Horrified: American Monsters (H:AM) is the second game in the Horrified series. This time, the game takes place in the United States of America, and you're fighting some of the greatest cryptids known in the western world. From killing the Chupacabra, to proving the existence of Bigfoot, you and your friends will be dealing with each monster in their own unique way!
In H:AM, the players are all working together to try and stop between 2-4 of the cryptids from bringing the town of Cross Creek into chaos. Each cryptid goes about this in a different way, from the deadly song of the Banshee from the Badlands, to the lingering doom of the Ozark Howler. Each time you play, the challenges can be different but so too can the tools used to solve them! H:AM has a roster of 7 playable characters each with a completely unique ability and thanks to the recommended random character selection, it will prevent the game from feeling repetitive after only a few plays.
Now that I've gone and laid out the basics, let's dive into the actual review. I'm a sucker for cryptids, I love the idea of these unexplained creatures that are just on the fringes of known science. So when I saw that they were making a (at the time new version) of Horrified, I was very excited. Having played the game a few times now I can say I do like it but its not perfect.
The difficulty of the game can swing drastically dependent on how many players you have and how many cryptids you use. In my first game, it was just me and my partner against the Chupacabra and the Banshee of the Badlands and the game was a tense action packed extravaganza until the end. My other games I played with 4 players and only 2 cryptids and the game felt easy.
My other problem with the game is that some of the cryptids are just more interesting and fun than the others by a significant amount. This wouldn't be as big a factor to me if my favourite, Mothman wasn't one of the weaker ones. My play group was able to come up with some ideas to make him more interesting but its never fun when you need to add rules to an already finished game.
Overall, I still really like the game and have had a ton of fun playing it. To me, the mechanics of each cryptid being unique creates a repeatedly fun game that I keep wanting to go back to!
I give the game an 7.5/10 and would still recommend it to people but would want them to understand that its not a perfect game but is still worth your time and to be part of our collection!
-Will
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