I doubt there’ll be a movie fairy tale where the evil wolf will eat the protagonist, or the dastardly selfish prince marries the innocent princess, or possibly where the evil witch steals the youth and beauty of a young girl. Yet in Once Upon A Time, either of those scenarios are possible with the game’s deathmatching fairy tale scheme for online or offline play. Yep, a multiplayer fairy tale deathmatch game...it took me a bit by surprise as well.
There’s four playable characters, fantasy environments, and lots of back-and-forth fast-paced action. The characters include a princess trying to find her own way, an evil witch looking to steal the beauty of the princess, a prince who wants to marry the princess, and a wolf who wants to eat the princess. Each character has a specific, yet similar task (with the exception of the princess) and the objective of the game is to beat out your opponents while completing your task first.
The tasks are generally the same for each character, in the sense that everyone has to capture the princess, while the princess has to obtain special artifacts to win. Capturing the princess is an easy enough objective, given that players will simply run up to her and press the action button to pick her up. Once she’s in your clutches it’s simply a matter of getting her back to the designated base. When playing against challenging players (or the CPU on a hard difficulty setting) there will be a high exchange of fisticuffs and battles between the wolf, prince, princess and witch. If I had one gripe about the general concept, it’s that the battles/bouts start and end rather quickly. I suppose this minor quip is evened out with the option to play several rounds per match. It also depends on the players and their skill, and as mentioned, the difficulty of the CPU.
Each character appropriately has their own attacks (or projectiles) and secondary abilities; such as the wolf’s sense of smell and sprinting, the prince’s parry to dodge attacks, or the witches second-sight to see where the princess is. However, it’s the princess who steals the show with her list of abilities. Out of the four characters the princess receives a list of special magic abilities to thwart her opponents. These attacks range from the simple likes of a fire ball, to teleporting, or turning invisible. My favorite however, is the ability to call on the super powerful Gingerbread man. This little guy scurries down and attacks any of the characters who get too close the princess. It’s hilarious how fast and funny the little guy looks as he runs around the stage.
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