Ravensburger Star Wars Villainous Power of the Dark Side - Darth Vader - Expandable Strategy Family Board Games for Adults and Kids Age 10 Years Up - 2 to 5 Players (English Version)

I bought this in a Black Friday sale alongside a few sets from the Disney Villainous mainline, under the impression that I would be able to combine the villains from this game with those of the main franchise, longing to see Darth Vader bump up against Scar and other animated Disney villains. Imagine the possibilities of that! However, I was surprised to find that this version of the game itself is in fact not compatible with previously released Villainous sets, something which I felt was not adequately advertised to me as a customer. The game is described as ‘expandable’ which I now understand is making reference to the future expansions that will be made specifically for this game featuring Star Wars villains such as Maul and Dooku, but which I originally took to mean expandable in the sense that it would work with Disney and Marvel Villainous sets such as Infinite Power, Bigger and Badder and The Worst Takes All. I feel this could be made clearer in order to avoid future confusion, but I digress.What I did receive was an enjoyable game on its own featuring five Star Wars villains (Vader representing the original trilogy, Kylo Ren for the sequels, Moff Gideon bringing in some Mandalorian content and both Asajj Ventress and General Grievous hailing from The Clone Wars). The choice of these villains have confused my gaming group compared to The Worst Takes All, which featured an all-star set of heavy hitters in the form of Hook, Ursula, Jafar, Prince John, Maleficent and The Queen of Hearts. While Vader, Ren and Grievous all seem like fitting picks of a similar calibre to TWTA’s choices and I can see the motivation behind including Gideon as The Mandalorian is still super popular, the inclusion of Ventress seems like something for an expansion, as her era and locations seem very similar to Grievous’ and we get one less villain than we got in the Disney Villainous starter pack. Whereas that game seemed thrilled to give us six characters (five of which could have been the crown jewel of separate expansions), here we get a smaller sprinkling of characters in which it is much more obvious that they are withholding the fan favourites to sell them off in future expansion packs. I wish we could have seen The Emperor and Dooku or Maul for a fifth and sixth character in this set.But let me push my two criticisms aside and praise the content that we *do * get in this set. The boards and cards are fantastically stylised and the art on each one is eye-catching and iconic, given the source material’s world renowned status. So far, I have only played Vader against Grievous, but it was a gripping match in true Villainous style - irrespective of the sci-fi lick of paint and the addition of a new form of currency in Ambition points (gained passively at a rate of 1 per turn), the core gameplay of Villainous remains as interesting and exciting as ever, and that’s why this set is quite hard to go into much detail about outside of giving newcomers a rundown of how to play the game. If you like Marvel or Disney Villainous, you’ll like this too, especially if you’re a Star Wars fan (which is statistically quite likely given the popularity of the franchise). Just don’t expect to be able to port these characters over into your Disney Animated Studios game without having to deal with the stress of adapting the rules slightly, overlooking certain clauses and running with the possibility that there could be some hiccups. I’m sure it’s possible to make it work with the main game but there’s an overwhelming feeling that Ravensburger really don’t want you to.In spite of that, I’m looking forward to seeing where this new franchise of Villainous goes and in a few years, I feel like the game will be able to stand on its own two feet outside of the shadow of Disney Villainous. I really do have a lot of respect for Ravensburger as outside of a few strange decisions in terms of character picks and the lack of adaptability in this particular Star Wars title, their games and materials have always been very solid, sturdy and both artistically and mechanically well designed. I’m a real fan of what they’ve created and I encourage you to pick the franchise of your choice and jump right in. If you’re more of a superhero fan or you just want to get nostalgic over the classic animations, see Marvel Villainous: Infinite Power or Disney Villainous: The Worst Takes All for different ways into the game, and if you appreciated this review, drop a like and check my profile for more Villainous and board game content.Thanks for reading!

Perfect gift for the star wars fan in my life!The game takes at least one play session to get to grips on the rules and gameplay, so don't be put off if it doesn't seem simple straigt away, but it is good fun and a nice little challenge.I also love that there are variations and expansion packs for the Villainous games!We also have the Disney villians version!

Not my sort of thing, but others loved it.

Having played the Marvel version of Villanous before we bought this as a Christmas gift for our kids. The game is fun, though some characters are easier to win with than others; Kylo Ren seems impossible to win with whilst Darth Vader is very easy.The playing pieces or 'nivers' are if a very poor standard, with unmelted resin embedded in them. Having contacted the manufacturer I was told they were supposed to look like this, not very helpful.The game also seems to be short of certain chips required for play, which coupled with other issues makes this a rather frustrating purchase. I wouldn't recommend it.

Personally me and my friends were looking for a shorter than 4-5 hour game to play during game nights. Even with adding rules and combining expansions this has been really fun. Simple enough to teach in 10 minutes, complicated and competitive enough to play hundreds of times. Works with other expansions with a little bit of rule twisting!

Have so far failed to get a grip with this. Will persist.

All the villains appear to have had issues with mold with parts of unmelted plastic visible.

As a others have mentioned, clearly a fault when creating these.... Avoid!