Introduction

Oddly enough I decided to take a look at this game because I stumbled across Starmage's request for a review on the forum. As for why that would be odd, well I usually don't look at the forums unless kentona's put up a new stat page. After all, I like to see where I stand in the rankings. That being said, I suppose I should dig into "Once Upon the Woods" by Starmage. A short game created for a one map challenge event on RPG Maker web.

Story

"Once Upon the Woods" is a very quick and dirty adaptation of Hansel and Gretel that places a heavy emphasis on our dynamic duo defending themselves from not only a witch but roving bands of monsters that have an addiction to freshly peeled human flesh. As you can imagine, this game would be really hard if you couldn't fight back.



Thankfully, this version of Hansel and Gretel come equipped with worn down equipment and the awesome power of magic. Albeit, I don't really get why Gretel gets a power up from equipment that emphasis her status as a virgin. I'm not trying to shame virgins here, but anytime I associate magical powers with virginity it makes me think of "Virgin Fleet". That aside, it's up to you to figure out how to get this dastardly duo of lost souls from one side of the forest to the other. Do you have what it takes to survive?

Gameplay

"Once Upon the Woods" is a rather simple game comprised of walking from one battle to the next. As you go forward you'll run into groups of enemies that go up and down in terms of difficulty a little bit, but you'll still be hard pressed to survive in this game if you haven't worked out how they operate. After all, your main damage dealer in this game is a glass cannon who can be readily one shotted by almost every enemy in the game. Thankfully, Hansel can act as a meat shield for her, but this tactic will only work for so long considering his poor defenses. As such your goal in every battle in this game is to work out which enemy you should take out first and when it's best to use your red, white, and blue feathers in order to advance.

Graphics

"Once Upon the Woods" follows Starmage's usual pattern when it comes to visuals. That is to say the game is a visual treat filled with little details like leaves blowing in the wind, sparkling water around every bush, and animated combat sprites for the playable characters.

Facesets


I seem to be running into issues with this topic a lot lately, but I really can't ignore just how stylistically different the facesets are between those used in the dialogue boxes and those used for combat.

Conclusion

"Once Upon the Woods" is a difficult game for me to score because of how short it is. The fact that this game clocks in at under 15 minutes means it'll be over well before you can get good feel for what Starmage was aiming for. And, the game's classification gets under my skin a bit since I don't consider this game a role-playing video game. In fact, I'd argue that survival would be a better fit considering how much emphasis the game places on fighting the various monsters you run across as effectively as possible in order to conserve resources for more difficult opponents. That being said, this game might make for a nice distraction between longer projects or make for an easy target if your looking for a short game to review.