Origin Story review: "This superhero adventure is worth suiting up for"

As a kid growing up in the Midwest United States, more specifically Michigan, learning the card game Euchre felt like a rite of passage. When our Scout Leaders banned us from playing with our Magic: The Gathering cards on camping trips, much of our free time turned to this classic trick-taking game. This genre feels like it has taken off over the past few years, and one of the newest offerings is Origin Story from Stonemaier Games. After discovering my superhero (and villain) origins a few times, it reminded me why I love Euchre so much, even if it made my head spin a bit doing so.

Origin Story features & design

• A trick-taking game with a twist
• Mechanics make great use of the superhero theme
• Jessica Jones-style watercolor art

Adorned with lovely watercolor-inspired artwork that would make the best board games jealous, Origin Story tasks one to five players in a contest over five rounds with eight hands (tricks) per round to earn the most points (the tricks). Origin Story has a number of really nifty and thematically awesome inclusions that set it apart from your typical trick-taker. At the start of each round, before any hands are played, every player will choose whether they will pursue the path of a hero or villain, both with different methods to earn points, with heroes scoring for winning tricks and villains requiring you to lose all tricks to score. Additionally, players will draw three cards and keep one that will bestow different abilities on them, giving them unique ways to alter the game mechanics or how to win points. Each one portrays perhaps a super suit, gadget, power, or an arch-nemesis of your character, with a special Event card being drawn at the start of turn three and the big reveal of your hero at the beginning of the final fifth turn, further throwing a super-powered wrench into the mix.

Gameplay

• Abilities shake up gameplay in fascinating ways
• Excels as a two-player/solo game
• Becomes unwieldly with 4+ players

While the theme and the surface-level description of Origin Story – trick-taking with superpowers – may make it sound like this could be a good starter trick-taking option, this is anything but. The trick-taking aspect is straightforward; you have a lead player who plays a suit, and everyone has to follow that suit if they can, with a trump suit (the Heart Love cards in Origin Story's case) beating out the leading suit. Things ramp up as each character gets more powers, and what I would consider the double-edged sword of Origin Story.

As players get more and more abilities that they can ready up and use each round, it can become overwhelming and challenging to keep track of how all of the different powers trigger, the criteria for said triggers, and how they impact things like the points you win. Cards like the Gauntlet let the player earn a point whenever they lead with a Strength suit card, for example. Meanwhile, another player may get the Dexterity card with "if an opponent would win a trick with a 13 and you play a 1 of any suit, you win that trick instead." Or maybe someone just restarts that hand with the Time Travel ability and puts them in the lead seat.

With smaller player counts, this can be a lot to keep track of (especially since players can choose which modifications are active or charged each round, changing things up), but at four or five, with everyone spread across a table, it can be unwieldy. And this is all before you throw in the one-time "Event" that happens on the third turn (it’s really weird to me that this only happens once and not every round), and then the Superhero card effects in the final round.

My preferred way of playing Origin Story has honestly been with just myself and one other person, and the game has a pretty crafty way to still make this fun. In a two-player game, each player controls not just themselves but has a sidekick that serves as a pseudo-player, as they can never lead, earn powers, etc., but are affected by the powers of the actual players. They can win tricks, though, but their wins don’t count towards their hero/villain. This fact alone makes it more novel to play a round as a villain, as they get rewarded for not winning any tricks. This lower player count also addresses my main flaw with Origin Story, which is just the upkeep and keeping track of what everyone’s heroes can do in a given turn.

Basically? I'd recommend Origin Story alongside the best 2-player board games, but not for a large group.

Should you buy Origin Story?

I love how thematically all the ideas fit with the idea of showing off your character’s origin: by the end of the game, you are kitted out with gadgets and gizmos, allies, and maybe an arch-nemesis. Solid trick-taking foundation, but it isn’t a game I could recommend to newer or less-experienced players.

Origin Story is a wild ride, and the fact that it all fits in a box the size of the complete series of your favorite Saturday morning superhero cartoon is impressive (though I wouldn’t mind a slightly bigger box just to make things fit better). There is plenty of room for the game to grow, as Stonemaier Games loves their expansions, and they have already announced packs of new heroes to pick from coming soon.

Ratings

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

How we tested Origin Story

As with all our board game reviews, our reviewer made sure they were intimately familiar with the rules before tackling multiple test sessions with a variety of player counts. This helped them see how Origin Story's mechanics worked in practice under different circumstances, along with how the experience changed with differing numbers of people.

For a full look our process, check out how we test board games or the GamesRadar+ reviews policy.

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