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Disney Villainous Review: Brilliant, Until You Teach It | BoardGames.World

Disney Villainous: The Worst Takes it All

Name: Disney Villainous: The Worst Takes it All
Brand: Disney Villainous: The Worst Takes it All
Rating: 4 (945 reviews)

Disney villains fulfilling goals, yes, as perfect as it sounds.

4.0

(0 reviews)

At a glance

Players: 2-6
Play Time: 45-120 min
Ages: 10+

✓ What We Love

•You can master a character
•It is a very original game
•No dice involved
•Very interactive, you are playing for yourself and messing with the other players

✗ Could Be Better

•Hard to understand, you need at least 3 plays to "get it"
•Some players find it boring becase it can get slow
•Some characters are uneven, it is easier to win with some
•If you play against an experienced player, it is hard to win

About Disney Villainous: The Worst Takes it All

In Disney Villainous, each player controls a different Disney villain trying to pull off their own wicked scheme, some deadlier than others, so watch it if you are playing with kids.
On your turn you move across your personal board, gather Power, and play cards to bring in Allies, Items, and nasty Effects. See? Easy to get overwhelmed, but, stay focused, it’s worth it.
The catch is that every villain wins a completely different way, so you and the player across the table are essentially playing two separate games that happen to share a table and a way to sabotage each other.

What makes Villainous special is that asymmetry. Six players can mean six entirely different puzzles running at once, each with its own engine and its own path to victory. The only thread connecting you is the Fate deck, the mechanism that lets you reach over and dump Heroes onto a rival’s board to stall them.

That tension, between burying your head in your own plan and spending a turn to slow down whoever’s pulling ahead, is the whole game — and it’s why Villainous works surprisingly well as a two player game even though it scales up to six.

Released in 2018 by Ravensburger and designed by the studio Prospero Hall, Disney Villainous became a runaway hit and grew into a sprawling franchise, with standalone expansions and spin-offs like Marvel Villainous and Star Wars Villainous.
It is interesting to fans for its theme and the novelty of every villain feeling distinct, but the learning curve is high when you first start playing, because you basically have to learn your own villain from scratch each time you swap.

This can get tricky but it is one of the best asymmetric games on the shelf if you are a true Disney fan.

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📖 Rulebook

How to Play Disney Villainous

Setup

Each player picks a Villain and takes the matching mover, Villain board, Villain Guide (your reference and objective), Villain deck, and Fate deck.
Shuffle your Villain deck and your Fate deck separately and place each on its marked spot on your board.
Draw a starting hand of 4 cards from your Villain deck.
Place your mover on your starting location as shown in your Villain Guide.
Decide turn order, then hand out starting Power: the first player gets 0, and each player after gets one more than the last (0, 1, 2, 3...) to offset going later.

Your Turn

A turn happens in this order:

Move. Move your mover to a different location on your board. You must move, and you can't stay put.
Act. Take any of the available actions shown at that location, in any order. An action is available only if a Hero isn't covering it.
Draw. At the end of your turn, draw back up to 4 cards.

Actions

The icons at each location let you do some mix of these:

Gain Power. Take Power tokens, the currency you spend to play cards.
Play a Card. Pay a card's Power cost to put an Ally, Item, Effect, or Condition into play.
Activate. Trigger the ability of an Ally or Item at that location.
Move an Ally or Item. Shift one of your cards to an adjacent location.
Fate. Reach into an opponent's Fate deck and ruin their day (see below).
Vanquish. Defeat a Hero stuck on your own board.
Discard. Dump cards from your hand to cycle toward better ones.

The Fate Deck

This is the part new players ignore, and it's the only real weapon you have against everyone else. Taking the Fate action lets you draw two cards from an opponent's Fate deck, play one to their board, and discard the other. Those cards are Heroes and hero effects, and when a Hero lands on someone's location, it covers their action spaces and locks them out of those actions until they deal with it. Used well, a single Fate play can strangle the leader's whole plan. Players who never Fate are just racing in their own lane and hoping nobody trips them.

Vanquishing Heroes

When a Hero is sitting on your board blocking your actions, you clear it by Vanquishing. You need Allies at the Hero's location with combined Strength equal to or higher than the Hero's, plus an available Vanquish action there. Pull it off and the Hero is gone, along with the Allies you spent doing it. Ignore a Hero too long and you'll watch your best location go dark.

Winning

There is no shared finish line. Every villain has a unique objective printed in their Guide, and you only win on your own terms. Maleficent needs a Curse at all four of her locations at the start of her turn. Captain Hook has to corner and defeat Peter Pan at the Jolly Roger. Prince John just has to hoard 20 Power. You're not chasing the same goal as the player next to you, which is the entire point. Just don't say that you are about to win and do it silently, let them notice it, and if they don't, just say:I won.

If you do, you'll want to play again, it is very satisfying.