Create Your Own Disney Dream Team in Smash Up: Disney Edition

Can Mulan and Belle work together to defeat Wreck-It Ralph and Aladdin? Combine your forces and vie for control of various locations from across Disney films.

Smash Up was first published by Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG) in 2012. This new Disney Edition is published by The Op and supports 2-4 players with a playtime of roughly 45 minutes.

Gameplay

There are eight decks in the game, each one themed around a different Disney movie. Each player chooses two decks and shuffles them together to create their own personal draw pile. Everyone starts with a hand of five cards. There are two types of cards in the game: character cards and action cards. Each character has a certain number of power points, and often an ability. Sometimes these abilities are triggered when you play them, sometimes they are talents that can be used every turn the character is active, or they could be passive abilities such as making the character stronger if a certain card is in your discard pile. Action cards are played for their abilities; usually, they are discarded after you play them, but sometimes they are played onto a character or a base, affecting them until that character or base is discarded.

The base deck is shuffled at the start of the game and one base for each player, plus one, is drawn and placed on the table. Each base has a number written on it. When enough characters are played onto a base so that their collective power points equal or exceed the number written on the base, then the base breaks and players score points. The base will then be discarded, and a new one drawn. Characters that were at that base are placed in their respective players’ discard piles. Bases list how many points the players with the most, second most, and third most power points at that base will score.

Many bases also have special abilities written on them. Examples include allowing you to discard a card from your hand to play a character to that base on your turn or allowing you to move characters to or from a base.

On your turn, you may play one character card and one action card (unless abilities affect this, allowing you to play more). You then resolve any bases that broke that turn and end your turn by drawing two cards.

Once a player has reached 15 points, play continues until the end of the current turn, and the person with the most points wins the game.

Review

Smash Up: Disney Edition has a lot of what makes Smash Up special. It’s fun to see how the decks work off of each other and try to combine your card abilities to get the most out of them. It is one of those games that’s great at making you feel like you’ve just pulled off a clever move and can be extremely satisfying.

Each deck has unique strengths and weaknesses, making trying out different combinations of decks quite fun and adding a lot of replay value to the game. The base abilities also add a fun extra dynamic to the gameplay, since they themselves can contribute to your actions or how you manipulate the cards on the table.

While it is a theme that a lot of players will know and enjoy, part of the fun of the core concept of Smash Up does get a little lost here because blending the different decks together doesn’t create the same weird and fun mashups. In the original Smash Up, you’re putting together ninjas and pirates, or ghosts and wizards. Just thematically, putting the decks together is really enjoyable. Here, having Elsa and Simba work together just doesn’t feel as 'out there' since they already inhabit, more or less, the same fictional world. It’s still mechanically fun to see how the different decks work with each other, but you lose some of what makes Smash Up special. That being said, you can mix these decks with decks from other Smash Up sets, though you have to keep in mind that some of the language on the cards has been changed (minions are now called characters, for example), so the text isn’t going to quite line up across decks.

If you enjoy Smash Up, the Disney Edition does the game justice while featuring characters that a lot of people love. There are a few component differences, as well, and base mats are included that make it easier to track the current power level at each base and the breaking points, which does make the table much easier to read at a glance when trying to make decisions on your turn. If you’ve never played Smash Up before, this isn’t a bad place to start if the characters appeal to you, and if you already like the series, the Disney Edition is more of the same.

Pros: The Smash Up mechanics continue to be enjoyable, base mats make the table easier to read at a glance, characters are well-loved ones that are likely to appeal to a lot of players

Cons: Loses some of the thematic fun of the original Smash Up, when combining with other Smash Up decks you need to remember that some of the wording has been changed

Disclosure: we received a complimentary review copy of this game.