Kara Dennison
January 20, 2022 
By now, you’ve almost certainly heard of Disney Twisted-Wonderland, the mobile game inspired by classic cartoon baddies. If you’ve never played it, two points. Point 1, interested parties in the U.S. and Canada can now play! The game went live today, kicking off with two chapters. Point 2… you may not know as much about it as you think.
A lot of stuff got around online at inception, and there’s a fan base that knows what’s up. But if you’re on the fringes, let’s get you caught up. Then, you can start your trip to Night Raven College.
This isn’t Iago.
Twisted-Wonderland fans already know Kalim Al-Asim from the Aladdin-inspired Scarabia Dorm pretty well. But rubberneckers will be either relieved or disappointed to find that early assumptions about who inspired him are way, way off the mark. It’s an understandable mistake. He’s one of two characters in the dorm, along with the clearly Jafar-inspired Jamil Viper. With minimal information, the Internet jumped to the conclusion that the other character had to be Jafar’s parrot, notably voiced by Gilbert Gottfried. But Kalim isn’t Sexy Iago; he’s Sexy Sultan.
In a move much closer to the actual pecking order, Kalim is the Housewarden, with Jamil at his right hand. His character page drives that home, as he (like his source) calls himself “an excellent judge of character.” We still love those weird Iago memes we got early on, though.
Not everyone is an outright villain.
Twisted-Wonderland has some pretty on-the-nose twists on Disney villains. Azul Ashengrotto and his sidekicks Floyd and Jade are clearly modeled on Ursula, Flotsam, and Jetsam in The Little Mermaid. And Vil Schoenheit is absolutely Snow White‘s Evil Queen as a cute boy. But many — actually, most — of the student body are interpreted a little more loosely.
The aforementioned Sultan, for example, isn’t considered to be a villain. (He’s morally grey at best.) The students of Sleeping Beauty-inspired Diasomnia are, by and large, interpretations of Maleficent’s magic. And Epel Felmier, who shares a dorm with Vil, appears to be a combination of mirror and apple imagery. So in addition to familiar faces, expect to see new characters on a theme… and the occasional outright non-baddie.
It’s not a dating sim.
Outside of your own imagination, you won’t be winning any of the Twisted-Wonderland boys. Because, as otome game as it may look, picking a boy isn’t the main goal here. You’ll be spending a lot of time with all of them — and helping them do battle.
When you’re not in visual novel-style story scenes, you’ll do either combat or rhythm games. The former is what you’ll be accustomed to from other mobile games. The latter is a tapping rhythm game with a different interface. Put all those together, and you’ll find the story is fairly evenly spread out. But that just means you can love ’em all.
Will you be joining the Twisted-Wonderland brawl?
If we’ve got you in a Disney mood, why not check out Disney stars we wish could be in the Smash games?
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