheme, read the scheme card. If it is a a villain or a henchman, add it to the lineup right here to the city. Uh pushing things along as needed. and then take a turn playing cards, uh, hiring new characters or gaining new cards, right? Recruiting, knocking out some of these characters, what have you. Now, the way we lose, by the way, is if well, whatever the scheme says, generally speaking, uh, if, in this case, the scheme here is attempting to burn through our hero deck, and if it's gone, we're going to lose. Um, so that's the main thing we are trying to do is take out the mastermind before we burn through the hero deck in this case. All right. So, looking at the hope and fear track over here, many of the characters are going to manipulate this up or down.
If anything says gain fear right now, for example, or inspire fear, then you would lower this closer to the fear side. Uh, many of the cards care about where the fear and hope track is. I just purchased a card that cares about that. This one, it says specifically, choose one earth, inspire hope, then you gain plus one star for each hope. Or inspire fear, and then you gain plus one attack for each fear. If I had played this card with this being here where it was, I might say, for instance, I'm going to inspire hope. This goes to three and this is plus three purchasing power. Fantastic. Right? If it ever goes above this, I inspire hope and it goes up above this, I would draw a card and then it drops down to two. If it's ever at the bottom and something inspires fear, the player must discard a card and then it goes to two. Many of the villains, some of the heroes will care about this hope and fear track. And you can on your turn spend three attack power to move it one way or the other to inspire hope or inspire fear. though you cannot by doing that and that's called fighting crime by the way. You cannot go past the three on either end by fighting crime. You can only at best go from a two to a three in either direction. Okay, so there you go.
That's what's going on with that. And that's generally what's going on with the game. Uh it's uh a lot of moving parts, but hopefully that gives you an idea of how the whole thing operates. Let's go ahead and go back up top. All right, they did a decent selection. And they picked the main characters as always, you know, Superman, Batman, Flash, etc. These are all the characters we know and love. They picked, you know, the the big villains, Lex Luthther, Joker.
Um,
I will comment, I love the fact they did that. They didn't like save some of the big hitters for later.
I agree. They have enough of a bench there that they don't have to um give you any weak sauce in this sort of opening salvo here. And there I I assume there will be expansions for this. Great. Bring them on. No problem. But you can just get this and you will be happy that if this ends up being the only thing that exists for DC, you're fine,
right? [clears throat] Um, except for the one thing, and I'll just get out of the way right now. I really don't like when they have a the deck of like bystanders
that might get uh kidnapped. Is that what they're called? Bystanders.
Oh, yeah.
And there are it's a deck of like 30 cards maybe. And there are three special cards in it.
Either do it or don't do it.
You don't like that? I don't like it. I think it's so like
either make them special like a you know most of the cards are like a third of the cards or people you recognize that always need saving or whatever or don't do it at all. Don't don't give me special thing for like two cards, three cards.
I don't know. I like that. It's like hey captured a bystander. He captured by he got Lois Lane. Well, we can't let that stand. I don't know. I don't mind it.
I don't mind it a little. It's like not a big deal. It just feels a little weak sauce and it almost screams, "Shut up. We're going to give you more in the expansions."
Yeah,
sure.
That is
um I will say this game is definitely the if you like Marvel Legendary or the James Bond, [clears throat] whatever the other legendaries are, um if you like that or dislike it,
I feel like this will be very similar feeling for you because it's essentially the same game. The biggest change being that fear track or
the hope and fear track.
Hope and fear track. I
I like that track a lot because it gives you that extra there always turns
that you feel like I'm wasting these points.
That's exactly what I felt. Right. You have it has that feeling of when you have three attack but no baddies to punch.
Yes.
Or not enough. Right. And you're like,
"All right, most of my hand was a dead draw."
Right. Well, now you can do this thing.
Fight crime.
Yeah, you can fight crime. So, that feels good, you know? I I I just [clears throat] like being able to do something with a little leftover
and it it's referenced in so many interesting ways.
Oh, I mean, when like Superman I think when Clark Kent turns with Superman, the inspire hope.
Yeah.
It's like that's thematic, man. It's like, okay, Superman just entered and you're like boom, move that track up. People are like inspired.
Well, I don't like it.
I don't like that track. I get what you guys are saying. Interesting. I I do get that. Hey, I have three not what what to do with it. That's great, but that's only in your first three or four turns in the game. After that, I need to fight these guys in the middle. And that track becomes an annoying distractor. I have to keep putting stuff into it or these guys in the middle are way too hard.
And this is going to lead into my disappoint with this in general. I think, and maybe you guys will disagree, I think this is clearly harder than the Marvel Legendary.
