Call to Adventure: Epic Origins Review

Draft your origin story.

The Call to Adventure series has always intrigued me. Any time I passed it in a store I would pick it up and look at it and then put it back on the shelf. When I got the chance to look at Epic Origins I jumped at the opportunity. If you're familiar with the series, it's probably nothing new. You draft cards to add to your character sheet and that will make you stronger as the game goes. There are two types of cards you can pick up, traits and challenges. Traits you simply pick up and do what they say and you'll gain the runes. Challenges are where it gets fun. You must cast runes and depending on the result you'll either pass or fail. Casting runes is essentially rolling the dice. Depending on the symbols on the card and the ones in your tableau, you'll get to cast extra runes increasing the likelihood of passing the challenge. If you pass, you tuck it underneath the character cards you choose at the beginning of the game. Here's where it gets different, Epic Origins introduces adversaries. These are big bads that you need to defeat as a team in order to even score points at the end of the game. After the second round, you'll fight the mini boss and gain experience if you win and after the third you'll fight the main adversary. If you win, you'll score points based on your tableau. If you lose, you'll lose the game. Whoever has the most points wins.

The Good: I love how it feels like your story progresses through each chapter. You can feel the difference in strength from the first to the final in such a short amount of time. The mini campaign is also very nice. Each game you play adds new cards and enemies to keep it fresh and allow you to try out different builds and you can integrate the game with the others as well. The big draw for some will be that you can take your characters at the end and incorporate them into a fully fleshed out TTRPG character. I've never played one before but I can see that being a super unique way to build out a character that I would do because of my overall lack of creativity.

The Okay: For as much as I enjoyed the concept of adversaries, I feel like it also silos you into a specific build. Especially when playing solo. You'll want to have enough of the two symbols on the adversary card so you can actually win. There's a little more freedom with more players as long as someone specializes.

The Not So Good: The penalty for failing challenges doesn't really feel that stiff. You miss out on the card, sure but you also get an experience point for your troubles. You can then just try again with a different card instead. There's things you can do so you make sure you don't fail or at least try not to fail such as buying dark runes or playing cards to increase successes but I still failed more than I expected to.

Final Thoughts: I regret putting the game down every time I picked it up in the store. It's a really great game. I love the idea of casting runes instead of rolling dice. It's a 50% chance you're successful but it never felt like it was unfair. You assume the risk any time you cast. This is a game that I can't wait to play and see what new content is coming from the envelopes every time I open the box.

Thanks to Brotherwise Games for providing me with a review copy.