Man, There's Nothing To This Saving The World Stuff

Another board game, this time Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the game. You select a Big Bad from the various options, and try to stop them from bringing about the Apocalypse. Which requires defeating three Monsters of the Week, and protect the Townies from various generic Baddies.

Defeating Monsters requires having the appropriate items, so the players have to spend parts of their turns moving between locations in town, collecting the right items (Weapons, Tomes, Magical Ingredients, Crosses, etc.) You can also spend time defeating the generic Baddies so as to protect the Townies, since Townies getting eviscerated brings the end of the world ever closer. Each player picks one of the Scoobies to use, who have advantages and special abilities and such. But using the Special Action forces you to draw an Event Card, which usually places more Baddies and Townies on the board to kill/protect. So judicious use is advisable. Probably.

The game said it could be played in 30 minutes to an hour, but it took us closer to two, since we had to keep going back and checking the rules on when certain things had to be done, or what the monsters could do on their turn. Given how easily we ultimately cruised to victory, we both suspect we were doing something wrong. It wasn't clear if the Big Bad was supposed to have certain powers taking effect before it was "revealed" or not. The way the rules read, we thought he wasn't activated until he was revealed, and so no on powers, but maybe we were wrong. It did help that the first Monster of the Week was The Judge, who wouldn't get active at all until we were already 4 of the 12 steps to the Apocalypse. I was able to kill him before he ever did anything. And we kept drawing Event Cards that put Baddies on the board, but no Townies for them to attack. And we were careful to stay away from them, so they couldn't get any shots at us. Maybe Spike (me) and Giles (her) are just that outstanding of a duo.

So, fun enough, not reinventing the wheel among games, but the rules were unclear at times. My guess is, if you aren't a fan of the show, you can find other games which offer similar gameplay, and do it better. But if you do have a fondness for the Buffyverse, this might do the trick for ya.