Disney Sidekicks Review - with Tom Vasel

Tom Vasel takes a look at a co-op themed Disney game.

Intro 0:00
Overview 1:16
Final thoughts 7:39

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[joeshufelt]

Here's a top 10 idea:
Top 10 Games that Missed their Target/Audience

[christopexc]

We house rule it for much more fun: 1: you CAN rescue/attack guards in the castle after unlocking the gate. 2: villains always only move one space (not up to three by the arrows). Those two rules make it easier, especially for friendly/casual games. To speed it up, you can place villagers face up (still random, but gives you a bit more strategic option i.e. unlock ability or risk filling the castle)

[FreakinFred]

Tom LOVES the candlestick from Beauty and the Beast. So much so, that he doesn’t refer to him by name….out of respect, of course.

[colbyhudson]

My friends, wife and I have been waiting for y’all to review this game. We bought this one immediately upon hitting the shelves, learned it, sat down and played it, then laughed after getting our butts kicked 3 times in a row. We set it up a week later.. same result and we play a lot of board games of varying types and difficulties. This is THE hardest co-op game we own and the irony of that is both hilarious and unfortunate.

[kerim]

I bought this game for my niece and played with her that day. This is the first game that I apologized for gifting a game to someone, the game decimated us in turn 3. Eric Lang designed some of my favorite games CDMD and Blood Rage, this game was soooo disappointing, what happened here?

[stereotypicalaudio]

Agreed! We play a lot of co-op board games with our kiddos, this was insanely difficult. 15 minutes to figure out setup and play, lost in 10 minutes due to the castle filling up on one round of turns. Fun game play but need to add house rules to make it more playable.

[JodouTR]

Thanks for this Tom. Saw the game at Target today on clearance for $10 and designed by Eric Lang; what could go wrong, right?! Apparently a lot and that's really shocking given it's a Lang game. Honestly thought this was going to live right next to Villainous, but Eric really seems to be losing his touch these days. . .

[azizmandar]

Hopefully they find villainous first. They will be on the same shelf... Of course the younger the audience the more likely a parent will choose the funny sidekick over the evil villain

[jessicaw]

What is so bad about a Disney themed game that is more geared towards adults and gamers? There are enough easy family/children games with that theme. I personally think it´s great that there is finally a Disney themed game like this.

[icibiu]

I don't disagree with your assessment at all but here's a different spin and why I actually REALLY like this game! My kids are 8 & 5 prime disney demo, but not the best at reading or building out long term strategy. The games they really like are usually too easy and bore me to tears. With this game I do most of the reading so I play up the disney parts and while we have not actually beat the game we really celebrate when we rescue a hero (even the villagers). They feel like we've had lots of wins by the time the game knocks us out. The different power ups change it up for replayability, the co-op part helps me teach them how to build out strategies and I am way more challenged and engaged than typical games with my younger kids. I'd say if you treat the hero rescues likes mini wins this one can be a lot of fun for families that have some previous board game experience and want to help younger kids get familiar with the mechanics of more complicated games they can graduate to. (Which fits right in with my long term strategy of raising additional players for my game nights 🤣)

[DeltaDemon]

This reminds me of the boardgame Willow. Kids loved Willow but the game was too difficult to figure out (I think it was a 1 vs many).

[jcortes]

Thanks for the honest review. I just saw the game so I'm glad I saw this review for buying. I definitely agree that Disney probably missed the mark on this one

[SebastianCathyBachConnell]

Just picked this hidden land up for five bucks. Loving the review
Ry

[pencilpauli]

Am I right in thinking that you have a 1 in 6 chance of hitting a villain?
That's nuts if there is no way to modify the result. Maybe the cards that you unlock do that?

[antonieschwartz]

Depending on how you feel about Ankh perhaps, it's been a while since we've seen a game from Eric Lang that wasn't great.

[kyleolson]

When you imply in your review that you fight the villains after getting your powers, I'm not Surprised you found it hard. The game is very beatable as long as you take the fight to the villains the whole game. Otherwise their powers, henchmen, attack dies, etc run amok. My 7 year old daughter and I win most games even with my "allowing" her to make suboptimal moves because she is having fun. But I always encourage her to attack villains when given an opportunity.

That said, all you need is a couple unlucky card draws and bad due rules to lose a game where you were doing well. We probably lose about a third of our games because of unfortunate card draws where one sidekick is pummeled repeatedly before they get a chance to react.

[Poiuytrew.Q]

The game will smack them around like how Bob Chapek smacks people’s wallets around at the parks.

[oneANGRYelf]

Disney version of Castle Panic. You could have slammed the hammer harder on this one for multiple reasons. ;)

[ndmi]

I'm actually more pumped that it's hard, it was like a jokey pass based on the art even with lang

[tannerreese]

Being able to attack a villain more than once a turn would be nice, that seems like a "we don't want this game to be too easy" rule.