Spirit Island is currently my favorite board game. I love playing solo. I love playing with two players. I like playing with three players… aaannnddd it stops there. I own all the gameplay content Spirit Island has to offer. Well, I did, until I decided not to back the crowdfunding campaign for Nature Incarnate. I hesitated because I already had so much content. Did I really need more?
Well, that was answered when I was lucky enough to receive a review copy. I guess I do need more! But the question remains, if you like Spirit Island, will you want Nature Incarnate? Yes… but no… well definitely… maybe??
P.S. Jason had it wrong in his review of the base game. It should have been 5 Stars. I forgive you Jason.
Expansion Overview:
Nature Incarnate adds 8 new spirits to Spirit Island. Of those, 3 are moderate complexity, 4 are high complexity, and one is very high complexity. New here are 20 new Aspects for the spirits (more on that below). Also included are new power cards (major only), fear and blight cards, and various new tokens. For those that like the added challenge, also included are two new scenarios and a new adversary.
Game Experience with the Expansion:
There were aspects (get it?) that I enjoyed about the expansion and other design decisions that had me scratching my head.
What made me want to join the Dahan
My favorite inclusion in Nature Incarnate is the twenty new Aspects. At this point, with owning 37 Spirits, I prefer learning an Aspect to a new Spirit. An Aspect is easier to learn if you have already played with a spirit before. They simply modify the original spirit. An aspect can replace a special rule, or an innate power, modify its setup, or even add a new Power Card. These tweaks allow you to play your favorite Spirit with new content. My favorite Aspect included in Nature Incarnate is the Warrior Aspect for Thunderspeaker (from the base game). It replaces one of its Innate Powers with a new one, changes setup, adds an Incarna (more on this in a minute), and replaces one of its Unique Power Cards with a Minor Power. It is probably not the most powerful Aspect, but it is the one I enjoyed the most. Why, you ask? Because of its Incarna.
Besides being my second favorite addition from this expansion, what exactly is Incarna? Well, have you ever wondered what it would be like if our Spirit had a physical form? Welcome to Incarna. Having an actual token on the board representing my Spirit just made it feel… different. Thunderspeaker would move about the island, fighting with the Dahans. In fact, it does one damage in the land they move to with a Dahan.
Thunderspeaker’s Incarna also counts as Presence, making movement around the island easier. Incarna is such a simple addition to the game, but it breathes new life into three older spirits via Aspects and is required for four of the new Spirits from this expansion. I genuinely enjoyed this addition to Spirit Island.
While I may prefer the new Aspects, I GUESS I’ll take some new Spirits as well. The designers were really creative with these new Spirits. My favorite is Breath of Darkness Down Your Spine. I cannot win with it (yet), but I loved that it can abduct Invaders off the board (think Lost in Time and Space from Arkham/Eldritch Horror) to slow Invader growth and generate Fear. I also enjoyed Ember-Eyed Behemoth. It is a walking mountain (yes, it uses Incarna) that can cause serious damage—just watch out. Friendly fire is not off for this Spirit. Finally, there is Dances up Earthquakes. It starts with SIX unique powers and can drop Quake tokens around the map, but its most impressive skill: playing an Impending Card. These cards are played in future turns when their cost is paid in full and do not count against the card limit. I am still trying to learn the timing of this ability. It would be more effective in a skilled Spirit Island player’s hand, a.k.a not me.
What made me want to go all RDA on the island like it was Pandora
My biggest disappointment with the expansion was that it was focused mostly on new Spirits. I understand that they are the protagonists and also add a significant amount of replay value; however, there were already 29 unique Spirits available before Nature Incarnate was released. Do we really need another eight? I have not even remotely mastered more than one or two of the existing Spirits, both of which are low to moderate. It will take me ages to master a high or very high Spirit! I would have preferred the Dahan-themed expansion that has been discussed, an adversary-based expansion, or expanding how fear works.
The second disappointment is that Nature Incarnate requires you to own both the base game AND the Jagged Earth expansion. I cannot remember a board game, outside of an all-in bundle on Kickstarter/Gamefound, that required an expansion to play another expansion. I own Jagged Earth, so this did not impact me; however, it will potentially limit the audience that can buy it. You could argue that most players who love Spirit Island would already own Jagged Earth. That is true. But that does not help the gamers who do not yet own Jagged Earth.
My last disappointment was the lack of new Power Cards. Excluding the unique Power Cards tied to Spirits or Aspects, there are only twelve new Major Power cards and NO new Minor Power Cards. I understand balancing the decks gets harder and harder as you add more cards, and I applaud the designers for not falling back to forcing players to dig through the cards to remove specific cards, or worse, randomly remove cards. That being said, I would have liked more Major and Minor Power Cards for my collection.
Final Thoughts:
This is a VERY difficult expansion to review and to recommend as a buy or pass, so I am going to cheat and call it optional. In my opinion, the following gamers, who I assume already love Spirit Island, should buy Nature Incarnate if they:
• Love new experiences with new Spirits and do not care about mastering them
• Love complex Spirits
• Love aspects
• Want to utilize the new Incarna mechanism
The following gamers should pass on the expansion:
• Players that are new to Spirit Island
• Players that do not own Jagged Earth
• Players that prefer Low or Moderate level Spirits
• Players who believe they have enough Spirits already
• Players looking for more Power Cards
Hits:
• New Aspects
• Incarna mechanism
• New Spirits are fun, but….
Misses:
• Another Spirit focused expansion
• Requires the base game AND the Jagged Earth expansion
• Not many new Power Cards
