I was excited but skeptical when I first heard about a board game based on Mass Effect. I love board games, I love Mass Effect, but tying the two together seemed a risky endeavor. Board games have a lot to do with their theme — that is, the flavor that surrounds the base mechanics.
Monopoly is themed around a lousy simulacrum of rampant capitalism. Pandemic has you trying to stem the tide of rampant disease, Ticket To Ride is a competition to build the best railroads. Sometimes, though, theming is almost purely decorative. Foodtown Throwdown is a fairly straightforward set collection game with some food truck pizzaz. The game still works, but it doesn’t feel nearly as integrated as in, say Blood Rage. That gam’s focus on viking warfare runs deeper than just being a straightforward strategy game with Norse accoutrements: Ragnarok destroys parts of the map and with the right set up you can get points by having warriors die and go to Valhalla. All that viking stuff is absolutely intrinsic to the game in a way that’s more than just decoration.
So that skepticism about a Mass Effect game was quickly tempered when I saw that it was designed by Eric M. Lang, the designer of Blood Rage. At the very least, the game would be an interesting one, even if the Mass Effect name was just attached for buzz. And after having finally played Mass Effect: Priority Hagalaz, I can say that, holy smokes, it is indeed a Mass Effect board game.
Hagalaz is a cooperative game in which, over the course of a multiple game campaign, Shepard and their (you can choose whether to have a male or female Shepard) crew have to make their way through a downed Cerberus ship. Each mission can be won in one of two ways—appropriately named Paragon and Renegade—which each give their own perks in subsequent games. Like in its digital counterpart, you have choices about how you approach each situation — and different endings.
It’s in its gameplay, though, that I found it most reminiscent of the video game. Which sounds odd, given that Mass Effect is a third-person shooter and the board game is, well, a strategy board game. But the way the board game captures gameplay aspects of the source material show an acute attention to detail. Tali isn’t the best squadmate for an aggressive play; her relatively low attack power and hit points will see her quickly downed. Instead, she can use her drone to attack far away foes and hack turrets and enemies to support the others in a way that feels very much like the video game’s Engineer class — which is, of course, Tali’s. Garrus’ sniping and Wrex’s unstoppable brute force are in turn deftly captured in the board game. Shepard’s own abilities, be it Biotic Charge or Adrenaline Rush, are similarly translated to work with the game’s mechanics in ways that are as intuitive as they are familiar. Biotic Charge lets the player do damage based on distant traveled (like how the video game has Shepard charging across the battlefield and doing damage on impact) and Adrenaline Rush lets them move a square while shooting, like how that ability lets the player slow down time for a moment in the video game.
Pointedly, it feels like a game built from the ground-up to be a Mass Effect board game and not an attempt to force Mass Effect characters into a pre-existing framework. There are so many details to the gameplay that are so directly influenced by the video games that help it feel so right. It’s honestly impressive how well the board game uses its mechanics to simulate aspects of the video game so that its Mass Effect-ness is more than just skin deep. It’s somehow been seven(!) years since the last Mass Effect game and though Priority Halagaz is nowhere near a replacement for a proper sequel, it does manage to scratch that itch.
Essays, Not Rants! 