Mass Effect: The Board Game - Priority Hagalaz

I'm a big fan of the first two Mass Effect games. I remember sitting glued to the TV watching Shepard and his mates go up and down in the world's slowest lifts. So it felt a bit like a trip down memory lane to see Shepard, Wrex, Garrus, Liara, and Tali again, but to be honest, and you should be in a review, I went into this adventure with low expectations.

Mass Effect to me is about relationships, drama, epic battles, and choices with big consequences. How do you translate that into a board game that does the name "Mass Effect" justice? Modiphius went a different route and instead offers small moments of space opera where the focus is more or less solely on action. There are certainly narrative elements that spice up the experience - I mean, there's a whole booklet called the Narrative Book. It's not, by any means, badly written or too thin but it's nowhere near enough to make Mass Effect: The Board Game - Priority Hagalaz a Gloomhaven-esque epic that will keep you and your mates occupied for a year. Nope, here it's bang, boom, fast action and very entertaining action that really feels and breathes Mass Effect and gets that little extra spice through lore and stories.

Expectations can't be so high that you think it's going to contain the whole soul of Mass Effect, when it's a relatively cheap game. It is what it is, and if you're into that, you'll find a really pleasant game. Like Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion and Sleeping Gods, you won't find a proper game board in the box. The board is a book that you turn the pages on when you have progressed in the campaign. It is extremely flexible and requires minimal space and also speeds up the actual start of the game. Six miniatures with the above-mentioned characters, two of which are Commander Shepard - both the male and female versions. The enemies come in the form of small cardboard tokens and there are plenty of them. The boxing and organisation isn't something I'd highlight as a plus either because there are a few too many little zip bags and it's hard to keep track of the contents. But it works and it's not a disaster and doesn't stop me from having fun.

The campaign works by offering a story where either going the good way or the bad way, you will eventually end up in different places and have different conditions on the next map. There are no more than four or five missions before you have completed the adventure, but as you can actually take different paths - paragon or renegade, just like in the video game - a replay can offer a completely different experience. The characters are also clearly niche, with Wrex wanting to go in and punch and melee, Garrus wanting to shoot from a distance, and Tali hacking doors and robots. That said, Modiphius has found the essence of the action part of the original and translated it into a very accessible and enjoyable journey.

Is it accessible? Yes, this is not an advanced story and it doesn't have to be for it to be a good board game with relative depth. The game is played in exactly the same way whether you play alone or with four players. You always have four of the characters on the table and the first player rolls twelve dice, chooses three, and makes different choices with them, and then the remaining dice go to the next player and then to the next until they are finished and everyone has played their round. During each round, you draw an enemy card that indicates what the enemy is doing and, thematically, it can feel a little weird when an enemy suddenly appears behind your back. But if you kill an enemy, you get XP and get to tick a little box on the character card and eventually level up and unlock new abilities. Loot, run, shoot, do something the mission requires, and then do the same thing again (sort of) on the next map. Yes, it's a bit repetitive, but as I mentioned before, the narrative part works so well and the mechanics fit great for a Mass Effect game, and all in all, I wouldn't mind doing it again.

That said, the rulebook is a bit confusing at first. It does not seem to be put together in a logical way and could use some work. Hopefully, this is something Modiphius can work on for the next print. But once you understand the whole thing, it's not very complicated at all, however with a good rulebook, you can avoid that and let the players get started faster and smoother.

Once you've finished the war and completed the last mission, you can just start again. Brilliantly enough, all you have to do is erase some dots and lines you've made with the fancy whiteboard pen. If there's one thing Mass Effect: The Board Game - Priority Hagalaz is, it's smooth and easy to pick up. With a name like that, it might be hard to believe but it's a fact. If you go into this game with the right expectations or at least ready to experience something other than the whole of Mass Effect in a small box, you will definitely have fun with it. It's not perfect by any means, but it's definitely worth spending a relatively small amount of money on.