Firefly the Game [Board Game Review]

Firefly the board game was an unexpected birthday gift. It has turned out to be a very fun game that can be played in a rather short time. To think I'd been putting it off because I doubt the quality of games that ride the coattails of popular franchises.

Average set up / game play without expansions.

I say that despite the absolute awesomeness of Battle Star Galactica the board game. (And a few other fun games based off of series, such as Game of Thrones board game.)

4.5 out of 5 stars

The game has many points solidly in its favor. So we'll cover those, before handling the few tiny niggling details that keep it from being perfect.

Surprisingly, not the best captain in the game.

The Big Gorram Good things first.

The game is not too long. 30 minutes a player is a pretty good metric. Not too long, not too short. Plenty of time to play multiple games of it in one setting.

The game is fun but simple. It is largely a racing game. Getting from point A to point B. However there is a lot of decision making and preparation as well. Sure you can get from A to B easily, but you may arrive and be totally unprepared to handle the end. While it is a race game, you and your opponents are not required to take the same route to the end. You get to determine your route, and this is where good decision making skills come into play. 

It is also set in the Firefly 'Verse created by Joss Whedon. This little cult television show is a gold mine for a game. The game, happily, takes full advantage of the show's ambiance. Flying through the 'Verse makes it just that extra bit of fun. Stopping at Persephone and managing to hire both River and Simon? Extra fun!

The Shee-niou bad thing next.

This mainly comes from GF9 not having the same QA as the more established game companies like Mayfair, Fantasy Flight Games, or so on. The size of tokens between the base game and the Pirates expansion is different, and it irritates me. The cards in Blue Sun are slightly different sized than those in the base game, and considering that you have to mix them in... this too bugs me. If you use card sleeves this is most likely mitigated.

The game is fun, but your OCD might get a bit messed with when you add in the expansions. Oh, and you could end up getting a very wonky Alliance cruiser too... meh. I thought my Reaver Cutter was miscast, but after getting two more identically weird in my Blue Sun expansion box... it appears that it is meant to be off a little. 

I recommend this game.

I own, but have yet to try this expansion.