The board game Love Letter is kind of a meme, at this point. A small velvet bag of 16 cards helped the gaming community realize that quantity is not quality, and people haven't stopped talking about it for eight years. It's inspired copycats, helped kick off a genre, and it's copied itself half a dozen times with re-themes. Despite all this, no one ever talks about the black sheep of the family - Lost Legacy, by Seiji Kanai.
To be clear, Seiji's the Love Letter guy, but you'd never hear it from anyone else. They all seem to be under the impression that he's a one trick pony, and his other games don't exist, or aren't worth discussing, which is bizarre to me. Lost Legacy seemed to be pitched as a spiritual sequel, with a similarly alliterative name and very similar gameplay, so I suppose the question is, are the changes it made good?
Well, let's start with what the gameplay is at all. Like its predecessor, Lost Legacy is nothing but a deck of 16 cards, and at the start of the game, everyone gets one of them. Then, on your turn, you draw one, giving yourself a hand of two cards now, then immediately play one of them to gain its special effect, bringing your hand back down to one. This is the flow of every turn, in both games. Unique to Lost Legacy, there's a row of face down cards next to the deck, called the Ruins. To win, either kill everyone else, or at the end of the game, when it's your turn to enter the investigation phase, simply point to the Legacy card. This could mean pointing to the card in a friend's hand, a particular card in the Ruins, or, of course, dramatically throwing down your card to show that it was in your hand the whole time. That last one is obviously the most fun, but as long as you find it, ownership doesn't matter - you win.
The cards all have special abilities on them that let you do an absurd array of things. They could let you put a card into the Ruins, trade cards with someone else, avoid death, cause death, et cetera. This quickly results in clever, relatively elaborate schemes, for such a small game. Sure, you have the Legacy in your hand, but the Legacy itself only has an investigation value of five, so if someone else figures out that you're holding it and investigates your hand first, you're screwed. Should you risk it? Or should you perhaps casually put the Legacy into the Ruins, look for a better investigation value, then at the end of the game, dramatically point to where you put it? Of course, some card abilities shuffle the Ruins, so you might lose track of it, so that's a risk too. You'll have to make the call.
This "track the card" mechanic is very unique, and a game with 16 cards is the perfect place to execute it. Though, actually, for most of the game's releases, it ships with 32. They like to pair multiple versions together in the same box. Did I mention there are six different versions of Lost Legacy and yet still somehow no one talks about this game? You can even mix the sets together and the game will still always work, which is a feature I've spent far too long messing with.
"I only signed up for vampires, I'm out."
So, should you buy this game? That's gonna be incredibly tough. I can tell why Lost Legacy never took off, despite me feigning ignorance. It's because it's a tiny, short, simple game... that also has elaborate multi-step card effects, multiple phases, and a heavy fantasy theme. Who's that for? Who wants a game that has complicated frills but an incredibly basic core?
It's me. I want that. This is another one of my favorites.
I like getting to kick back and turn my brain off with friends, just like anyone else, but I also have a terminal case of being a mega nerd, so playing Lost Legacy is what that looks like for me. When I read up on the theme, I fell in love, for starters - the Legacies are pieces of a colossal alien spacecraft, but they landed somewhere relatively primitive and got mistaken for magic, resulting in a "fantasy" world where all fantasy elements are secretly just science! For me, that's a selling point. To a lot of people who are looking for simple games, that makes them want to run for the hills, unfortunately. Same with the six different mixable decks with complicated card effects - to me, it just means that me and my friends will never run out of fun card combinations to play, but to most people looking to play a simple game, that's a little impenetrable. Etc.
I guess the question is, are you me? If you are, I recommend starting with the Floating Garden version. It's got some really simple but sweet card effects, based primarily on a "wound" system where having more than one wound kills you, but lots of the cards have clever effects you can use to avoid or transfer wounds. It works best at two players, but can go up to four like all of them, and it's probably the best designed set.
If you aren't me, I recommend Love Letter. It's a classic for a reason, and if anything about the basic 16 card design of Lost Legacy interests you, but you didn't like the nerd stuff, it's a perfect choice. Perfect if you're playing with three or more, anyway. I feel like Love Letter's a little weak at two. If you are playing at two, or if microgames in general seem cool to you but you're not sure about Seiji's 16 card system, I recommend any game in the Pack O Game series. They're even tinier, and cover all sorts of genres, so it's kind of a tasting platter, which is very helpful to new gamers. Some of my favorites of those are LIE, NUT, and SOW.
Just remember, kids: Microgames are a gateway drug.
- V