Final Girl Series 2 Ultimate Box Review

You survived a killer before, and somehow, you've found yourself in another hunted situation. You keep trying to save the others, but what's hunting you is too quick, and as before, you're the only one left. Once again, you are the final girl.

Final Girl, by Van Ryder Games, was an acclaimed Kickstarter launched in 2020, based on their already successful Hostage Negotiator system. Since its release, it's had 2 more Kickstarters, each combined into a series of releases. In this review, we will look at the Final Girl Series 2 Ultimate Box, which incorporates everything from Series 2 available at retail into a single handy storage box. If you want to know how to play Final Girl, check out our Final Girl Ultimate Box Series 1 review, because in this article, we'll just be looking at the Series 2 contents and what our favorite parts of it are.

The Rules To Survive A Horror Movie Sequel

Final Girl is a modular system that begins with the Final Girl Core Box, which has the core rules and components. To play, a core box is combined with a feature film box, like Happy Trails Horror or Slaughter in the Groves. These feature film boxes include a unique killer, a unique location, and 2 final girls to choose from, which can all be mixed and matched with other feature film boxes in any combination of final girl, location, and killer to diversify your games as your collection expands.

The Final Girl Series 2 Ultimate Box doesn't include a Final Girl Core Box. So if you don't have the Series 1 Ultimate Box, you will need to pick up a Core Box separately. This is to avoid duplication, as the Ultimate Boxes are designed for players who want everything. If you want to try out Final Girl, pick up a Core Box and a feature film to test the experience first, and then if you love it, then the Ultimate Boxes are going to be for you.

What's Your Favorite Scary Movie Sequel?

The Final Girl Series 2 Ultimate Box contains a huge amount of content. We'll detail here what each item contains and talk about our favorite products from the Ultimate Box below.

Final Girl Box of Props

The Final Girl Box of Props includes a load of upgraded and extra components for Final Girl. It includes deluxe tokens for the horror track, bloodlust, and time, and solid plastic tokens for final health. It also includes a desperation dice, which you can choose to roll once per game instead of a red die for a 5 in 6 chance of an extra success, but a 1 in 6 chance of immediately losing. If you lose because of the desperation die, you can look up how you died in the included book of desperate deaths.

4 promo final girls are also included in the box, Layla, Agnes, and 2 tie-in characters from the upcoming The Dark Quarter game, Julia and Constance. They don't get special envelopes or miniatures in this box though, they come in the Series 3 Ultimate Box (I would have liked to see it all packaged up in this box together). Some new rules are also added for the characters, with signature action cards, which can be added to the game and function like normal action cards, and a choice of ultimate dice, which can be taken instead of unlocking your final girl's ultimate ability.

Final Girl Feature Films Boxes

The Series 2 Ultimate Box, like the first one, contains 5 feature film boxes, for a total of 5 locations, 5 killers, and 10 final girls (with 5 additional final girls and another killer we detail above and below) that can all be mixed and matched between sets. Each box also contains miniatures for the killer, to upgrade from the token in the core box and vehicles (that you can access with cards in the item and event decks), to upgrade from the tokens included in each feature film box. We'll discuss each feature film box below.

Final Girl: Into the Void

Into The Void is Final Girl's take on Alien, with the USS Konrad as the location, which has key card required access cards to move between parts of the ship, and the Evomorph as a killer that evolves over the course of the game. Ellen and Jenette are the final girls in this film box, with Ellen's ultimate always letting her find what she needs, and Jenette getting extra uses out of limited items. I love that this set includes the Super Loader (and miniature in the Ultimate Box) for enhanced combat damage when looking to take the fight to the Evomorph.

Final Girl: Panic at Station 2891

Panic at Station 2891 includes Station 2891 as a remote location that has a helicopter on a timer as the only way to save victims. It also includes indoor and outdoor spaces that use the rule for frostbite, should you or the victims stay in the elements too long. The Organism is the killer in this set, and it has 3 different variations. 3 victims may have been assimilated, and as many as all 3 could be an Organism. The final girls are Uki and Kate. Uki's ultimate is to always be considered to have the Guard card that can reduce damage, and Kate jumps back to full health when revealing her ultimate. 

Final Girl: A Knock at the Door

A Knock at the Door has the Wingard Cottage as its location, which gives you access to crafting mechanics to combine items into more powerful weapons. The Intruders are the killers here, with 3 killers on the board, with only the active killer performing actions, until an All Killers card is drawn. Ava and Ginny are the final girls here, with Ava's ultimate letting you reroll a blank (1) horror roll, and Ginny's ultimate boosting her actions for the rest of the game.

