Star Wars villain builds on what is known villain Franchise with a handful Stern Mechanics on the theme of wars. Some of these feel innovative and refreshing villain formula, while others feel remarkably fiddly. The new Star Wars villain Published by Ravensburger, the game retains many elements of the original Disney villain franchise and adds several new twists to the game formula. Players take control of an iconic Star Wars villain (from movies, cartoons, and TV shows) and attempt to complete their unique objective before other players. Star Wars villain adds two additional elements to the game – adding vehicles that serve as a potential fifth location for players and adding a second type of currency used to activate certain types of maps.
For those unfamiliar with Ravensburger’s villain The game was originally released in 2018 as a franchise Disney villain with each player controlling a separate Disney villain. Disney villain is an asymmetric game where each character exists on their own game board, moves between four unique locations associated with their story, and performs the four actions listed at that location. Each character has their own goal and a unique deck of cards used to achieve their goals. Each character also has a Fate deck that other players use to hinder progress. By using a Fate action, players choose an opponent and draw two Fate cards from that player’s deck. After choosing a Destiny card, they play it on one of their opponent’s four locations, triggering a negative effect and preventing the player from performing two of that location’s four actions. The game continues until a player achieves their unique winning objective, which ranges from defeating specific characters, completing a series of actions in a specific order, to collecting a specific number of items.
Star Wars villain adds two new unique twists villain Formula. The first is adding vehicles. Allied Vehicles are cards that can be played in a Deep Space area on the far right of the player board, becoming a fifth location. Friendly vehicles only have three actions available, but they also have a unique ability that triggers when a player drives to the vehicle. The Fate deck also has hero vehicles that have some pretty devastating effects – in addition to unique abilities that activate when a card is played, a hero vehicle also forces a player to reduce their hand size by one card. This hand reduction stacks, so defeating a hero vehicle is a priority whenever it hits your board.
While vehicles are a great addition to the villain In Formula I was less impressed with the other new “twist” – the addition of Ambition as a new type of currency. While previous villain Games used “Power” as the currency used to play cards and activate other effects. Star Wars villain has both credits and ambitions. Players gain credits similar to how they gained power in the past villain Play – with the Collect Credits action in different locations. While credits are typically spent on allies and vehicles, ambition is spent on effects or ambition abilities found on some maps.
My issue with ambition is that players typically collect it in a slow drip – players automatically collect 1 ambition at the start of their turn, and there are limited ways to collect additional ambition. Since Ambition is used to either activate or play half of your cards, there are many situations where players simply cannot use the cards they need to improve their win condition because they have to wait several turns to enough to generate ambition. Rogues, who need a large amount of Ambition to win, usually have a card or two that can help speed up the process, but the dual-currency system felt a bit disadvantageous villain Gameplay-Zyklus.
The five villains in Star Wars villain have different types of win conditions and levels of complexity which should make it easy for newcomers to get started villain Veterans with more ambitious victory conditions. General Grievous must collect lightsabers from fallen Jedi, while Moff Gideon must kidnap Grogu and collect samples from him, a task that requires multiple Ambition cards to be active and in the same location. Darth Vader must defeat Luke Skywalker (represented by a permanent ally card) while Kylo Ren must be fully converted to the dark side. Neither villain seems to have any particular advantage over the others. Like past villain In games there are a few villains who win or lose depending on whether they can draw a particular card early in the game, although experienced players will understand the value of going through as many cards as possible until they get that particular card.
Overall I enjoyed it Star Wars villain. It keeps the successful evil formula While continuing to welcome newcomers and offering some new mechanics to keep things fresh and different from the rest villain Franchise. Star Wars villain will be a great way to draw players into the broader world of tabletop gaming, similar to other “gateway games” like CATAN or Ticket.
Star Wars villain is available for pre-order at Target.
–
