One note: All of the artwork is new illustrations based off of the movie stills, and each Villain had a different artist!

I bought this game based on this review last year, and since then bought all three expansions. I played it a few times with friends, but lately I just try a few solo variants I made up (the game does not come with one) when I feel like bringing it out. Here are some thoughts: -The game's expansion villains play much better than the core ones. Ursula and Jafar suffer from the worst design, and now that I have a cast of 15 villains I almost never use them, but the other core players (Hook, John, Maleficent, Queen Of Hearts) still hold up well. At 3 expansions, 9 new villains, I feel like the game is pretty much done, though one more might be lurking about. I was able to fit EVERYTHING in the core box except for that darn cauldron, which was nice. I hate multiple boxes. But if you are getting the game, I recommend planning to invest in at least one expansion. The best one in my opinion is the one with Scar, though they are all really good. -The game's most annoying flaw is getting piled on in the endgame when the group senses you are close to victory. If you are playing with people who are good at disguising how well they are doing it helps, but not always, and it affects certain villains much more than others. In a way, this forces you to play smarter, and interact with guile, more like a villain, which ties into the theme, but not all players will see it that way, particularly children. Thus there will be times a flagging player will focus on an arbitrary enemy and ignoring other threats, bring them down (kingmaking). There are gamers who hate that above all and this is not the game for them. -I really wanted a solid, at least semi-deep Disney universe addition to my board game library and this fit that category perfectly. The components (except maybe for the power tokens and cauldron) are excellent and the art is superb. The game's mechanics work very thematically, particularly with the expansion villains. With Scar, you need to position your hyenas to ambush Mufasa and his pride, which feels completely different from Hades bringing out titans and pushing them to Olympus, or getting though all those dwarves to poison Snow White, or getting your taxes stolen by Robin Hood and company, etc. Scrutinizing the different strategies and weaknesses for each villain is a lot of fun. The game is far deeper than you might expect but still very easy to teach and set up.

I've played this four times now (once with 4 players, the other times with 3 players), and I've seen every villain played. I'm amazed at how balanced it is. Each game I've played, there were multiple players set up to win in the next turn or two at the end of the game. Last night, Captain Hook won but both Ursula and Prince John would've won on their next turn. We're having a blast with it, and the replayability is through the roof since by the time I've played all villains multiple times there will be new villains available.

12:04 "nice to see an excellent..." Dice tower seal of approval

My gf and I got this to play while staying at home during the corona crisis and love it! The only thing is that Ursula is such a pain in the ass to win with haha! But a great game - took us 30-45min to get into since we're beginners, but after that, the mechanics and the strategizing are really fun.

Just played this with some friend and wow it's really great. I love how every villain has their own completely different and thematically appropriate mechanics.

Prince John's mini is not a goblet. It's a crown and you put the small side down.

This game is totally open to expansions! Cant wait to play mine

Can we just talk for a second about how awesome a company Ravensburger is? They make such a wide variety of excellent games and have been around for so long, but manage to keep adapting to a quickly and vastly changing market. Props well deserved.

They will never make Cruella de Vil her winning condition would be killing 101 puppies LOL dont think that will fly

I’m so happy you liked this. I bought mine but haven’t been able to play yet. This review made me even more excited to get it to the table

Coudln't help but wince and think that some of those cards were being damaged in that beginning sequence whey they were being dropped on the table.

Is good for 2 players? I want to get the game but I'm wondering how good is as a 1v1 duel game.

Why do you pronounce Jafar as if it was Javer with a French accent? It is a normal Arabic name that is pronounced exactly as it appears to an English speaker.

The villain pamphlets don’t seem top notch quality... could’ve easily been built into the player boards or a separate board hand out. Those will be beat up in no time.

Wonder if they'll ever add 'The Hunter.'

would really like the same concept/game with Marvel Comics Villains :)

One of the features of the Fate deck is that, as much as I love asynchronous game mechanics, it can be very difficult to learn how to counter other players with out knowning their game mechanics thoroughly... where as the fate deck simplifies it a lot, sure players more familiar with the mechanics of the differenant villains can counter more effectively, but It doesn't sound like I need to spend half an hour figuring out the best action, no matter what I do it'll impede the other player.

need a live play of this one with you guys. Especially with the way you guys get into character when playing games like Sheriff

Just played this today and wow! One of my new favorites for sure, can't wait to keep playing this one!

