JURASSIC PARK: THE LEGACY OF ISLA NUBLAR is a fun legacy game for fans

Funko Games sent me a copy of their legacy game Jurassic Park: The Legacy of Isla Nublar. The game retails on Funko.com for a whopping $120 but is jam-packed with everything a fan could want in a legacy game. Each play session will take place over the course of each film with some prequel type games to help you get used to the game. As far as legacy games go, this one is well done. Comes with tons of dinosaur miniatures, characters and locations featured in the movies. If you are great Jurassic Park fans, then I think this game is definitely worth checking out.

Each game takes place in 5 rounds. Each player gets a certain number of actions each turn depending on the number of characters. My recommendation is to play with at least 3 characters, which seemed to give me the best ability to do things around the island. Each round will reveal some sort of objective, whether it’s finding Lex and Tim or gathering information about dinosaurs all over the island. Each scenario will come with 4 round cards while your fifth round will be determined by your dinosaur deck. Each unlocked dinosaur has a special complication that it can solve for the game. For example, the Triceratops gets sick and will take damage if you don’t finish the round with a character in its space. Considering that dinosaurs dying generate points for losing, this can be catastrophic depending on how your game is going. In addition to the objectives on the round cards, each scenario comes with a booklet with additional rules and general objectives. These tend to be things to do in every building like gathering supplies in the visitor center and generating DNA sequences in the genetics lab. There’s usually a lot to keep track of with each game, but the game does a good job of how it introduces each element so you aren’t immediately overwhelmed. You don’t start with each building at the start and are always given one round of the game with a building before deciding on its permanent location. Same with the dinosaurs, you start with just a handful and your losses and successes will determine how many you can unlock. The gameplay can have some weird rules to get used to, so I highly recommend keeping the rulebook close and at least taking a quick look at it before each game, especially if there’s been a while between games.

I really appreciate the way they’ve created the characters for this game. Since we all know that movies feature a different cast of characters, the same goes for every scenario. The initial games unlocked by everyone are available to play, but the closer you get to more movie-specific scenarios, there will be a roster of characters to choose from. But don’t throw away those character cards, you’ll still be able to use them as legacy characters. Each one will give you a unique ability and as you upgrade characters, their legacy abilities also upgrade and improve. The problem is that each character can only be used as a legacy 3 times, so you have to be careful how you use them. Each character comes with a card with some great artwork and a standing character with the artwork.

Dinosaurs really are the main reason to play. The miniatures look great and come in easy to identify red and green colors. They also come with their own stat cards for combat. While the dinosaurs aren’t as strong as you might think, you’ll be given the ability to upgrade their defenses and health as you play, and you’ll definitely want to do this so your poor herbivores aren’t immediately decimated. However, there is some randomness to the updates. As you play you can do field research on dinosaurs which gives you research tokens. These tokens unlock the ability to scratch off areas of the endgame sheet that grant different bonuses. There are three sections for these updates, and you’re limited to which section you can scratch based on how many searches you’ve done. This can be great for those who get really indecisive about what they want, but it can be frustrating for people who are trying to really max out stats the way they want.

Overall the gameplay was fun. For each game you have to choose different bonuses to spend your budget on. You could build roads, build barriers, add electric fences, hire employees, etc. Depending on how long you were in the game. Eventually, weather also becomes an issue in the game and can cause power outages to deal with. There’s also dealing with moving employees and other followers around the board, as well as trying to control the dinosaurs. Like I said, there’s a lot to keep track of, but ultimately each level is introduced gradually to make it easier to learn. The game isn’t impossible, but some scenarios are very challenging and everything can go sideways over the course of a round. But the format makes it easy to make every game look like the movies. The game scenario for the first film has you assess the safety of the island and try to keep Lex and Tim safe while facing the dinosaur madness. The scenario for Lost world it actually forces you to deal with the mercenary group that has arrived on the island. Each scenario tends to have scenario-specific tokens and mechanics that keep each game fresh and different.

Finally, the game box. There are a huge number of tokens for this game. They don’t initially provide them with a great storage option, so I recommend using the pouches that the starter mini dinosaurs come in to help organize the tokens. As you unlock the dinosaurs, you will make booster packs available for use that will help you a lot as you accumulate many of the larger dinosaur and character cards. There’s plenty of storage in the box itself, which is great, but definitely come up with an organizational game plan while you’re getting all the tokens out because it’ll make setting up and tearing down a lot faster. One last thing I think was really fun is that they included a raptor claw to help scratch things away to reveal new abilities and rules. It uses the knuckle of the claw rather than the point and works incredibly well.

I liked this game so much. There were some rules that were annoying to work with but once you get the hang of the game it just helps to add to the challenge rather than being something that will always get in the way of winning. It comes with tons of cards and miniatures and everything is well done. If you really like it Jurassic Park and i wanted to try a legacy game so i would recommend this one. If you do not care Jurassic Park all of that would be a ride, it’s fun but being a fan of the franchise definitely adds to the experience. Be a fan of Jurassic Park myself, I would give this game a 9/10.