Disney Villains Cursed Café

Disney Villains Cursed Café is a pretty interesting game. I didn't realize going into it that this was a visual novel type of game, but I was pleasantly surprised by the experience.

The game features seven Disney Villains - Cruella de Vil from 101 Dalmatians, the Evil Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Gaston from Beauty and the Beast, Captain Hook from Peter Pan, Jafar from Aladdin, Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty, and Ursula from The Little Mermaid. You also see Yzma from The Emperor's New Groove as a supporting character, and of course, there's the Magic Mirror.

The game loop is quite simple: Each day, you will serve three villains. You are given an option between two villains to serve, and you will simply serve the exact potion that they ask for -- after hearing the comedic reasoning behind why they want one.

For example, I served Jafar a Notmeforget potion several times because he kept getting scammed by Ursula and then wanting to forget that he’d been scammed.

However, for the third villain of the day, you're only given one option to serve. That's because you will now be going through a chapter of that villain's story. Rather than going for one of the normal potions in your catalog, you will be given a choice between two special potions -- one that the villain directly asked for, and one that will actually bring the villain closer to their goal.

This choice is really the crux of the game, though the choice doesn't really matter until the villain's final chapter. If you give the villain the potion they ask for, their story will end in failure. If you give the villain the alternative potion, they will achieve their dream.

Your ultimate goal for this game is to figure out what happened to your boss. You will find various clues as you go through the game, and a player that's paying attention to the clues may very well figure it out before the in-game Potionista.

There are multiple endings to the game. Two of the bad endings I got led to me finding out what happened to my boss, but finding myself enduring the same fate he got. When I failed four villains, that too led to finding out what happened to my boss, but at that point, he didn't stop the villains I failed from killing me.

The way to get the good ending to this game is by successfully completing the stories of four villains, and thus completing the spell left to you to discover by your boss.

If you mess up, you are given the opportunity to redo the day by calling Yzma and purchasing a Do-Over Doppio. Yzma will also sell you the third ingredient needed for the special potions if the villain you're serving doesn't already have it.

To be honest, there's really nothing complex about this game at all. It really mostly comes down to reading the story presented to you, and then selecting the two ingredients needed for the potion the villain you're serving asked for. That's really it.

Unfortunately, that means the price of this game is quite steep for what you're getting. And if you're not really into stories and want to have more control over the game, this really isn't for you. There also simply isn't any replayability. Although the game has multiple endings, achieving them all essentially requires you to reset the game and replay much of the stories you've already seen. Once you get to the final ending, there's really no way to keep playing without resetting the data.

Nevertheless, I really did enjoy playing this game. I especially enjoyed watching Gaston get picked on by the other villains, and I grew to like many of the villains as I was playing through this game, Captain Hook in particular. This really makes me think visual novels might actually be a genre I should explore more.

If you would like to check out Disney Villains Cursed Café, it's available on Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, Windows via Steam, and PlayStation 5. Although the game isn't Steam Deck Verified at this time, I can tell you it works just fine. Just remember to assign the mouse click to one of the buttons, as it's needed to close the potion maker. I don't know if that's normal behavior, or if I simply never found the correct button.