Jurassic World: The Legacy of Nubular Island Now live on Kickstarterand offers players the chance to craft their own unique island adventure across 12 compelling chapters, all while bringing beloved moments and characters from the movies to life on the tabletop. Funko Games’ first-of-its-kind Legacy title gives weight and importance to every action you take along the way, thus encouraging cooperative play while immersing you in the world you have a hand in creating. The Legacy of Isla Nublar invites players to find creative solutions to keep the dinosaur population alive and well while meeting each round’s objectives to successfully advance the campaign, a masterfully balancing maneuver. Top-notch presentation and charming aesthetic complete the stellar package, resulting in an experience that no fan of the franchise will want to miss.
Isla Nublar’s heritage makes an instant impression with its vintage aesthetic, and you can clearly see the comic inspiration in its artistic style and characters. The board itself is vibrant and colorful and holds enough room to easily start placing sites, barriers, roads and more as you start moving through the turns.
The show takes to a higher level once you see the amazing dinosaur miniatures, which are larger than the most popular miniatures and show dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus rex, Triceratops, Velociraptor, and Brachiosaurus. The detail in the sculptures is impressive enough, but the miniatures go above and beyond by bringing iconic moments from the movies to life, such as the Raptors being chased and opening a door or a T-Rex breaching an electrified fence. These four are just the tip of the iceberg of course, as you can discover up to 8 additional dinosaurs, including killer Wu creations, and each dinosaur brings additional intricacies to consider from turn to turn.
Part of the fun is figuring out how to accomplish your particular mission, which could be things like solving puzzles at the visitor center, clearing certain areas, protecting and taking care of dinosaurs across the board, while also protecting yourself from the carnivorous dinosaurs and protecting them from taking out each other. You have a number of tools at your disposal (including weapons, useful items, and the ability to breed dinosaurs) and 9 actions to take advantage of each round, including an additional action that can be used by anyone in the group. In our game, this extra action is named after Dwight, and honestly, it was a godsend over and over again, but don’t tell him that because it’s all going to go to his head.
Items such as Dwight, your character’s individual skills, and a set of useful but sometimes rare items require communication between players to complete objectives, as not completing them within the specified time frame can result in injuries to your characters or consequences against the group, and after a specified number of consequences, you can to lose the game. You can quickly find yourself out of turns or enough actions to complete a target even if you are relatively close to the target, so if you say you have someone who feels like they were stolen from a car in the first turn, and therefore find another car at all costs instead of.. I don’t know, putting the mission first, you could find yourself in danger of failing the mission.
Well, very obviously, but that person was me. Here’s the thing, you’ve got the car…it cost us the job as a result. You know though, you still don’t regret it. However, overstressed car chases aren’t the only way things can get derailed, as dinosaurs will also have their own actions to take after each run, and if not planned they can wreak havoc on any well-laid plans. Again, this encourages you to explore sectors and discover what their moves will be up front, and a great team can mitigate some of those potential pitfalls during their turns. There is also a wildcard in the form of Ambushes, which occurs if Carnivore was not close to any other character or dinosaur. This is when you’ve rotated the Amber template 20 sideways to see which sector they’re going to move into, and you’ll need to make sure you put some action aside to look for useful items in the potential case that occurs.
Next, Jurassic World rocks the gameplay with mini-game-style sequences that have you solving puzzles to complete the objectives, which is fun on its own but still linked to the character roster and story thanks to your character’s individual abilities and the fact that dinosaurs can make their way into buildings, causing chaos and creating danger wherever they go.
The ancient component is achieved in several interesting ways, with each chapter hidden in an envelope and oftentimes introducing new mechanisms and ways to further develop your experience. It’s all hidden too, so you’ll get a chart that tracks your successes and failures, and you’ll get some sort of revelation no matter which side you fall on that chart from mission to mission. Then each character also has hidden abilities that you will be called upon during the game to reveal and use, but you may only get one throughout the entire game, so there is an element of mystery and tension as you hope that choosing one will benefit not only you but the entire team.
Fans of the Jurassic Park franchise will find a tribute to the franchise they all love throughout Isla Nublar, but the game introduces new characters and original story content into the mix as well, giving even the most Jurassic World fans something new to invest in.
There really isn’t much in Legacy of Isla Nublar, especially for fans of the franchise. There is a slight learning curve, but after several courses, you will have a solid understanding of how turns work. You’ll start placing stickers of locations, barricades, and roads as you make your way through the campaign, but after seeing the adorable dinosaur miniatures, it was great to see the locations represented in miniature rather than just a poster. Again, nitpick, as sites have their own tiles that you can move around and use, but it’s still another feather in the lid. Also, please get someone who’s good at labeling and not… you know, me.
Jurassic Park: Isla Nublar’s Heritage delivers on its promise and delivers a unique co-op experience I can’t wait to get back to the table, offering a range of Jurassic World fan service that will delight longtime fans. The outstanding presentation and compelling step-by-step gameplay immerse you in the adventure of herding dinosaurs, perfect for both experienced board game players and those who love the franchise. Jurassic Park: The Legacy of Isla Nublar may have been the first Legacy Game from Funko Games, but they manage to knock it out of the park in one fell swoop.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Jurassic Park: The Legacy of Isla Nublar is streaming live on Kickstarter, and you can check out the full campaign here.
Review version provided by Funko Games / Prospero Hall
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