Solo Chronicles – Horrified: American Monsters

I’m big on series. I prefer a TV series to a movie because it allows characters to be better fleshed out, and conflicts to be better developed. I suppose that love has translated into my board game tastes as well because I originally reviewed the OG Horrified as a Solo Chronicles entry, and now I’m doing it again with the next in the series – Horrified: American Monsters. Yes, I’m American. No, I have never seen any of these monsters (nor their shenanigans) in real life. But I do enjoy the cryptid mythos and all that goes along. And I’ll just spoil it now: this one is equally great in my mind.

Now, as I have already reviewed Horrified (click here for that review) and detailed all the rules in that review, I will not be doing a rehash of the rules. They are the same. The differences come with the monster selection, new Investigators, and a new map to explore.

For this review I randomized my Investigator as well as the monsters I was facing. I ended up using The Agent for my character, who has a GREAT, always-active, ability that grants all Items a +1 strength. That was a huge help for me. The Agent had his work cut out for him as he attempted to defeat La Chupacabra as well as Bigfoot. Apparently La Chupacabra is a low complexity monster and Bigfoot is a high complexity character.

Be that as it may, during my solo playthrough I certainly did not feel much pressure from the monsters, but rather from the deck of Monster Cards and the amount of Items in the bag. Luckily I was able to pull out a win, and save about four villagers in the process. I’ll take it.

I usually cover Components next, but these are of similar quality to the original, so a thumbs up from me.

This set doesn’t really add anything special to the original except for the monster selection. I feel that is both a positive and a negative in my mind. Yes, there’s a fresh coat of paint, and I do enjoy some more localized legends to hunt, but usually when a game comes out with a second installment, something mechanically has changed to keep it different enough. This is my negative feeling here. Unless I am somehow missing it, I do not see anything mechanically different from the original.

Now, on the flipside of that point, “if it’s not broke, then don’t fix it.” The original Horrified is a GREAT game. In fact, it still resides in my Top 10 Games of All Time. I don’t necessarily WANT it to change with future installments. The familiarity is enticing, like playing Pokemon with a different starter. Yeah, the mechanics are the same, but the approach is certainly different. I’m torn, y’all. I love this set, but is it really worth having both? Perhaps yes, but only because I may have a taste for Universal Monsters tomorrow, and the Jersey Devil the day after. I’m keeping both, but I completely understand if you wouldn’t.