We've previously featured Horrified (classic Universal Pictures monsters) and Horrified: American Monsters on Board's Eye View. Ravensburger have added a third game to the series with Horrified: Greek Monsters. With art by Victor Maristane, Michael Mulvihill's design is firmly based on the system designed by Prospero Hall for the original Horrified. However, when you open this Pandora's Box, you'll see that this game transposes the setting to Ancient Greece where your assortment of heroes have to face monsters from the Greek myths and save from their clutches the non-player characters who also feature in Greek legend.
The format is similar to the previous editions; the 1-5 players will be playing cooperatively to collect the items they need to capture the monsters while trying to keep the population safe. Horrified: Greek Monsters isn't just more of the same, however. There's more variety in the asymmetric powers ('favours of the gods') of the various heroes; tho' it has to be said, the powers of some are rather more useful than those of one or two others. There's a really strong deck of Perk cards and the Ranger proved a popular choice of hero in our plays at Board's Eye View because of his special ability of drawing a Perk card whenever the Terror increased.
There's certainly more variety too in the Greek monsters themselves - including the fact that before you can defeat Cerberus, Chimera, Medusa and the Minotaur, you have first to discover the hidden lairs to which they are to be banished. The other monsters in this game are the Basilisk and Siren. As in the previous games, the monsters are all unique, each offering its own distinctive puzzle. In previous games, some monsters were harder to defeat than others; in Horrified: Greek Monsters they are all pretty tough!
Production quality matches that of the previous games, with plastic minis for each of the monsters and standees for the heroes and 'legends': it's a small thing but a nice touch that the non-player pieces aren't mere anonymous bystanders but are each identified as named characters out of the Greek myths.
If you've played either or both the previous games, you'll recognise the similar basic gameplay so you'll be up and running very quickly, but there's enough that's different here for Horrified: Greek Monsters to feel fresh even for those who have played Horrified and/or Horrified: American Monsters many times. Expect to find this iteration of Horrified a step up from its predecessors in terms of challenge. It can also sometimes feel a tad more chaotic, particularly in some of the more punishing monster 'frenzy' actions, so you'll need a dose of luck as well as skill to win.