Final Girl: Once Upon a Full Moon

Once Upon a Full Moon takes a fantasy turn with the Storybook Woods as the location, which is much smaller than other locations, and requires you to cross poorly built bridges or find the raft. The Big Bad Wolf is the killer, and has 2 different modes, track and slay, with actions depending on which mode they are in. The fantastically thematic Red and Gretel are the final girls in this set, with Red's ultimate letting her move if an enemy is within 2 spaces, and Gretel's ultimate converting a blank (2) horror roll to a star by discarding action cards.

Final Girl: Madness in the Dark

Madness in the Dark takes place at the Wolfe Asylum location, which has risk-reward medicine and drugs that can help you against the killer. The killer in this set is the Ratchet Lady, who can turn victims into maniacs to help her hunt you down. Veronica and Heather are the final girls, with Veronica's ultimate resetting the time to 7 at the end of the planning phase, and Heather's ultimate letting her reroll 5 or 6 on the horror roll, and boosting her attacks for each success.

Final Girl: S2 Game Mat bundle

The game mat bundle includes 2 neoprene game mats that have space for all the game areas, including the killer and location boards, horror and time track, and card deck areas, and comes in a thematic VCR-style box. These mats are slightly different from the Series 1 mats, and have more spaces for cards and components, but at the cost of things being a little more cramped together.

Final Girl: S2 Bonus Features Box

Along with the Feature and Core boxes, the Ultimate Box includes 2 other sets, the first is the Bonus Features Box, which includes several books:

• Final Girl: S2 Feature Films Rulebook - This handy book features all the killer and location looseleaf rules inserts from each of the Series 2 feature films, along with some achievement sheets for each, and works the same way as the Series 1 book.
• Final Girl: S2 Gruesome Death Books - These 5 books for each location contain gruesome details of kills for each terror card and some general death details, for each of the Series 2 killers across the Series 2 locations.
• Final Girl: Lore Book Series 2 - The lore book contains background details for all of the Series 2 killers and final girls, along with some detailed setup for some linked scenario games

Final Girl: S2 Cast and Crew Box

The other bonus set in the Ultimate Box is the The Series 2 Cast and Crew, which is a handy storage box for some additional components, and to gather up all the final girl stat cards and their secret envelopes (which you can open for a bonus card once you complete a game with that final girl). The box also contains:

• Final Girl Miniatures - All of the killer miniatures are housed in their respective feature film boxes, but all of the final girl miniatures are here.
• Final Girl: Terror from the Grave (vignette) - This fantastic little box contains a killer (zombies) but doesn't include a specific location (and as with all killers, can be used with any location you wish). It also includes a new final girl (who also has a miniature in this box), Patsy, whose ultimate allows her to spend 2 time to deal 2 damage.
• Final Girl: Zombies Miniatures Pack - These miniatures replace the tokens in the Terror from the Grave vignette pack.

A Bloody Combination

The Final Girl Series 2 Ultimate Box further adds an insane amount of variety in locations and killers, if added to the Series 1 Ultimate Box, but still stands alone and can simply be added to a Core Set if you just want to play the Feature Films in this box. Having to pick up the Core Set separately makes sense, as does the miniatures for the 2 tie-in final girls from The Dark Quarter (which I love, as the final girls are powerful and the tie in is handled well), but not having the miniatures and secret envelopes for the other 2 extra final girls who's promo cards are included feels off, and having to buy the Series 3 Ultimate Box to get them doesn't sit well. If you're a huge fan of Final Girl, you're probably picking it up anyway, but for something called the Ultimate Box, it doesn't feel very ultimate.

Aside from that, some of the content here is fantastic. Into the Void and Panic at Station 2891 are incredible, with thematic locations and killers, and the zombies from Terror from the Grave are fun. But it's Once Upon a Full Moon that's my favorite part of the content. The fairy tale horror includes my favorite location, killer and final girls so far.

Final Girl Series 2 Ultimate Box Final Thoughts?

If you've read the above and the Final Girl Ultimate Box Series 1 review, you'll know that I'm a fan of the Final Girl mechanics and the sheer depth of variety that a single Ultimate Box can give you. Having 2 Ultimate Boxes just increases that, but will also stand on its own (with the addition of a Core Box with the Series 2 Ultimate Box).

I love the originality of the core horror feature films in the Series 1 Ultimate Box, but the Series 2 Ultimate Box is easily my pick of the 2, with Into the Void and Panic a Station 2891 being great experiences, but Once Upon a Full Moon being my favorite. The missing miniatures and sealed envelopes for 2 promo final girls sours it a little (they're in the Series 3 Ultimate Box), but the 2 tie in characters from A Dark Quarter are fantastic (but you will have to pick up a copy of that game for the miniatures - which we'll review when released). 

The copy of the Final Girl Series 2 Ultimate Box used to produce this review was provided by Asmodee UK.