Disclosure: Meeple Mountain received a free copy of this product in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement.
Does the third game in the Horrified series, set in ancient Greek mythology live up to the standards set by its older siblings? Check out our review of Horrified: Greek Monsters.
Horrified is a family-weight cooperative game that burst onto the scene back in 2019 to much acclaim, both cementing its place in my collection and establishing design group Prospero Hall as the go-to producers of IP-based games that hold up to gamer scrutiny. In Horrified, players work together to defeat a varied number of movie monsters intent on terrorizing the most unlucky town ever. Horrified: American Monsters, the standalone sequel, swaps out Universal movie monsters for American cryptids. Horrified: Greek Monsters (HGM for short) takes the monster-hunting, town-defending romp to the world of ancient Greek mythology, with such villains as Medusa, Cerberus, the Minotaur, and other mythological entities.
Let’s Do That Again
Gameplay for the previous two Horrified games features a pickup and deliver mechanic with the primary variance being the specific conditions required for each monster. (For more on general gameplay, see our review of the original game.) HGM takes the same approach. If you’ve ever played either the original or American-cryptid based sequel, you will know how to play the third version. The only change to the basic gameplay is that now some of the monsters have hidden ‘lairs,’ which must first be discovered before players can work towards completing those monsters’ individual defeat requirements. This is accomplished by placing a handful of face-down lair tokens in the dedicated spaces requiring players to discard the requisite equipment tiles to flip the lair tokens, hopefully uncovering the correct lairs for any monsters in play that require them.
Meet the New Boss
Just like its two older siblings, each monster in HGM has a different method of defeating it. For example, Medusa requires players to discover her lair, then guide her to the four locations containing a mirror token. After all four mirror tokens have been gathered, players must discard a specified amount of equipment tokens at Medusa’s lair with Medusa present in order to defeat her.
Other monsters likewise require some variation of “do this thing first to prepare,” then “do this separate-but-related thing” to beat it. These vary in difficulty and theme, but overall it’s usually just a matter of get stuff, do stuff.
Same as the Old Boss?
While the monsters in HGM have vaguely-thematic defeat conditions that are unique to both each other and the monsters in the previous games, the gameplay feels mostly identical to the first two games. Players, each with unique but familiar player powers take their actions, then draw monster cards to see what the baddies do. Defeat all of the monsters and you win. Run out of cards or get thwacked too many times and you lose. The villagers/civilians present in the first two games have been replaced by “Legends,” which serve the same function: defenseless NPC’s with a desired destination that must be scuttled across the board, giving the players some game-breaking cards upon successful fulfillment of their journey.
It’s Not All Greek to Me
While Greek mythology is a fun theme in general, it mostly just serves as a vehicle for new variations of the “get stuff, do stuff” system that you’ll find in the first two games. Some of the monsters’ win conditions are less thematic than others, and one of the characters appears to be a time-traveling hipster from Portland, judging from his fashion choices.
The marriage of the mythology theme to the familiar gameplay also falls short a bit with the “Legends” NPC’s. For example, there’s no reason why a renowned archer like Atalanta or mighty warriors like Jason or Hippolyta would be defenseless against any of the baddies, just wanting to get across the board to a different part of town. To me this was a disappointing thematic disconnect. I understand the desire to pack as many recognizable mythological names into the game as possible, but it feels more like lip service than a meaningful game mechanic.
Final Thoughts
For those wanting innovation in the iteration, you’ll likely be disappointed. There’s nothing about this game that will make you like it if you didn’t care for the original Horrified or its sequel. I will note that the addition of the lairs and some of the more random monster defeat conditions (Cerberus required specific dice rolls, for example) resulted in a higher difficulty than I expected, given the previous games. I lost a good many more times than I won, even on the standard difficulty. It’s up to the individual whether or not that’s a positive development. The production quality was also a little subpar, but I can accept that given its accessible price point matches that of the original, even after five years of global inflation.
Overall, I would say that I was satisfied with Horrified: Greek Monsters. Like Horrifed: American Monsters, it doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel or tinker much with a winning formula. HGM is essentially nothing more than a glorified expansion. That’s perfectly fine for me because I happen to love the original gameplay: all I was really looking for was some new monsters. In that respect, I got everything I wanted for the game. I still prefer the Universal monsters theme of the original, but Horrified: Greek Monsters is a win provided you’re okay with more of the same. 4/5
Horrified: Greek Monsters details
- Designer: Michael Mulvihill, Peter Lee
- Artists: Ann-Sophie De Steur, George Doutsiopoulos, Raph Lomotan, Tom Moore, Victor Maristane
- Publishers: Ravensburger
- Release Date: 2023
- Player count : 1 - 5
- Age range : 10+
- Time range : 60 minutes
- Mechanism(s): Action Points, Cooperative Game, Dice Rolling, Pick-up and Deliver, Point to Point Movement, Solo / Solitaire Game, Variable Player Powers, Variable Set-up
- BGG Geek Rating: 7.5821 - converted to Meeple Mountain scale: 4.0.
- More articles about Horrified: Greek Monsters.
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