Announcing a Nintendo Direct one week before the already announced Nintendo Switch 2 Direct was weird, as what kind of games could you possibly expect to pop up? No one expected anything crazy, like news regarding Metroid Prime 4, even though we actually got it, but we also got Disney Villains Cursed Café, which may have been the BEST THING to be announced! All of the sarcasm that’s oozing from that statement is completely intended, don’t worry. Honestly, they didn’t really show what to expect from Disney Villains Cursed Café, but I was more than happy to give it a shot, and after playing it for a bit, a shot was exactly what was needed.

Disney Villains Cursed Café is a visual novel, with a lot of characters complaining about their Disney hero counterparts. The main gist of the game is that you’re a potion bartender (sounds like somewhere I went in London), who sort of just walked into the job with zero job experience or even a real interview. Trust Disney to make sure you know this isn’t a real story.

Each day in the bar, you’re tasked with serving Disney Villains whatever their hearts desire, after a long, long monologue about why they want whatever potion they’re looking for. Seriously, I don’t need a five to ten minute monologue of Captain Hook complaining that people only believe Peter Pan’s side of the story because he’s a child. It’s a bit weird, and doesn’t really add anything. For reference, the potion he EVENTUALLY asks for is a memory wipe potion so he can forget about Peter Pan. I think what he was really looking for was tequila.

There are a few situations where you’ll need to make a “story potion.” These essentially progress the story of certain characters, presumably once you’ve served them enough times. Story Potions will be obvious because, usually, they require you to find an additional ingredient, which requires you to pay attention to the line of dialogue to be able to find it.

For instance, Cruella De Vil’s first story potion requires “brake dust”, so you need to follow a dialogue path that leads to her giving you her hubcap and brushing some brake dust off of it, because apparently the brakes on cars give off magic dust. Technically, you’re only meant to have one chance at making these correctly; you’re given a recipe book that spells everything out for you very clearly, but if you do make a mistake, you’re able to summon Yzma at any point to reset a day and do it again.

The character designs are what you would expect; all the villains look like their 2D selves, so any older Disney fans will definitely recognise all the old villains, updated to HD. The real kicker, though, is the music. Disney products have always been good when it comes to their music, but it’s a real stand out in a game that is, otherwise, a little bit.. simple. Each character has their own theme that matches their personality. Ursula might be my favourite, with Cruella’s very jazzy/French theme being a close second. Disney Villains Cursed Café does feature some voice acting, but it’s incredibly minimal, making it very forgettable, unfortunately.

Overall, I don’t really know who Disney Villains Cursed Café is actually for, as it utilises a lot of older villains that appeal to a slightly older audience, but has a very simple gameplay loop and feel that are best suited to younger players. My best bet would be Disney adults with younger kids, especially if you want to instill that kids lie and shouldn’t be treated as something special, thanks to Captain Hook and Maleficent. Besides that, this game has little return factor and, unfortunately, won’t really scratch the itch from any other game. 

 

Graphics: 6.5 The Disney Villains you know and love all look like you remember, but besides that there’s just not a whole lot going on here. Minimal background design, and only a few areas to even look at as it is.	Gameplay: 2.5 The monotonous gameplay makes this hard to play for more than maybe half an hour at a time. Sit, have a conversation with someone for way longer than it needs to be until they finally tell you their order, make the potion, repeat. Maybe if you were better at getting to the point, I would be able to serve more than a few people before each day ends.
Sound: 5.0 Every Disney villain is iconic for their dialogue and delivery, so having no voice acting does everyone a massive disservice. The music though and themes for each individual villain is a really nice touch.	Fun Factor: 3.5 There’s just too much actual “fun” missing to be able to ignore. It’s rather unfortunate that this game couldn’t decide if it was trying to be a visual novel, a potion-making sim, or literally anything else.
Final Verdict: 4.0

Disney Villains Cursed Café is available now on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC, and Nintendo Switch.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

A copy of Disney Villains Cursed Café was provided by the publisher.