Earlier, otherwise sound reviews did not mention good synergy with Higher Education and a good insurance against some seeker weaknesses . You should generally almost always take it on your hand if you can. Daisy Walker has it's The Necronomicon, Minh Thi Phan also likes to read, e.g. The King in Yellow. So you always need a free hand slot in case you'll all of a sudden feel an unresistable urge to read something spooky.

And about Higher Education? Well, imagine you're on 3 cards at the end of a turn. First, hide the glass to your pocket. Then draw the card at the end of the round. You're on 5. Then move to a location where you'd like to investigate. Bump your with resource, drop the glass as a fast action. Profit.

This is a really cool idea, especially if campaigns going forward emphasize trauma like The Forgotten Age has.

But there's two shortcomings:

1. As others have said, 4 resources is just way more than you want to be playing for this kind of effect. I know healing is supposed to be low-powered in this game, but that is pretty much prohibitively expensive.
2. It's 0xp. You might think that's a benefit, but rarely would you take an card that helps manage trauma when you start a campaign. You know, before you have any trauma.

I would have MUCH rather had this be a 2xp card that came in at a cool 2 resources. Even with a more manageable resource cost, this card is still costly in terms of tempo and deck slots.

Maybe if we see more self-traumatizing cards like Arcane Research this could find a home. I'm pretty sure mystics won't take this because they have Fearless and Clarity of Mind, though, so it would need to be a different class.

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)."