Crusaders Games

Primal The Awakening

A co-operative monster hunting boss fighting game, with some large amazing creature models and the options of playing one off expeditions or a longer campaign, where you will upgrade your weapons, equipment and skills between the battles. At the core of the game is an engaging card play, with each hero character having a unique deck which is tailored towards their generic skills.

The giant monster is located on a small terrain board with four quadrants, making movement a focused and tactical affair, as during the fight you will need to be within specified zones in order to damage it. Also terrain elements such as rocky outcrops or flowers will provide a special interraction for being in that quadrant, like a small healing or an interrupt mechanic. Each monster has its own deck of cards which bring a unique flavour to their battle, plus they will utilise a different card set up depending on the difficulty level you chose for the encounter. As such there is loads of variety in the build of the monster, and they do feel different to play against. Monsters do not take a turn as such, but react to what you do, although there will be an attrition attack at the end of each hero turn you can plan ahead for. The miniatures are some of the best large enemies in any game, painting them up is a real joy and it really gives you a sense of awe as you take them on.

Heroes also have their own card decks which lend mechanics to their fighting style, whether it be a high damage dealer, more defensive or a focus on assisting others during their turn. There is a strong syncronisation between the equipment you use and how the cards interplay, and the game requires some light deckbuilding and equipment choices of what to take into each fight. The weapons you have will dictate how many cards and what type you can take, and there are a limited number of equipment slots for your choice of helmet, body armour, an item and three potions slots. Player cards are colour coded into red (attack), blue (manoever), green (dodge), yellow ( parry), two attacking types and two defensive, and each turn you will play the cards into a tableau to activate by paying the cost using other cards in your hand, as such there is a trade off going on all the time. At the end of your turn, the defensive cards you played can help mitigate the monsters attrtition attack. This gives the game a smooth play style, but can create a lot of triggers and responses to remember during your turns.

This is one of the best battling games i have played, and has one of my favourite card play mechanics. The game is well designed and engaging to play, it while it does have a lot of triggers ongoing, the unique feel of monsters and heroes makes playing really interesting. Battles have a focused number of turns to defeat the creature before your time runs out, so the length of a game is limited, and you can select a one off expedition at any difficulty level and then choose the equipment from a pool. The progressive campaign has your abilities and equipment gradually revealing and upgrading as the monsters become more difficult. The overall card play is really interractive, you will have your own combos to try and execute for more damage, plus you can assist other heroes during their turn.

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Expansions

There are expansions you can add to enhance or change the gameplay (my additions highlighted green = own, blue = part owned, red = not purchased) :

Monster Expansions

There are three boxes of monster expansions, each containing two creatures with their miniatures and cards. The three themes are jungle, swamp and ice. Monsters provide alternatives to the main campaign, but also have their own short encounter stories. These are the most impressive expansions, however you do get a lot of monsters in the core box which is likely to keep you busy for ages.

Hero Expansion

Introduces two new character classes to the game complete with their models and card decks, scenario rules for adding a fifth player, and a standalone mini-campaign that crosses the events of the main story. A useful expansion if you want variety in your hero choice.

Nightmare Expansion

Adds another difficulty level to the game by providing a set of cards for each creature in nightmare mode, and was included as part of the kickstarter stretch goals.

Terrain Expansion

This provides plastic miniatures for the terrain flowers and rocks which add dimensionality to the visual look, however the punch out card versions in the core box seemed good enough to me.