Base price: $20.
2 – 5 players.
Play time: ~60 minutes.
BGG Link
Buy on Amazon (via What’s Eric Playing?)
Logged plays: 27

Editor’s Note: My copy of Innovation: Echoes of the Past came with the Innovation Deluxe set, so your box / cards / experience may look slightly different.

It’s nice to be able to dig into some games, and I’ve often found that one of the most difficult tasks I have is trying to dig into expansions. Generally, I used to play a lot of different games with a lot of different people, and as a result didn’t immediately have a ton of depth, opting more for breadth with my various groups. For an expansion to be fun, you kind of need to have that depth, to some degree. The game is often better for having that and for having players who are familiar enough with a game that what the expansion offers adds something that they can differentiate. It’s why I don’t enjoy teaching a game and its expansion at the same time (95% of the time, at least); you end up just combining the two experiences without necessarily being able to appreciate both for what they offer. In Innovation: Echoes of the Past’s case, however, I’ve started a blood feud with another reviewer and we just kind of go back and forth in Innovation endlessly and forever, which is great. So expect a few more of these reviews soon. Innovation has always been an incredible (yet challenging) game, so digging a bit deeper into it will be good.

In Innovation: Echoes of the Past, new cards have emerged along with new achievements to give your civilizations something to strive for. That said, these cards may produce Echo Effects, or throwbacks to a bygone age with their own abilities that activate when you activate a card. The past can also echo into the future, with cards that can be Foreshadowed and melded when a card greater than or equal to their value is melded. Plus, Echo cards can be added to your hand under certain circumstances, with their own abilities and symbols to meld. How will these new effects ripple through your civilization?

Overall: 8.25 / 10

Overall, I think Innovation: Echoes of the Past nicely builds on the original Innovation! There’s a lot to like, granted, but I just generally think Innovation is a lot of fun and a sublime two-player game. Naturally, more cards does pretty much the exact opposite of solving Innovation’s core challenge, which is the classic “the game is a lot harder to play if you don’t know what most or all of the cards do”, but since that’s already the case, an expansion would have been unlikely to help with that in the first place anyways. If it’s “More Innovation” you’re after, this does some to most of that, but it adds in its own interesting challenges, as well.

What I particularly like about this game is that it perfectly encapsulates the grand Innovation effect of unintended consequences via the melded Echo effects. Now, not just the card on top can clown you, but buried effects on cards long since melded can goof you by popping up on visible cards. I kind of love that, since half of Innovation is building up a Tower of Babel that immediately falls on you at the first opportunity. Plus, there’s just always more to do! Now if your opponent is leading you with that symbol, they’ll get to do not just the card effect, but the echo effect as well. This also applies to cards being played from your Foreshadow, which means you need to be even more clever and catty than usual. There’s layers, here, and I love that. The extra complexity is worth the trouble, and even the new cards are trickier to match.

I’ve talked at length about Innovation in the past, and will continue to do so in the future, but I’m currently pretty pleased with this expansion and looking forward to the next one. It’s been one of my favorite two-player game experiences, and the more the merrier, I suppose? Onward to Cities of Destiny, but also, I mean, if you’re already a fan of Innovation, I think this adds a lot! It just also adds more to setup. Either way, if you’re looking for more Innovation, you’re looking to build on a complex two-player game, or you just like a good challenge, Innovation: Echoes of the Past is a strong expansion! I’ve had a lot of fun with it.

---

If you enjoyed this review and would like to support What’s Eric Playing? in the future, please check out my Patreon. Thanks for reading!