Disney Villainous – Introduction to Evil

We all have a love affair with Disney – especially Disney villains. From Maleficent to Oogie Boogie to Prince John the lion, even the most evil members of our beloved animated classics have a nefarious charm. It’s precisely this charm Ravensburger tapped into in Disney Villainous, an asymmetric hand management, take that game where you play as some of Disney’s most famous antagonists.

Today we’re looking at Disney Villainous: Introduction to Evil, an introductory set celebrating Disney’s 100th anniversary. As an added bonus, we have a copy of the expansion Filled with Fright, featuring Oogie Boogie from Nightmare Before Christmas. Designer Prospero Hall rates Disney Villainous for ages 10 and up. A game is estimated to take about 20 minutes per player. With more content and expansions, you can even accomodate up to six players.

Setup

Each player takes their chosen villain’s Mover, Villain deck, Fate deck, Realm, and Villain Guide. Some characters (like Oogie Boogie) have additional, specific pieces that apply to them. Finally, each player takes two Power Tokens. Put the remaining Power Tokens in the Cauldron in the middle of the table. Everyone sets their Realm in front of them, shuffles their decks, and draws four cards from their Villain deck. Remember, each villain has a different objective, so it’s best to read them aloud for fairness.

Gameplay

In Disney Villainous, players take turns moving their Villain Mover to a new location in their Realm and performing as many of the available icons on that spot as they want. If a card covers some of the icons, those actions are not available.

Actions

• Gain Power – Gain power equal to the number in the icon.
• Play a Card – The player plays a card from their hand. Typically, these have a power cost.
• Fate – Choose a player. Draw two fate cards from that player’s Fate deck. Pick one to play, discard the other. If it is a Hero, play it to a location in the chosen player’s realm, covering the top icons at that location. Realm locations may have multiple heroes.
• Move an Item or Ally – Moves an item or ally in the Realm to an adjacent location.
• Move a Hero – Moves a hero in the Realm to an adjacent location.
• Vanquish – Defeat one Hero at a location with one or more Allies at that location. The Allies must have a combined strength equal to or greater than the Hero’s. Discard any Allies used to vanquish the Hero.
• Discard Cards – Discard any number of cards. This may be useful if a player has a hand full of unhelpful cards.

After performing the actions from a Realm location, draw back up to four villain cards and end the turn.

Card Types

Since this is a hand management game, let’s take a look at the different kinds of cards:

• Ally – Only in the villain deck! These usually have a special ability, but their primary purpose is to vanquish heroes.
• Effect – Effect cards happen immediately, then are discarded.
• Item – Items are in both the villain and fate decks. They may attach to an ally, a villain, or neither. If it does not attach, a player may place it anywhere in the Realm.
• Condition – Special cards that have a trigger condition. Play these when the event on the card happens. They’re usually free to play.
• Hero – Heroes appear only in the fate deck, and opposing players place them on Realm locations during Fate actions to slow down the progress of villains.

The Villains

There are four villains in Disney Villainous – Introduction to Evil: Ursula, Captain Hook, Maleficent, and Prince John. Each villain has their own game end goal:

• Ursula – Have the Trident and Crown icons in the Ursula’s Lair location
• Captain Hook – Defeat Peter Pan at the Jolly Roger location
• Maleficent – Place a Curse (special villain card) at each location
• Prince John – Amass at least 20 power and get Robin Hood to the jail.

Each of these goals has special wrinkles that make them tricky. For example, Peter Pan only appears in the Realm in the farthest location from the Jolly Roger, so whoever is playing Captain Hook needs to move him there and then defeat him. Prince John must defeat Robin Hood (whenever he appears) to send him to the jail.

Whenever a villain successfully completes their game end goal, the game immediately ends and that player wins!

Filled with Fright

In addition to Introduction to Evil we were able to take the Filled with Fright expansion for a spin, which features Oogie Boogie. Oogie Boogie has a few special features:

• Many of Oogie Boogie’s actions require rolling special dice. As the rules say, Oogie Boogie doesn’t always win, but he rarely loses.
• To win, Oogie Boogie must drawn and play four Impostor Sandy Claws cards and roll high enough for each to put them next to Sandy Claws, who is in Oogie Boogie’s Lair at the beginning of the game. When he does, discard all five cards and put Jack Skellington in play. Then, Oogie Boogie must beat Jack, who has a power of eight (that’s very high).

Impressions

Disney Villainous burst on the scene in 2018. The idea of playing as Disney villains was interesting, but we never managed to get the game, especially with so much on our shelves.

We jumped at the opportunity to review Disney Villainous and we weren’t disappointed. The mechanics of the gameplay are simple enough that it can be played by a ten-year-old, but there’s enough strategy here that experienced board gamers won’t just be moving pieces around and playing out the string.

Although the majority of Disney Villainous is heads-down, parallel solitaire, Prospero Hall designed a weakness into each villain. It behooves each player to keep an eye on the other villains and choose the right moments to strike with Fate abilities to try to cripple their opponents.

There’s also a touch of luck involved – sometimes there are certain villain cards you really need. You’ll need to focus on moving your villain to spaces with discard abilities to really move through your deck, but even still, sometimes the shuffle leaves the card you need on the bottom.

Disney Villainous has fantastic art, which isn’t a surprise since Prospero Hall had access to original Disney art from the movies. There is some original art too: the gorgeous line art on the back of the fate and villain decks is unique for each character. I also love the villain interpretation in the mover pawns. The iconography is clear and excellent, and the reference cards are a nice touch.

With the award-winning success of the original game, Ravensburger also released a Marvel version and a Star Wars version. Unfortunately, the three tentpole releases aren’t compatible with one another, but each has its own line of exciting villain expansions.

There are 19 villains when last I counted available for Disney Villainous. This offers a ridiculous amount of replayability, and Disney fans will relish the chance to embody the wimpy Prince John, or the powerful Maleficent.

But hey, if Kylo Ren or Thanos are more your style, you’ve got that option, too. No matter what, you’ll enjoy your chance to be absolutely, positively, despicably villainous.

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Ravensburger provided The Family Gamers with a promotional copy of Disney Villainous: Introduction to Evil and Disney Villainous Filled with Fright for this review.

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