Disney Villainous: Treacherous Tides Introduces Its First Live Action Villain In Spectacular Style

I hope we never stop getting new games. While the pace of new releases has 𒁏slowed down and r꧑ecent expansions have only featured two villains instead of the usual three, it’s always exciting to add a new bad guy to my crooked collection. This year’s expansion is especially exciting because it includes one baddie I’ve been waiting for, and another I never expected.

D🐈isney Villainous Is The 🤪Best Family Game Of All Time

No matte♍r your board game experience level, Disney Vill𒉰ainous is a blast.

Posts 3

The aptly named Treacherous Tides features two nautical nasties: 🐼Moana’s shiny-loving shelled enemy Tamatoa, and Pirates of the Caribbean’s fish-faced foil, Davy Jones - Villainous’ first-ever live-action villain. While I had some reservations about the translation from live action to Villainous꧋ signature style, Davy Jones surprisingly has one of the prettiest decks in the game, and one of the most cohesive themes since Perfectly Wretched’s introduction of Yzma. I wish I could heap as much positive praise on Tamatoa, but I’m afraid my expectations may have been too high for the dazzling decapod (look it up).

Dead Men Play No Cards

Disney Villainous Treacherous Tides Davy Jones Cards.

Let’s start with the good news. Not only was I surprised to find a live-action villain in Villainous, ✱I was equally surprised by just how well designed Davy Jones is. Every element of Jones’ deck and play style comes together to create a compelling high seas challenge that feels completely authentic to Pirates of the Caribbean.

Davy Jones’ mover - a sickly blue-green bust of Jones' tentacled face - begins each game on his famous ship, The Flying Dutchman. From there he can move Below Deck, to Davy Jones Quarters, or to the Shoals of Shipwreck Island. Admittedly 🙈not the most creative locales, considering three of those are just different parts of the same bo𒈔at, but it’s an easy flaw to forgive once you get a taste of his dynamic playstyle.

Like the best villains, Davy Jones has an objective thatಌ’s easy to understand but harder to accomplish. The unique game piece for his deck is his tr🧸easure tiles, and if he’s able to collect all five, he wins. Playing Davy Jones is all about figuring out how to thwart the crew of the Black Pearl, who are playing a tricky game of keepaway to hide Jones’ treasure from him. Fending off the likes of Jack Sparrow, Will Turner, and Elizabeth Swann is hard enough, but on top of that, Jones’ treasure gives each of them a special ability, and you don’t know which one each of them has until you’re already suffering their effects.

What I enjoyed 🌳most about playing Davy Jones is the way the heroes can work together to keep the treasures out of Jones’ grabbers. Through the fate deck, opposing players can make the heroes swap treasure or even stash them away where Jones can’t find them. The treasure abilities also add a lot to randomness that keep you on your toes (do squid men have toes?).

When the ke꧙y is revealed, the Jones player has to discard their entire hand, while the music box prevents the Kraken, Jones’ most powerful ally, from being used to defeat the hero who wields it. The theming around the Black Pearl crew using Jones’ treasures against him is a lot of fun, and it makes this live-action villain a great addition to the game.

The art style isꦚ also fantastic. Characters are stylized but still recognizable as the actors who portrayed them in the movies, and there’s strong cohesion between the cards that makes them all feel like they’re telling the same story together.

Tamatoa Was Not As Shiny As I’d Hoped

Disney Villainous Treacherous Tides Tamatoa Cards.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled to see our favorite drab little crab make his long-overdue Villainous debut, but I have to admit, I’m a little 🃏disappointed at the execution. The art style used for Tamatoa’s deck leaves a lot to be desired, especially when it's side by side with Davy Jones. It suffers from a lot of the same problems that King Candy did in last year’s Sugar and Spite set. In recreating the art style of Disney’s CG animated films, both King Candy and Tamatoa use artwork that is often so close to the original, it’s ℱhard to tell whether they’re painted images or screenshots from the films.

A lot of Tamatoa’s cards demonstrate poor composition, and some are so dark that it’s hard to tell what the image is even supposed to be, which contributes even more to the screenshot effect. His unique mechanic is the Maui deck, a third deck separate from the Villain and Fate decks that’s filled with different versions of Maui. It🌳’s a neat gimmick, but almost every card is the exact same image of a pile of treasure with a different teeny-tiny version of Maui in the center of each one, most of them floating over the treasure so they didn’t even need to bother adding a shadow. Artistically, it’s not the most impressive Villainous deck.

The gameplay is fairly run of the mill. Tamatoa’s objective is to have both Maui’s Fishhook and the Heart of Te Fiti in his lair. The Fishhook starts in his Villain deck, but things take a serious turn as soon as Maui arrives. Not only does he ste✅al back the Fishhook, but he also forces Tamatoa to pull a card from the Maui deck each turn and suffer its random effects. Once Tamatoa defeats both Maui and Mo♍ana, he’s pretty much won.

He🌳i Hei is a hero in the fate deck with no additional abilities, which perfectly suits the useless fowl. It’s my favorite card in the deck.

There are all kinds of Villainous players out there, so I’m glad Ravensburger is still adding new characters with straightforward, easy to learn playstyles. As a b🌠ig Moana fan, I was hoping for a little more complexity and originality from the Tamatoa, both in the art and in the strategy. Fortunately, Davy Jones more than makes up for any of Tamatoa’s shortcomings, making Treacherous Tides yet another excellent addition to the Disney Villainous library.