The Disney Villainous games have become omnipresent in the board gaming world, often considered great titles to introduce newcomers to the hobby due to the familiar IPs and varying levels of complexity.
Whether it’s titles like Bigger and Badder or Despicable Plots from the core Disney series, Power of the Dark Side or Scum and Villainy from the Star Wars series, or even Twisted Ambitions or Mischief and Malice from the Marvel collection, up to this point they all played pretty much the same (give or take the odd additional mechanic.)
But with the introduction of Unstoppable… that all changes!
All Star Cast
Unstoppable doesn’t fit the usual Villainous ‘expandalone’ formula, and is instead its own unique beast that stands separate from what has come before.
This has allowed the imagineers behind it to ‘go back to the well’ and pick some familiar faces, rather than having to come up with ever-more obscure villains to feature.
Maleficent and Ursula, originally from the ‘Worst Takes It All’, are joined by Hades (Wicked to the Core) and Scar (Evil Comes Prepared) to create a true all-star cast of the most recognisable villains Disney has to offer.
If I were to nit-pick I’d argue that Hades could have been replaced by Captain Hook, Oogie Boogie or Cruella, but that’s likely down to personal preference more than anything else – and chances are I’m always going to pick Ursula or Scar anyway, so it wasn’t an issue.
The quality of the roster is also matched by the artwork, with gorgeous illustrations aplenty across the locations, cards and various other components, including the striking cover of the box.
Unfortunately, though, the components themselves don’t quite match up…
A Little Bit… Weak
This criticism could be considered a little harsh, particularly when you look at the price-point for unstoppable, but the components just don’t feel up to the standards of the mainline Villainous games.
The boards don’t seem to be anywhere near as thick, and the Maleficent player piece in particular feels like it might snap if you look at it the wrong way. A far cry from the weighty lump of plastic you get in ‘Worst Takes It All’ and ‘Introduction to Evil’. The pieces are all matte finish too, which just doesn’t look as nice as the translucent glass-like material used in the original games.
This isn’t a dealbreaker by any stretch, however it is a somewhat strange choice considering…
My First Villainous
Unstoppable is definitely aimed more toward children.
Villainous games have always been great gateway titles for people looking to dig further into the hobby; recognisable IP, relatively straight-forward gameplay and a reasonably low price with an element of expansion.
But the asymmetry of the characters can sometimes make it a difficult teach, especially to younger players. Unstoppable removes that aspect and although all four villains have different objectives
(complete a Jigsaw for Maleficent, gather a tribe of Hyenas for Scar, move up Mt. Olympus for Hades and collect unfortunate souls for Ursula) they all play exactly the same in how players achieve them.
This is great for kids, but it might be a little too straight forward even for newcomers to board gaming, which makes it all the more surprising that the components don’t seem to be quite as robust as those in the more advanced games.
Playing the Villain
So how exactly DOES it play?
The game is based around a central board, which has a stash of power tokens in the centre, and spaces to land on around the edge. Each side has a slight indentation where players slot in their own personal ‘realm’ board, which can only be traversed by that particular player/villain.
Players draw a hand of cards which they can use in two ways; to move around the board using the movement number in the top left corner, or to perform an action that they have landed on, provided they have enough power tokens to do so.
Those actions can be to upgrade their realm and reveal extra actions that can both be performed on the same turn (correct cards permitting), advance their evil plan (aka move one step closer to the four MacGuffins needed for victory), hit an opponent with a fate card which blocks off actions in their realm using hero tiles, or defeat a hero that is currently causing issues in your own realm.
The first person to advance their evil plan 4 times wins the game.
It IS simple, at least when compared to what has come before it in the same franchise, but does that mean it isn’t fun?
The Bottom Line
No, it definitely doesn’t.
As someone who loves almost all the existing Villainous games, my first thought when setting up was that it was going to be too straight forward.
It felt like there wasn’t enough variation in play to hold my attention when it wasn’t my turn, and that there weren’t enough ways to stop it from being a straight race that came down to someone pulling the right combination of cards first.
However, within a few turns I realised there IS still a lot of strategy involved, which mostly centred around planning out where you needed to land in the upcoming turns.
Do you spend a card to use an action even though you really need the movement number on it for next turn?
Do you fate an opponent to try and slow them down even though you can see they are within range of a defeat a hero space that could immediately undo it?
The only thing that is for sure, is that if you can advance your evil plan… you do it!
Another positive is that it’s much easier to tell how close your opponents are to winning the game, so if you’re wanting to play a something with all the familiarity of a Villainous title, but you don’t want to tax your brain TOO much, this is a great option.
If you love the asymmetrical aspects of Villainous (that bring with them a lot of replayability) then you might want to give this one a miss.
However, I would definitely recommend Unstoppable to anyone who hasn’t yet dived into the mainline Villainous titles, or families who would like to gently introduce their kids to more advanced board games.
