Board Game Review: Sorry! The Disney Edition

Stars: 5 out of 5

Pros: A magic twist on a classic board game

Cons: Don't need it if you already have Sorry!

The Bottom Line: 

Sorry! with a twist

New cards add a touch of fun

To the classic game

No Disney Fan Will be Sorry to get Sorry! The Disney Edition

My family has always loved to play games, so I grew up playing many of the classics.  I had fond memories of Sorry!, so when I ran across Sorry! The Disney Edition a few years back, I got it.  After all, I didn't have any copies of the game myself.  It's turned out to be a fun addition to my game collection.

The Game Sorry!

Sorry! is a board game in which you try to get your four tokens around the board from Start to Home.  In a twist on most other games of this type, you draw cards instead of rolling dice to determine how far you move your pieces.  Some of the cards include special instructions.  A 1 or 2 allows you to start or move forward.  A 4 moves you backward.  A 7 can be split between two pieces.  And an 11 allows you to switch with another player's piece if you want.  There are number cards for all numbers 1-12 except 6 and 9.

If you land on another player's token, they have to move that piece back to Start.  Don't forget to say Sorry! as you land on them.  And there are Sorry! cards in the deck that allow you to move a token from start to any space an opponent is occupying, sending them back to Start.

You win when all four of your tokens are home.

The Disney Twist

So, how do they make a Disney version of this game?  For starters, the path you follow on the board looks like film instead of normal squares.  The tokens aren't generic plastic pieces but cardboard replicas of Disney characters.  The red team is now villains like Cruella de Vil and Captain Hook.  The blue team is the heroes like Buzz Lightyear and Peter Pan.  Yellow features heroines, three princesses and Jesse from the Toy Story movies.  Finally, you can be Dumbo, Winnie the Pooh, and other animals if you are the green team.

The cards have some interesting twists as well.  There are four special cards for four numbers in the deck, one for each color.  If you pull the card that features your color, you have a chance to really advance.  Otherwise, you move as if it were a normal card.  What are the special rules?  With a 3, you can pick the top three cards from the draw pile and play whichever one you want.  For a 5, you can move one token of each opponent back five spaces.  The 8 lets you move two of your pieces forward 8istead of the normal one.  Finally, a 12 lets you move your lead piece all the way home.

My Experience

I finally played this with my roommate a few months back, and we both had a blast.  I think we played for two or three hours, which let us play several games.  If we had maxed out at four players, I'm sure a single game would have taken longer.  It was fun getting to play the various characters, although those special number cards were the big prize.  Usually, we got each other's cards, but if we did luck out and get our own, it made a big difference in game play.  And since we had to shuffle up the cards at least once per game, we usually had a couple shots at them.

The game is recommended for ages 6 and up.  I don't remember how young my brother or I were when we started playing Sorry!, but we were probably around that age.  We always loved it, understanding that going back to the beginning was part of the game.

Obviously, with the cards involved, there is a huge portion of luck involved, but that's the case with most games where you roll the dice.  Deciding which token to move when does introduce a little strategy, and I can remember picking up on that at an early age, which helped prepare me for games that involved more strategy.

Conclusion

Even if you are a huge Disney fan, I'm not sure you need Sorry! The Disney Edition if you already have Sorry!  Not that the extra rules and Disney characters don't add a sense of magic.  If you don't already have Sorry!, this is the way to try to get this classic game.