Disney Twisted Wonderland Startup Guide
Today, 20 January 2022, the new mobile game Disney Twisted Wonderland came out in the United States. Originally released on 20 March 2020 in Japan, this original rhythm/adventure game adapted from the world of Disney villains comes from the mind of Black Butler creator Yana Toboso. Disney Japan and Aniplex worked with 4fsamurai for the design.
So what is Disney Twisted Wonderland? This is an alternate dimension led by the magic of Disney villains. You play as a regular person transported to Night Raven College in the middle of the night. Night Raven College is where students throughout Twisted Wonderland go to learn how to use their magical abilities. The Magic Mirror makes no mistakes, so every student brought in through a casket-shaped portal is meant to be at Night Raven College.
The college is broken up into different dormitories inspired by the Disney villains. Heartslabyul is the Queen of Hearts, Savanclaw is Scar, Octavinelle is Ursula, Scarabia is Jafar, Pomefiore is the Evil Queen, Ignihyde is Hades, and Diasomnia is Maleficient. Because you have no powers, you stay in the abandoned eighth dormitory filled with the ghosts from the iconic “Lonesome Ghosts” Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy animated short. Headmaster Crowley agrees to let you stay for free, but has you work with a demonic cat-like creature name Grim as the new custodians of the campus. You have to earn money to pay for food, clothing, and other necessities that bring you closer to finding out how to return home.
Get it? Got it? Good.
First, you need to know this game is huge. You only need about 220MB to download it to your mobile device, but the entire game is currently 3.28GB for the fully updated US release in the App Store. Make sure you have enough room to download, update, and run the game. Disney Twisted Wonderland is beautiful, filled with gorgeous animation, fun music, and the full Japanese voiceover soundtrack. The size makes sense for how much is packed in the game.
Second, you need time to start the game off. It took me about an hour to get through all of the initial setup for the game. The story will pause to download additional data every so often, giving you a scrolling view of concept art and lore about the world. The game itself will make you play through the first eight chapters of the story as a tutorial before you can exit out to the main menu and even adjust gameplay settings. The tutorial sequence is really well done, combining exposition and gameplay exploration in a fun way. It’s just long for a mobile game.
Third, there are three main elements of the gameplay in Stories mode. Disney Twisted Wonderland is a visual novel-style adventure game at its core. You click to continue and choose your responses between two text prompts as you go along. The dialogue does respond to which prompts you choose, so have fun with that.
Disney Twisted Wonderland is also a button-timing rhythm game called Twistunes. You tap when the buttons reach the open circles on the screen to engage in combat and spellcasting. Green buttons can be pressed anywhere, blue buttons can be pressed on the left side of the screen, and red buttons can be pressed on the right side of the screen. There are other mechanics, as well, all explained in the tutorials as the game progresses.
Disney Twisted Wonderland is also a turn-based RPG-style combat game with randomly drawn cards. You acquire students from all throughout the various dorms to fight with you in rock-paper-scissors-style combat. Fire beats Tree. Tree beats Water. Water beats Fire. There are also Null effects, the gray attacks that have no specific advantage or disadvantage.
You take turns going first or second with your opponent. You will get to see at least one of their upcoming attack types. The game will prompt you with arrows to help you along. A pink arrow going up on a card has an advantage; a grey arrow going down has a disadvantage. The first side to either bring their opponent to zero health or the side with a higher percentage of damage by the end of combat is the winner.
Fourth, Disney Twisted Wonderland spans out into more typical mobile game elements from here. There are daily, weekly, and default challenges that give you more resources. You summon new allies using the Magic Mirror and the resources you collect throughout the game. There’s a crafting system to strengthen your allies in combat and a Lessons mode that builds up their abilities through various classes on campus. You can also go into Twistunes mode and replay the songs you unlock in Stories mode with varying objectives and increasing difficulty levels. There are also Vignettes—side stories inspired by the heads of the different dormitories—unlocked in Stories mode as you go. You can also log into the game every day for gifts, bonuses, and messages.
And fifth, yes, there is a cash-based currency system. You can get 40 gems for $.99, 210 gems for $7.99, or a 30-Day pass of gems (49 gems straight away, plus 5 additional gems a day) for $4.99. You do not need to buy gems to play, but they help you advance quicker with better resources. I have a firm “no money on mobile games” policy, but your own experience may vary.
Those are all the big things to know before starting your own adventure in Disney Twisted Wonderland. I really dig the style of the game and the story its telling. It’s a solid rhythm game in this style with a manual latency slider you can use once you get through the tutorial.
Quick tip: I found the game anticipates the beat a little bit, so I slid mine down to -1 and had an easier time consistently scoring full combo Perfect runs. I didn’t spend a lifetime mastering every rhythm game from Dance Dance Revolution to Pop’n Music to Osu! to have a Disney game question my abilities.
Disney Twisted Wonderland is available for free download on the Apple App Store and Google Play.
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