Primal: The Awakening Review

boardgamequest.com:

Primal: The Awakening seemed like a risky crowdfunding campaign to back. It was only Reggie Games second game. It was heavy on plastic, expensive, and scheduled to be delivered in the middle of a pandemic.

The game, although two years late, was delivered to its backers. It was received well, earning a BGG ranking 8.6. of It is also now available from their webstore. Should you jump online and purchase this behemoth to celebrate the start of 2025? Or should you save you money for the next expensive crowdfunded campaign?

Primal: The Awakening is a card-driven, cooperative boss battler for one to four hunters. There are two ways to play the game. You can play campaign mode, made up of 12 battles against huge creatures, with both the monsters and the players getting more powerful as you play more.

You can also play in expedition mode, a one-shot battle against the monster you choose. Regardless of the mode, fights take between one and two hours, with experience with the game, and lower player counts, reducing the time needed per fight.

Fights last up to ten rounds. Each round is divided into four steps:

Notice I did not cover any monster actions. That is because their behaviors are triggered by player actions. More on this in a bit.

The battle ends when the monster is defeated, all hunters are KOed, or the 10th round is completed without defeating the monster.

What made me want to grab a blade and hunt oversized monsters IRL:
The card play in Primal is fantastic. Players have four types of cards available to them: two offensive, with red (attack) cards causing damage and blue (maneuver) cards reducing the monster’s struggle, and two defensive, with green (dodge) and yellow (parry) reducing the potential attrition damage taken that turn.

Cards are played into your sequence by paying their stamina cost with other cards – yes, they are multi-use. Deciding if you should play a card for its ability text and effect based on its color, or to pay for other cards, can be