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So, disclaimer, I have not played the first edition of Atlantis Rising. Upon comparing the two, a few tweaks were made to parts of the game in the second edition but having not played the original I will not look to compare them, I shall be judging Atlantis Rising on its own merits.
Cooperative games do not get much play time in my game group as they are not generally games that my wife enjoys. Atlantis Rising is easily the most played cooperative game in my collection, a collection which includes Pandemic, Horrified and Chronicles of Crime. Atlantis Rising is the only Cooperative game that my wife will ever suggest playing; that will hopefully help those of you that don’t like cooperative games to stop and take another look at Atlantis Rising.
The artwork from the much renowned Vincent Dutrait is the first thing that draws you into this. Whether it’s the beautifully evocative front cover, the wonderfully illustrated artwork on the cards or the uniqueness of the board, they all help to catch the eye and entice you in. Atlantis Rising is not just a looker though: when it comes to gameplay, it works seamlessly.
Let's Begin...
First, let's address the player count. On the box it states 1-7 players can play the game. Although that is correct, both the 1 and 2 player versions do require you to play with a variant which I think does alter the game enough to warrant mentioning. There is a slight variant in order to play 3 player but this does not change the game as much. The 3+ player game is the vastly superior way to play Atlantis Rising based on my experiences.
The objective of the game is to collect the resources needed in order to build all of the components for the Cosmic Gate before the Island of Atlantis is lost forever to the sea. The game rounds are very easy to keep on top of as there are four simple phases whereby you place workers out, each player then draws a misfortune card which causes varying effects (mainly negative), you then complete your action before a final payment to the gods. This doesn’t sound that dissimilar to other cooperative games whereby you do your thing and then something bad happens.
The difference in Atlantis Rising is that it feels like the mechanisms and theme work seamlessly together. In the majority of other cooperative games I have played it feels like the designer settled on a mechanism and then bolted a name on it to fit the theme. I have also never played a game of Atlantis Rising that I have easily won or been completely destroyed, all of them have come down to the wire and it has always felt like I could have won. This is something that I have found in very few games and is certainly one of the aspects that keeps bringing me back for more.
I Love Atlantis Rising
If you had not already realised by now, I love Atlantis Rising. It has the perfect mix of interaction, team work and making your own decisions that I find ideal in a cooperative game. If you don’t like getting bogged down with discussing every single action in cooperative games you can just tell everyone what component you are trying to build and that’s it.
The way the components work is very clever. Each either provides you with an initial bonus or an additional space that you can send your workers to once they have been built. This leads to some tricky decisions as to which ones to build first so that you can really optimise the rewards that they give. It is like having numerous different objectives to complete. This is without even considering that there are 20 components in the box but you only play with 9 so it just adds to the replay value. It is also easy to adjust the difficulty by altering the amount of misfortune cards in the misfortune deck along with specific combinations of components.
I am also a sucker for games which have asymmetrical player abilities. The type that give you an ability that is different to everyone else but is not to the extent where you change how you play the game. Atlantis Rising gives you 10 different councillors to play with, all of which have different abilities. This means that even if you're playing a game with the full player count of 7 you will still have 3 which are not in the game. You can guarantee that at some point in the game you will wish you were using one of the councillors that are not in the game.
Lastly, I have to mention how beautifully produced this game is. I have already mentioned the artwork by Vincent Dutrait but it does not stop there. The way the Island is set out so that pieces can simply be turned over to show that they have been flooded and have an image depicting the flooded section on the reverse may seem very minor but it shows the attention to detail that was taken during the game’s development. The resources are also solid, plastic pieces shaped like the resource they represent rather than just being cardboard tokens or wooden cubes. Every part of Atlantis Rising just feels premium.
Final Thoughts
In all honesty I have struggled to find a fault in Atlantis Rising. Cooperative games are not my favourites generally which is why it does not score as highly in my personal rankings but that is not a fault in the in the game, just a reflection of my preferences.
The only thing I find myself getting frustrated with when playing is the names of the different peninsulas on the island. There are 3 wild (Mountains, Hills and Forests) and 3 civilised (Cities, Libraries and Forges). The artwork on the peninsulas does try and show this, but it is not completely clear. When you draw a misfortune card it will tell you which peninsula floods but it is not clear from the images on the card and the board as to which peninsula is which. This is not a massive issue as by half way through the game this is clear but that happens at the beginning of every game for me. It just feels like the graphical design of this could have been a bit better.
In conclusion this is a game that is hard to fault. It looks amazing, it plays seamlessly and it does a lot for a fairly decent price point. I would go as far to say that I would even suggest this to a new player over the much loved Pandemic as I think Atlantis Rising has more staying power and variability. Having played this game now I find it astonishing that is has taken this long to reprint a game that came out in 2012. The main thing I would urge you to take away from this review is, don’t dismiss Atlantis Rising just because it is a cooperative game and therefore not your thing. This feels different.