Yeah, I think so, too. like the easiest guy in here is pretty hard
and I think the game already you could jack it up and make it harder. I think it starts at a hard level and I don't like that. I'm a little exhausted by that and I think that fear and hope track spends more time in fear than it spends in hope. That's that's how life is, man. But um I'm I'm kidding. I kid. I kid.
Wow.
Wow.
Oh wow. The way he said that. I felt that.
I know. I feel like I'm sad, too. No, I talked to Z about this. I feel like this is Marvel Legendary feels like more of a just a base, right? This feels like if there were expansions because you're right, it does ramp up immediately out of the box difficulty and
also rules complexities in many. This feels like an advanced version of Marvel Legendary out of the gate, right?
And you might not want that. And I don't disagree with you necessarily that it might have been better. It might have been better for them to just put one out at that level and then build up to this.
Sure.
But then the the other side of the complaint shows up which is like well cash grab much. It's the same game with DC or Marvel. Come on. So I would ra I'm glad they aired on this side where this is not the same game as Marvel Legendary. There are things here that are more complicated. there are more references and sort of touch point. There's more mechanisms and it's harder.
And I'm glad it sucks for people that really dislike Marvel and only one DC because you're not going to get a version like that here.
Well, that we know of.
That we know of. That's fair. That we know
there's going to be an expansion.
But I I'm glad it's not the same game. I was afraid of that. I'll be honest. And it's not.
It's not. It's not. And I think all the characters work really well. Batman loves his gadgets, his drawing cards. Superman has like his heat vision I think is like very similar to Thor and then you got Wonder Woman who can kill a master strike as they come out. That was big for me that balances out the baddies. I don't know. I really really enjoy the cast of characters on both sides of this.
The leveled up cards is a really fun thing. You get one of those like advanced cards, whatever. They're transform transforming card is good. I think that's one of the things I I like any game that says if you pull off this combo, you get this amazing reward. You're like, I deserve it.
That's cool. That is a cool thing that this game has.
And then Superman's Last Son of Krypton. Do you guys play him at all? It's like value 10. It's just a beast. It comes out, you're like,
one of my favorite things is probably I think it's Starfire
has a card that gives you like, you know, influence, whatever, money or attack based on where the hope or the fear track is. Yeah.
So, she's good either way,
right?
He's like, oh, two fear, then it's two punches. three hope then it's three money. That's fun. That's mechanically there's a lot of variability in the box. This in many ways doesn't feel like a retread of other things.
No, I can see what Thomas says, but I also feel like this track, the fear is almost like the wicked track in King of Tokyo. It gives me a little bit extra oomph.
I like the idea of the track. I'm just saying I I felt like it made the game harder. One of my
It takes your attention off.
It does pull focus. Right. Right. Right.
Yeah. And I think again it's very DCoriented. The character strengths come through
and I I also felt that even though the game is harder, this game ramps up pretty strongly once you get some of those powerful cards. If you do manage to level up a few cards, then you're like,
"Yeah, this is the end of Justice League. I'm Superman. Goodbye." You know, we're over. That's that middle area that you have to slog your way through and hope that not too many people escape and right
do stuff. And if you don't ramp up fast enough, you've lost. Yeah.
Right. Right. Right.
The realize coming into this and this for some reason it makes you sad. I don't know why, but Legendary as a whole is fading for me the whole series. Um I I'm a little
Look at him. Look at him. He's not mad. I'm not disappointed.
Yes, that's what I was going to say. I'm just
But sad
the difficulty and setup and tear down kind of wears on me a bit. Although there are other games that do that.
I'll set it up for But the biggest problem I that I've run into with legendary is their way of making things more difficult. It often requires you to discard cards.
Yeah.
This enemy, discard two cards from your hand. Discard card from hand. And I just that frustrates me. It makes the game less fun. I have this great hand of cards, discard two. I have this good hand of cards, discard one. Like for goodness sake, just let me play a hand of cards for once. To the point where my favorite character in this by far is the Flash
because he's like, draw more cards. Draw more cards. I'm like, "Yeah, you got rid of my cards." No, you didn't. So,
but see, you just pointed to the strength of legendary. You like a certain type of play style, and you choose a certain character out of this.
But I don't want to have to choose the Flash. That's so I can cover the discard card.
You are only the Flash.
Don't like a Flash.
He's the fast man alive except for 20 other people.
That is true.
But I don't dislike the game. I just don't like it as much as I used to, that's all. So, you rave about it.
I do. I love Legendary.
Go ahead and rave about it.
