Publisher: Ravensburger
Age: 7+
Players: 2 – 4 players
MSRP: $29.99
Since its initial release in 2018, Disney Villainous has been a popular board game with years worth of expansions. The series pits iconic Disney villains against each other, with asymmetrical victory conditions, decks of cards, and player boards.
While Ravensburger previously released a revamped version of the core box with Introduction to Evil, Disney Villainous Unstoppable is an entirely different spinoff that utilizes a larger board, a much smaller deck of cards, and more streamlined actions. It’s a simpler game that scales better for younger players (and plays faster) at the cost of strategic depth.
Read on for our review of Disney Villainous Unstoppable!
Be Prepared
Unstoppable includes four playable Disney villains: Maleficent, Hades, Scar, and Ursula. If I had to pick just four, I’d be hard-pressed to choose a better mix!
Each player is given a mover, a board, and a small, 15-card deck for their villain. Unlike the original game series, players connect their personal player boards onto a shared board, creating a larger playing space that changes size with the number of players. However, villains can only enter the shared space and their own, and aren’t allowed to venture into other villains’ personal territory.
On their turn, players play a card from their hand to move, then play a card to activate the action they landed on.
Movement was technically a part of the original game, but players simply moved to one of four spots on their board, activating multiple actions. In Unstoppable, players can move between one and five spaces, depending on the card they use, and activate one action (or maybe two, if it’s an upgraded space).
Coordinating movement with actions is the core strategy, as players need to use separate cards for each. For example, I discard a card that allows two movement to move two spaces, then play another card that has the matching symbol on the space I landed on, pay its Power cost, and activate that action.
Actions should be familiar to Disney Villainous players, and include gaining Power, Defeating heroes, and Fate-ing other opponents. Power is used to play cards to activate actions after moving (other than the Gain Power action, which is free). While the Fate deck has been replaced by three hero tiles which cover up prime spaces on the villains’ board — still a pain, but not nearly as debilitating.
The goal is to activate the new Advance actions before anyone else, completing the villain’s personal objective to win the game.
Poor Unfortunate Souls
One of the most interesting aspects of Disney Villainous was its asymmetry. Each villain had a completely personalized deck of cards (and meddlesome Fate cards), and their own victory condition, which could include defeating a powerful hero, amassing a large amount of power, or moving allies to a certain area.
Disappointingly, Unstoppable strips much of the unique asymmetry away, leaving each villain with a generic Advance action to further their goals. The villains are technically doing slightly different things: Maleficent is constructing a puzzle of her dragon-form, while Ursula is flipping doomed merfolk to their cursed forms. But it’s all the same: in the end, the first villain to perform their Advance action for the fourth time, wins.
The player boards are slightly different with their action spaces, and each personal 15-card deck is also unique, though ultimately balanced with the other villains. Maleficent doesn’t have an Advance action on her board to start, for example, but she can quickly amass extra Power and Upgrade her spaces.
Each villain can Upgrade their personal board space with an additional action using random tokens. While I rarely had the correct cards (and enough power) to perform both potential actions on an upgraded space, landing on Gain Power + other action (especially Advance) is incredibly useful, and downright necessary due to the high Power cost of performing any action.
Even when the cards I needed were on the bottom of their respective decks, I rarely had dead turns in Disney Villainous. At the very least, I could Fate my opponent, or build up an army of allies, play useful items, or cycle my deck.
In Unstoppable, dead turns are much more common, due to lacking the matching symbol, or lacking enough Power to play the card, or not having the right movement to land on the action I need. Often, players have to simply Gain Power and do nothing else (assuming they can land on that space), or worse, move to a space and not be able to perform that action.
While dead turns are frustrating, Unstoppable does play much faster and easier than its older sibling. Players are generally doing only one action per turn, and cards are completely text-free, making more room for the art.
By the way — the artwork is absolutely gorgeous in Unstoppable. Ravensburger, who also design and publish popular trading card game, Disney Lorcana, have long since nailed the classic Disney art style in tabletop gaming. The player boards and cards feature large, beautiful depictions right out of the respective films — although the shared middle board is completely bare, a missed opportunity for a cool collaborative scene. The plastic, solid-chunk movers are also a step down from Villainous’ flashier translucent pieces.
The Rating
Disney Villainous Unstoppable has a recommend age rating of 7+, notably lower than the 10+ of Disney Villainous. Without card text, Unstoppable is easier to teach and play. But most importantly, it plays faster. Disney Villainous has a bad habit of running too long thanks to the brutal Take That of the Fate decks, constantly snatching defeat from the jaws of every players’ victory.
Unstoppable doesn’t have this problem. Hero tiles can slow Villains down but rarely stop them cold, and once Advanced, a villain can never lose ground on their main goal. Anyone who has played tabletop games with kids knows that overall game length is incredibly important!
The Takeaway
Disney Villainous Unstoppable lies halfway between a classic roll-and-move kids game, and the core Disney Villainous asymmetrical card game. Players still have to manage their power level while using multiple cards to move and activate actions, providing some strategy. Though more often than not, you’re at the mercy of the cards in your hand — and the vindictiveness of your fellow villains!
Disney Villainous Unstoppable is available now at Target and other retailers.
