Dave Reviews: Something Something Fuck Disney

Villainous

Oh god. Disney IP at work. This can't possibly be good.

Right?

Villainous is a game where up to six players take on the roles of some of Disney's most nefarious villains: Maleficent, Jafar, Captain Hook, The Queen of Hearts, Ursula, or Prince John (animal version). Each player has a board with four sections full of actions they can take on their turns, a deck of cards, and a second deck of Fate cards to throw them off track, but that's largely where the similarities between the characters end.

In keeping with the small but growing trend towards asymmetrical gaming, Villainous offers a different win condition for each character, a different deck of cards with different items and abilities, different Fate cards (which reflect that character's nemeses—Captain Hook has all the children from Peter Pan, for example)—and different sets of actions on each of their four board sections. In fact, not all characters have access to all four sections on their boards at the start of the game, or at any point—Ursula constantly has one end of the board or the other locked off.

Each turn, the player takes their very well-made pawn and moves it to a board section other than the one they were just on (think Scythe). They then perform all the actions on that section. This can be partially thwarted by their enemies; one action is to play a Fate card off someone else's deck, which can be used to cover the top two actions on one section of that player's board. These heroes can't be defeated unless the player puts minions on, or moves them to, the same space with power equal to or greater than the hero's. Items can be attached to minions to make them stronger, but the same goes for the heroes. It's a take-that mechanic without the rage inducement; rarely does a player not have any board options without all of the actions on it available unless they're winning handily and everyone is coming after them, in which case, hey, be a better villain.

For a deck-based game, the balance between when people reach their win conditions is pretty remarkable. This isn't to say that everyone gets there at about the same time, but rather that everyone has a win condition other players can see coming. Whoever's closest to winning can get slowed down, but not to a degree that effectively stops them from being able to win unless they get dogpiled hard (which is itself just a strategy that hands the game to someone else). It could have been successful with any theme; the game is strong.

But beyond that, Villainous has more flavor than atomic wings. All the minions, heroes, items, abilities, and everything else associated with each villain is spot on. The game even allows for some seriously messed up situations; for example, Jafar can hypnotize Aladdin and make him kill Jasmine. If you don't think that's great—not the domestic violence aspect, but the sheer evil in the act of making it happen and the fact you can get so dark—this game might not appeal to you as much as others.

It's a really good game, though. Play it. You want to be bad. You do. You doooooo.

Score: Five non-pedophile villains out of six (Captain Hook is a mega-creep).