Disney Sorcerers Arena: Epic Alliances Review

The skirmish game I never knew I needed.

Disney Sorcerers Arena from The Op plays similar to a MOBA. You select your team, battle the other players characters, and score points based on your KOs. Each time you get knocked out, you will respawn back at the beginning of the board and start over. The players will each pick 2-4 characters and take their standees and cards. The cards are then shuffled together and you draw your hand. On your turn, you can move and play attack cards if you want. Play will essentially continue like this until someone reaches 15 points. Each character is worth a different amount of points if you KO them. Characters all have their own special abilities that can be unlocked by using the cards you've played and their symbols to unlock the ability. There is also a teams mode where 4 players in teams of 2 will play against each other for added chaos.

The Good: This is a really good skirmish game. I expected something similar to Unmatched when I first heard about it (which is a good thing) and it was something more. There are varied turn orders and status effects that can help or harm you so you need to be careful. I love that the game lays it out in 4 chapters of complexity but you can play it at any level. It's really cool that they were able to incorporate the health of the characters into their bases. When you take damage, you rotate the little slider to the new amount.

The Okay: I think that combining decks of cards for your team is a really interesting idea but I also found it somewhat problematic. Because you are drawing a set amount, you may not be able to even play one character's cards in their turn because you didn't draw any of their cards. This is somewhat mitigated by doing basic actions that are standard for all characters but it takes some of that fun away.

The Not So Good: I will always have a love/hate relationship with acrylic pieces. I love the quality and aesthetic of them but I hate peeling off the stickers. There are a lot of stickers. I'll also say that I wasn't super impressed with the overall quality of the cards. They felt a bit flimsy and may wear quicker than I would hope after a lot of playtimes. I'm also not a huge fan of the character choices. There are expansions planned but I would have preferred to see some of the bigger IPs in the base game.

Overall: 7.5/10

Epic Alliances really did surprise me in a lot of ways. It's a very approachable game that can be played by beginners or veterans of the hobby and having relatable characters is always a plus. I'll be excited to check out the expansions when they come out to add even more to this really fun game.