It's been years since Puerto Rico was at the top of the heap on BoardGameGeek. Nevertheless, the game is still widely and deservedly loved. It spawned its own card game adaptation, San Juan, but also seemed to be the inspiration for an even stronger "Puerto Rico as a card game," Race for the Galaxy. That game went on to be such a huge success that it had many expansions and spin-odds. And now the snake has eaten its own tale with New Frontiers -- the board game version of Race for the Galaxy that in many ways plays like Puerto Rico in space.
As in Puerto Rico, each player chooses an action to take in each round -- everyone will get to do it, but they themselves will get a special bonus. You generate resources, trading them for currency or converting them to victory points. Your strategy diverges from your opponents' as the planets you colonize open up particular abilities and bonuses modifying the actions you take.
I did play a fair bit of Race of the Galaxy for a while, and though it has been years, I remain familiar enough to appreciate the ways in which ideas from that game were translated to this new board game variant. It did result, though, in a game that feels quite similar to Puerto Rico in many ways.
That isn't necessarily a bad thing, though. I played a ton of Puerto Rico back in the day. I've almost certainly played Puerto Rico more than any other board game I didn't work on as a designer. And while it always remained fun to me, the truth was that I'd played and seen played basically every strategy available in that game. Playing it with different players is always interesting, as their choices will introduce some unexpected elements. Still, I'd hazard to say that Puerto Rico is close to a "solved" game for me. At least, I never have to think hard about any decisions I face when playing it.
That does make New Frontiers a novelty to me. It's close enough to Puerto Rico to feel familiar, yet it's actually quite unfamiliar, in that the powers of its planets, my ability to anticipate opponents, has all been reset. It's a whole new mountain to climb.
I'm not too sure I'll actually get to climb it, though. Not everyone in my group is enamored of Puerto Rico, and they have skepticism for New Frontiers as well. We've played a few times, but it doesn't feel like a game destined to go into heavy rotation. And honestly, I do have a small reservations about it myself. The games I've played have seemed incredibly fast-paced -- not in the sense of fast turns (that are welcome in most any multiplayer game), but in the sense that you don't get many turns before it's all over. It's a game about building an effective points-scoring engine, but you don't get much time to enjoy the fruits of your labors. Perhaps that could be argued as a positive, so that it ends quickly for players who feel themselves falling behind. But I can't help but feel like every game of New Frontiers I've played so far ended "too soon" for my tastes.
I'd say New Frontiers scores a B. I'd like to play it enough to see if that opinion holds, or shifts over time -- but I'm doubtful it'll stick enough in my play group for me ever to find out. I suppose at least I got to experience a "shiny new Puerto Rico" a few times.
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