I'm going to disagree with the other reviewers here and tout the effectiveness of Hemispheric Map.

A good comparison is St. Hubert's Key, a card which I run in anyone with greater than 2 who can take it. I actually think Hubert is a little too strong for a 0-level card, but it is held in check by a faction that is already laden with expensive assets.

For 3xp, you get a similar card that only costs 2 resources (MUCH better) but is conditional, so it's definitely worth a second look. I think it should be evaluated on the 2 location boost, with the 4-location boost being a nice perk to help get rid of Frozen in Fear.

I could run some numbers on how many locations in each scenario will activate its standard +1 +1 state. However, I think it's safe to say it will be at least half of the locations in the vast majority of maps. There will be exceptions (Museum, Essex, Echoes), but occasionally you'll get an exciting +2 +2 boost as a pleasant surprise (Masks, Curtain Call, Last King, City of Archives).

Ironically, this is just okay in explore-heavy Forgotten Age scenarios where you are trying to fill out the map, as you often put in a new location that is only attached to your previous one. But once you have to double-back the maps become really friendly to the map.

Overall, I've been loving this in Wendy and Solo Zoey, and I expect the same out of 3+ non- gators like Leo, Jenny, Minh (especially with Barricade[3]), Roland, Rex, and Ursula. Mystics have a variety of options they would take first like Holy Rosary, St. Hubert's Key, and Crystalline Elder Sign.

I'm noticing a discrepancy between the text as printed on the card and as written on this page that significantly affects the efficacy of this card. There is no posted errata so I'm wondering if this is an error.

EDIT. I realize now the text discrepancy would not have an affect on this card's performance.

Dev response to my rules question about Ursula's interaction with Searching for Izzie:

"Yes, you can use Ursula’s ability to trigger the ability on Searching for Izzie. If you do, you must still spend an additional action, since Searching for Izzie costs two actions, and Ursula’s ability only allows you to take an investigate action (as in, one action)."

I think it is extremely specialized, because rarely would you want this instead of guts. Because you can't rely on drawing a willpower treachery, you need to find ways to make tests more frequently. Obviously, you then look to mystics for that.

Checking some deck building restrictions leads us eventually to Zoey and Rite of Seeking or Mists of R'lyeh. That definitely seems like a functional idea to me, depending on campaign and party make up. I particularly like Forgotten Age Zoey using mists (with Intrepid) to escape a vengeance enemy, moving to a new location, popping a Police Badge and then having 4 actions to use these increased stats (the badge gives you a +1 for mists as well, and if you had Xavier in play as well? Mmm-mmm!)

That's probably best case scenario, so depending on how hard it is to pull off that kind of combo probably determines if this card is playable at all. Would really like the power level of skill cards to be pushed in general.

This and Keen Eye lead me to believe that there could be a "power-turn guardian" deck that sets up to do massively effectual turns. Cards like Police Badge, Leo De Luca, and Double or Nothing all seem to fit that mold, so obviously someone like Zoey or Leo Anderson could pull this off. Intrepid becomes the least dependable part of that combo, however, because it has to lead off with a Willpower test, and on-demand willpower tests are hard to come by in-faction.

I've never liked the 0-lvl Barricade, neither have I seen any necessity to add it in any investigator's deck. But this updated version seems to have some potential. Let's try to find out: does it? For a price of a one card draw and an action you:

• avoid dealing with monsters drawn from encounter deck and enemy weaknesses right now. They still can cause you a lot of troubles should they be hunters;
• help other investigators from the adjacent locations to run away from the monster they can't deal with right now (for a price of one attack of opportunity);
• avoid non-Elite hunters lurking outside. The problem is that this effect is temporal since you usually need to move, and once someone leaves the location, the card effect is gone. And you have to cope with all the hunters at once (on practice, it's rarely a real pile of monsters, but nonetheless). You, however, still can try and manage to spread non-hunters so, that they don't prevent your further advance. The card can be useful for solo seeker who tries to avoid fight as much as it is possible, as well as for a group of 4, since it is a good chance someone of them will draw an enemy during a mythos phase, and with this card attached to the location it means that that investigator will have 3 free actions next turn without a need to deal with the enemy. And the more investigators are in the location, the better chance of that to happen, unless I'm really bad in math and odds. All above said seems pretty decent on paper, but there are many other issues with it:
• there are plenty of other cool cards to buy in seeker's card set and 3 exp is not that cheap;
• universal card >>> specific card. This card is almost of no use if you don't have a scenario location where you are expected to spend several turns. And it happens not that often;
• you're still playing with odds: you don't know whether you will draw some monsters or not. It's not a guaranteed escape from them (well, partially it is, when you play it so, that another investigator from the adjacent location can leap to you). So the card is not good from the perspective of 'action economy' either. At the same time, I would probably add it to my deck closer to the scenario end, since it seems pretty fun to play when you can benefit from it. And it still has 3 different icons so you can improve someone's odds slightly (or significantly if you are Mihn).