Disney’s Sorcerer’s Arena began as a mobile game but has now made its way to our tables in Sorcerer’s Arena: Epic Alliances.
A copy of this game was provided for the purposes of this review.
Just like in the mobile game, you play as a sorcerer with a team of famous Disney characters that battles against an opposing team of even more characters. In the board game version, your goal is to garner victory points by defeating your enemy. Every character has unique powers and skills that you will implement on their turn to try and outwit your fellow sorcerer and defeat the other team.
The game comes with four different levels of difficulty, referred to as chapters. They recommend learning and playing one chapter at a time to grow accustomed to mechanics before adding more to the game. I really appreciated this because when you’re first learning the rules of a game it can seem very daunting, especially with all that Sorcerer’s Arena has. But having levels to progress through made it easier, especially since I found that this game is best learned by playing it.
Speaking of playing, the gameplay is quick to figure out once you get to playing. It is mainly made up of rounds where each character on both sides gets a turn. During their turn, they can move and/or do an action like attack a rival. Every character has a unique deck of cards that make up movements and actions that can be taken. It does take strategy but nothing too heavy that a casual gamer couldn’t handle. It may be a little advance for younger players, but with the four levels of difficulty, you can choose what best suits you and the other players. There is also a two versus two option which could be great for parents with kids.
I don’t often talk about the game pieces when doing these reviews, but I wanted to in this instance for two reasons. The first is that the standees are great, especially since they took the time to detail both sides accurately. The second isn’t as positive and also involves the standees. The health counter that attaches to the bottom of the stand does not easily turn, so when you have to change the health of a character you have to take it off to rotate it. With the amount of detail that the rest of the pieces had, this shouldn’t have been something they missed in my opinion. But that is a very small thing that doesn’t completely ruin the game and is merely a slight inconvenience.
Overall, Sorcerer’s Arena: Epic Alliances is a fun game that can be played with a variety of people thanks to its options for difficulty and team play. It’s a good adaptation of the mobile game that holds its own so you don’t have to play the original to enjoy the board game. Plus they have expansions with more characters to add more variety and replayability.
Sorcerer’s Arena: Epic Alliances is $49.99 for the base game.
What Disney characters would you like to play as? Let me know with a comment.
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