Final Girl Game Review

 Impressions in a nutshell: Final Girl is an awesome game if you fall into the target audience. In my case, she came a lot. So far I'm enjoying playing it, although I'm not sure how replayable it is. It is far from a fact that changing the villain to a new one will significantly increase replayability.

 Final Girl is a solo game that is clearly inspired by slasher horror (and the upcoming new season is inspired by monster horror). Accordingly, it is interesting mainly to those who do not mind playing solo, and are also at least a little interested in horror films. Personally, I'm not particularly into horror movies, but I love watching movies and have watched enough horror movies to understand the in-game references to them. In my opinion, understanding horror is very important, because the theme and atmosphere are a very important component of the game.

GAME PROCESS

 In Final Girl, you play as a girl who needs to run away from (and ultimately deal with) a villain - usually a typical horror maniac.

 During your turn, you move around the map, try to help victims get to a safe place (which will give you useful bonuses), search certain areas of the field (weapons will come in handy), or (when you feel ready) attack the villain. All these actions are performed with a deck of cards. When you draw a card, you discard it, and also most often spend a little "time" - this is the game currency. As soon as you have played all the cards from your hand (or decided to save some for the next turn), the remaining time is spent on choosing cards from your hand for the next turn.

 Thus, you have to constantly balance: time is needed for active actions now, but also time is needed for the selection of cards so that there is something to play in the next turn. I've had turns where I couldn't do anything because I couldn't afford to buy new cards and my character didn't heal as a result.

 After your turn is over, it's the maniac's turn. It usually kills multiple victims and/or moves closer to you and attacks. As the innocent are killed, the level of bloodthirstiness of the maniac increases and his attacks become even more dangerous. As a rule, the killer takes two actions during his turn. The first does not change from turn to turn, but it is unique to each assassin. For example, "kill the victim in the same location as the maniac, if there is one." The second action is determined by a card randomly drawn from the deck. The effects can be very different: from a simple attack to devastating special abilities that instantly kill several victims at once.

CUBE AND RANDOM

 Many criticize Final Girl for the randomness that appears in dice rolls and some other elements, such as finding items.

 Indeed, in certain scenarios, early detection of weapons or other useful items can give you a big advantage. A few bad shots (especially at the start) can turn a bad situation into almost hopeless.

 On the other hand, the game has many ways to deal with randomness. First, in some situations you can discard cards to turn failures into successes. Second, if the circumstances are favorable, the horror track will allow you to roll 3 dice instead of 2. Third, there is an element of strategy in the game: you can buy crappy weak cards and discard them to improve the results of the dice rolls. You can also spend a little time at the start to lower the horror track and increase the number of dice you roll.

 Don't get me wrong, Final Girl still has a lot of randomness. After 10 hours of playing, I still have games where I win in just 15 minutes or lose a turn to victory due to a bad fear card draw. But in my opinion, Final Girl fandom is largely due to randomness. It is very thematic that during the run to victory you discover that the killer was waiting for you at the exit.

 But, I repeat, you can fight with randomness. Depending on the maniac you choose, it makes sense to stick to a certain strategy, and it's often wise to sacrifice 1 HP to be able to run away or prepare for the assassin's attack by building up a few counterattack cards in your hand.

 I also want to note that the games here are very fast (not counting the layout and provided that you already know the rules). My latest batches take 20-40 minutes. And losing at the last moment of a 20-minute game of Final Girl due to randomness is not nearly as annoying as losing at the last moment of a 3-hour game of RKI Lord of the Rings due to randomness (if this has never happened to you, then you just haven't played enough Lord of the Rings).

 In general, Final Girl belongs to games where the main thing is the process, not the result. It doesn't matter to me whether I win or lose because the games are short and very atmospheric. When losing, some kind of horror is vividly presented, where my character dies in terrible agony, and despite the defeat, running away from the killer for 20 minutes was interesting. So, I get a lot more excitement from the process than bitterness from defeat.

THEME, DESIGN AND ATMOSPHERE

 To me, Final Girl is 50% gameplay and 50% atmosphere. Here everything is like in a typical slasher. If the art or theme of the game does not appeal to you, then there is no point in buying Final Girl; the bare gameplay alone is not worth it, in my opinion.

 However, it is not necessary to be an expert on horror films. Personally, I only have a general idea of horror, and that turned out to be enough to enjoy the game.

 As for the atmosphere, I have never met a game where the setting was such an important component. My most exciting games in Final Girl were at night, with a horror soundtrack on. A decent soundtrack really contributes to immersion in the atmosphere of the game.

REPLAYABILITY

 I'm really enjoying Final Girl so far, but there are doubts about the replayability. Along with the additions, the game has a lot of content: a total of 5 different assassins, 5 locations and 10 characters that can be changed freely. Together with the 5 Feature Film scenario add-ons, this means you can play at least 25 different scenarios, changing the killers and locations, but…

 In my opinion, this does not greatly increase regrabability. Although the killers feel very different (each has its own interesting special rules), changing locations does not change much. In particular, the items that can be found in different locations are almost the same. Maps of events, layouts and fear tied to specific locations pleasantly diversify the game, but, in my opinion, the feeling of something new does not arise.

 So in my opinion, minus the assassins, the various components don't change much in terms of replayability. But the killers are very different, so I would recommend buying a few Feature Films with settings that you like. I will definitely invest in Final Girl season 2 to get at least a couple of new villains.

CONCLUSIONS

 Final Girl holds a unique place in my collection. It is very thematic and the gameplay is full of action. Does it suit you? Depends on how you like the setting. As for the gameplay, despite the strict randomness, the game has enough ways to compensate for bad dice rolls, and I never felt that the randomness was unfair. The games are fast, so even defeats are not too frustrating. All in all, I really enjoyed Final Girl and I'm looking forward to the new villains.