Question about the lock. When playing Ursula can the lock be moved to where she is? We're not sure. I have the lock at the Palace, but my oponent wants to move it to the Lair where I am. Is this a legal move?

On the idea that parents might think this promotes bad behavior from their kids... WOW. I played a lot of Mortal Kombat and have yet to rip anyone's spinal cord out. Still, there are a lot worse kids could take after... Disney villains are usually not just bad people doing bad things for the sake of being bad. They have depth and dimension, are relatable if a bit flawed, rarely seek to do anything truly immoral, and might even be seen as the hero of the story from a slightly different point of view. Frollo was trying to fight temptation to do what he thought was right by God. Gaston wanted to kill a beast that terrified his fellow townsfolk. Mother Gothel just wanted to NOT DIE. Hook and Maleficent wanted justice for wrongs done against them. And even those who craved to rule, like Scar, John, and Jafar, had no intention to harm anyone until someone tried to stop them from acquiring the titles they felt they were entitled to. If these villains were psychopathic murderers, torturers, or worse (as many comic book villains are), Disney would not have presented them in family films. Frankly, I'd worry more about Disney HEROES than villains being a bad influence - Robin Hood and Aladdin are thieves; Peter Pan is reckless and violent; Kuzco and Maui are egotistical assholes, and a number of princes are okay with smooching non-consenting and/or unconscious women.

Great review. Please don’t destroy the cards with elastic bands lol takes me back to 1994 MTG days lol

I played the game twice. Neither time it seemed like anything happened. You have to wait for one of your opponents to target you to bring out a hero that you need for your objective. So if you are playing it with two or more other players, then there might be a chance that you don't get targeted and you can't do anything to move towards your own goal. You have to hope that someone will try to attack you so you can thwart their plan. I really wanted to like it, but I just couldn't.

Prince john is a free win imo. Just get to 20 while captain hook, and jafar ditch cards to unlock their last realm. we played 2 games and prince john won both handily.

A lot of people in the comments giving the theme some crap. One of the reasons this probably didn't get a Seal of Excellence, is because of the fact that if you don't like this theme then most likely you will not like this game. (Not Guaranteed obviously) If you really like the theme you will probably really like the game (unless of course you seem to find light games really boring and would rather play the Campaign for North Africa for 1400+ hours). That's really my rating. If you like the theme, get the game. If you don't like the theme, then don't get the game. The game is really woven into the Gameplay in an absolutely splendid way. SU&SD never watched any Disney movies so if you listen to their podcast (live at Gencon), you get a good idea of what it's like to not enjoy the theme.

Bummer that they left out Scar.

Each villain basically plays through their respective movie up to the finally. Ursula gets Triton to sign a contract, she has the crown and trident in her lair. She wins the game. Then goes mad with power, grows huge, and Eric runs her through with a ship. Jafar manages to get control of the genie and the palace and wins the game. Then gets tricked into turning himself into a genie, etc, etc... Really cool how they did that with the totally asymmetric gameplay that is crazy thematic. Not a perfect game, but a really good one...and far and away the best Disney themed game.

Shouldn't the Queen of Hearts' win condition be to behead Alice?

Can this be combined with other core Villainous games? (Such as the Marvel edition).

I saw this at my local game store and was really curious about it. I'm a huge Disney villain fan, but don't want a bad game. Bc of this review, I think I'll go get a copy!

Awesome to hear. My copy is in route, should be here soon. Also, the expansion potential with this is almost limitless. There will be tons of villians to introduce in the coming years.

How does the cauldron work?

Is it just me or does the Prince John deck not work it people don't give you heroes?

Why a seal of approval (and not seal of excellence)? From the video I didn't really hear any negative that contributes to the rating of approval? Would be nice to have more explanation.

It would be nice if you would edit your audio to drop/minimize all the loud inhales the mic catches whenever you pause between lines, it could be a much more professional presentation with that one small fix!

"jah-faar"

Totally agree about missing out on Scar and Cruella.

Do allies fight heroes in the same Realm without Vanquish?

