Disney Villainous Review

    Have you even wondered what it would be like to be a Disney villain? What it would be like to try and achieve some horrible goal that would bring do-gooders to their knees? Have you even wanted to summon titans and have them march on Mount Olympus? If you answered yes to any of those questions then Disney Villainous may be the card/board game hybrid for you! Disney Villainous allows players to play as one of now fifteen villains throughout the many years of Disney animation. The game allows the villains to finally get one ups on the heroes that have thwarted them in their respective movies (or short). In this blog I'll touch on many of the villains and the game itself and why I think the game is a must buy for any fan of Disney villains!

    The base game comes with six villains and the three expansions add three more villains each to the collection. The original six boasts a pretty impressive lineup with Ursula, Maleficent, Jafar, Captain Hook, the Queen of Hearts, and Prince John. You may think Prince John seems a bit out of place as Robin Hood certainly is not held in as high a regard as the other movies these villains came from. Ah, but that is the beauty of villainous. The game is not afraid to take deeper cuts and include villains that are lesser known or not even thrown in most conversations of Disney villains. Prince John, Ratigan, and Pete (Steamboat Willie style) are the three current deeper cuts. If more expansions come out for the game I wouldn't be shocked to see more sneak their way in either. Other characters that have come out in the expansion packs include Hades, Scar, the Evil Queen, Dr. Facilier, Yzma, Cruella de Vil, and Mother Gothel. Each and every villain has a very different play style and a very different objective to complete.

    While I'm not going to make this blog a tutorial on how to play the game, it is important to know what the board looks like to better understand this review. I'll use Ratigan's board and cards as well as Maleficent's board and cards to show how the game works as I review it. As mentioned every villain has an objective to complete and it is up to the other villains to prevent you from completing said objective while they try to complete their own.

Ratigan's Board

Maleficent's Board

    For example, Ratigan must play the robot queen card, deliver it from his secret lair to Buckingham Palace and start  with it in tact on his next turn. If the other villains manage to destroy it by say bringing Basil of Baker Street onto the board, his objective changes to defeat Basil. Another example is Maleficent needing to play a curse at each location. Her objective never changes so the other villains need to make sure they are keeping track of where curses have been played and act accordingly.

Ratigan's Primary Objective

Ratigan's objective should the robot mouse queen be discarded

    The way you slow other villains down is super fun, you play "fate" cards on them which in Maleficent's case can be a card that discards a curse from a location, or summoning heroes (all from the villains respective movies) that do a ton of damage ranging from discarding a curse at a location to forcing Maleficent to play with her hand revealed. In Ratigan's case it can be discarding the Robot Queen to clogging the ever important Buckingham Palace to removing various items from the board.

    You can fight back though with allies (all from the villains respective movies). Have enough goons and Maleficent can push back Prince Philip. Give Fidget a few items and he can keep Ratigan progressing towards his objective nicely. When to deal with the heroes though is all part of the strategy that you'll need to develop as you play. Sometimes they are more of a hindrance and need to be dealt with as soon as possible. Other times they are an inconvenience at worst. That's the back and forth that you and your opponents will have as you work towards your objective.

    Now why do I love this game. Well for one I'm big into strategy games. Whether they are card games, board games, video games, etc. I enjoy a good strategy game and villainous fits the bill. Knowing when to move to the right spot on the right turn is imperative. The card or cards you play on your turn need to have an impact. Every waster maneuver sees you not advancing towards your objective and potentially allows your opponent to get ahead. Another thing I love about this game is the artwork. Every illustration on every card, every reference to the movies, everything about it is incredibly well done. The amount of nostalgia the game has is incredible, especially if you've seen the movie of the villain you play as. 

    Therein lies one of the potential issues with the game though. It is heavily tied to the movies which is wonderful, but it can leave people who haven't seen the movie in the dark on some things. For example, if you haven't seen The Great Mouse Detective, you'd have no idea why the Robot Queen getting discarded would change Ratigan's objective to defeat Basil. Another example is if you live under a rock and haven't seen The Lion King, you'd probably not realize why Scar's objective is to basically kill a bunch of heroes using the hyenas. If you haven't seen The Emperor's New Groove you'd never get why Kronk can turn into a hero if pushed too far. Stuff like that is amazing for people who have seen the movies, but if you haven't it can be easy to get lost in trying to understand why the game is having you do what it's having you do. 

    Another issue is that it is not new player friendly overall. The instruction manuals do a nice job at establishing the basics for each character, but often leave out important details. One of the biggest that I've encountered is with Dr. Facilier. He gets a fortune pile in addition to his usual two discard piles, but the instructions do not give any indication on how to do so. Instead the individual cards tell, so it becomes a kind of learn as you go experience with him. The game will also break it's own rules sometimes willingly as in the instructions say what is written on the cards themselves overrules what is written in the instruction manual. While that's fine once you know what's going on, it can be confusing for new players. 

    Something I find to be a plus, but I'm sure others can find to be a negative is that this is not a kids game. By that I mean a young kids game. Basic reading comprehension and the ability to create a strategy are imperative to this game. You literally cannot win without some sort of a plan in place for yourself. The box says it's for players ages 10 and up and I feel like that is pretty appropriate. Teens and adults though I think will have a way better time with this game though as a lot of thought can go a long way. Also, the game is by no means short. The estimated play time for a single 2 player round is about 40 minutes with a 6 player (max players) lasting around 120 minutes or more. Pretty intense for a Disney game right?

    My overall impression on Disney Villainous is that it is worth checking out for sure if you are a fan of Disney movies and especially of Disney villains. I would not recommend going all in and just buying up all the expansions until you've played the base game and decided as to whether or not the game is for you. Since it is not your basic board or card game I really cannot relate it to anything else that I've played so I cannot say if you like X you will like this. Again though, if you are a fan of Disney movies, check it out. If you are a fan of strategy games and Disney, then I can't think of a real reason why you couldn't enjoy this game! As always, thanks for reading and expect the next blog real soon!