Oh, I mean I I love everything about this because the theme comes through and again this was my first I played Marvel Legendary with you guys for the first time. I loved it. This is seems like a second level. You [snorts] almost you have to compare the two because I know people are going to do that. I think it depends on where you are in gaming because this is a bit level up in complexity.
What about disagree?
What about I think I would just I would recommend one over the other based on the theme alone.
And that's true too. which characters you want.
You're a DC guy or a Marvel guy, get that one. Forget everything else. Um,
and if you if tied, if you're like, I I equally care or or don't care, I I still say Marvel
because it's an easier entry point
and you have already expansions out. So, you can go down that rabbit hole if you so choose. This feels I don't want this is a little strong, but it feels almost like a fun what if. This is a wa
I don't mean I don't mean Marvel what if. I mean that this is a fun like sidestep from what they did in that remade core box.
Yeah.
This is like if you want to mix up the formula a little bit, play the DC one. The DC one mixes up the formula, man. That's fun. It's got some wacky stuff. I'm glad they put the stuff in here that they than they did. But Marvel is more pure and I just straight up like Marvel theme better because I've seen movies and or know that stuff more. Um,
but I really like this game. I think as a standalone core box, this is a very well put together package. I think these guys are at this point putting out pretty good products. They are.
Except for the dividers. Seriously, your dividers suck in these guys.
Yeah, they're sort of generic. They're not great. I guess they're meant for you to write on them yourself. I don't know the guy's name much more, man. I don't really know how that works.
Or sell them as a expansion pack. I'll get them, you know. But here's the thing I like about Legendary because you're right. Legendary itself, it's a very core system is the same. They do little tweaks on every single one like the Matrix. You have to have that phone where you get in and out, you battle every and then scanning and alien. Everything is just a little bit of change where if you know legendary the core, you learn the extra 10%. I think unlike I think Marvel was just base legendary, you know, few changes. I like that they added those tracks and stuff to this.
I really disagree that this is like the other legendary games. I think they add more than 10%. They're really different.
I was I was estimating.
No, I mean I think this is this is a legendary game. The other one are legendary encounters. And that's
Well, yeah. Encounters.
I don't like those as much, but I get why people do. They're very much more
very different to more plugandplay than those are. But
Game of Thrones is the weirdest one because it's competitive only
and it's very very different
really.
I I I'll play this. I don't dislike it. I'll play it. I give it a six. I think the art in it is fantastic and they did a good job on the theming. They I think Batman, Superman, Flash in particular, those three and who was the one you mentioned with the light and fear and darkness?
Firetorm or something like that. What's her name? Again, this is the thing. I don't know these characters as well.
They're also going to release a cazillion expansions for this. the D, if there's anything DC deck building has taught us, there's enough of a bench for them to do things forever. I'm [clears throat] sure I think they've already announced the first one. I want to say I've seen a magic themed set coming with Constantine and stuff in it.
I think I saw that. And if they don't do Green Lantern, they're kind of crazy at this point. Um, but yeah, for me, six, I'll play it. I'm just not as excited about it.
I think I gave I wish I would have gone back and looked it up. I think I gave the Marvel remake legendary like 2.0. I think I gave it a nine.
Yeah,
I'm going to come in at an 8.5 on this one. It's almost They're almost the same thing. I really like it. This is like an 8.5 leaning towards that nine. But, um, if you like DC, if you like deck building games, shut up and get this. I think you're really going to have a good time with this one. I really enjoy it.
It's better than DC Deck Builder.
It is better than DC Deck Builder for me. I think that game is
fine. Um, but I enjoyed the the what this was doing a lot more.
Yeah. Good. And a nine. That's what I gave Marvel Legendary. I think this is the same. I really like that Fear and Hope track. Again, it eliminates those wasted turns. I'm like,
"Sorry guys, I can't do anything. I can't afford anything. I can't There's nothing out there to hit." I like that a lot. I love these characters. I will say I like Marvel just seems more in the zeitgeist. I know a lot more characters than that because of it. But these characters are so iconic and they really nail it. you feel like you are in those characters and stuff. So, I love this. Yeah. So, nine.
There you go, folks. That's Legendary, a DC deck building game.
I'm Tom.
I'm Z. I'm Joey. That's our regular identities. Anyway, hey, uh, thanks for watching another video here on the Dice Tower. Uh, we really appreciate you stopping by and checking our things out. Thanks so much for joining us today. And hey, if you really like what we're doing here at the Dice Tower, then there are different ways to support the Dice Tower. One of those ways is through Patreon. We have links in the description to this video, and we've links to lots of other things we do down there. So, definitely check it out. But either way, we're glad you watched us. Tell your friends about the Dice Tower. Until next time though, I'm Tom Vassel, and I hope you enjoyed this video.