So...they could technically put Darth Vader in this, right?

Is there any interaction between players ?

All the rave revews... did I play it wrong? I used Maleficent in a 2 player game and won on like my sixth or seventh turn, and never had a fate even come up. Just bounced back and forth between the spots with no fates on them, gathered energy and burned through villain deck to get curses.

“Allies” should’ve been called “Minions”.

Machanics seem fine, but this looks like literal multiplayer solitaire. You don't play against other players, you play against your fate deck. Other people merely take the role of AI for it.

I intentionally avoided this game BECAUSE it was Disney. Maybe I'll spring for it now. Well see

...King Neptune?

I don't think the base characters are balanced. Prince John is way too easy, and Ursula is almost impossible to win with. Her objective is ridiculously complex compared to other characters.

Where Disney Pixar bad guys border game

What happens if the power tokens at the cauldron runs out?

I really don't get how people like this game. This game has bombed in every game group we tried it with. It is exceedingly boring. It has some nice references and nods to the movies if you are a disney fan but the gameplay is TERRIBLE. I really disagree with Tom on this one which I almost never do. This essentially a game where people come together to play a game of solitaire by themselves. And since it is so asymmetric, there isn't even the tension of a race. The thing that gets me is that for most characters, fate cards are actually somewhat helpful towards their goals. Also it requires everyone to have a couple games of this under their belt to understand what the other players need to satisfy their win conditions. To make matters worse, some characters are very difficult to check at a glance. Malificent will often have allies covering up her curses and since they look like any other card in her deck, no one knows how close other people are to winning their game of solitaire. This leads to people having to constantly give reports on their status which is really tedious. I think this is one of the worst designed games I've ever played. I really like the theme but I really don't think this deserves to be called a game at all. Its just move here and play a card or two and hope that someone gets bored enough choose your fate deck to help you win faster.

Darth Vader expansion?

When is it coming out

I’d love to see this with a generic fantasy theme

Neptune?? Triton!

"will this teach my kid to be bad" - i hate parents like this...just...you are the worst people possible

Saw this in the store yesterday and thought it looked like a cute game to play with my nephew on a family visit. With the review I might even give it a shot with my friends too, the gameplay looks kind of cool. Also the fact that Disney owns Marvel makes me wonder if maybe they will have a Marvel expansion for it someday. Pixar and Star Wars would work too. Either way the fact that Tom mentioned expansion packs coming and the overall asymmetric gameplay and nostalgic aesthetic definitely increased my interest. P.S. My only gripe with the theme is that they picked Robin Hood and Alice in Wonderland as two of the movies. Disney’s Robin Hood is kind of “meh”, there are better Disney films for sure.

Bring on Frolo and Ezma!

No Horned King, no Gaston, no Ratigan???? C'mon Disney!!!!

The game looks great but for me the theme actually kills my interest which is to bad but to each his own.

jeezy

This game is fun

Zha-far? :)

Love the reviews, love dice tower, met Tom over at coolstuff in hollywood and all I can say is great guy. with that said when he says symbology at 8:21 all I could think of is William Dafoe in Boondock Saints kzfaq.info/get/bejne/oq2Pgsir0bq-YXU.html

Mwahahaha!

Jxahfar.

*channels william dafoe* It's ssssssssssssymmmmboliiiism. Symbolism. Not "symbology" you're not studying it.

I’ve played this game today. The game feels and plays like multiple player solitaire. I wouldn’t buy it for my collection. In my opinion, low replay value. If it didn’t have a Disney logo, this game wouldn’t thrive amongst alike/similar games. Great review though!

Theme is such a turnoff for me. 😢I’m just not a fan of Disney stuff.

Tom is blind by the theme and production of this game. One of the few time I disagree with Tom.

I hate everything about this game. I hate that it tries to milk the iconic status of the characters, I hate how it promises a ton but doesn't deliver, that of all the great Disney villains they chose some of the most underwhelming like Prince John and the Queen of Hearts (though they're probably going to try and milk some expansions out of it). As if I'd be so easily manipulated just because I love all things Disney. Sorry. I might have taken a bite if it were actually a good game but they couldn't even do that.

Omg such a boring game... theme yes... but game play?