Once Upon a Time for Wii: Fairy Tales, Minigames, Review

Once Upon a Time is a Wii storybook for very young children, released in North America on 9 December 2010 and built around four classic fairy tales. WorthPlaying lists Visual Impact as developer.

Overview

The four stories are Little Red Riding Hood, Puss ‘N Boots, The Three Little Pigs and The Ugly Duckling. WorthPlaying files the title under edutainment and describes it, on the game page, as a group of four fairy tales with different play options.

Reviewer Brian Dumlao guessed an audience of three to four year olds, since the game narrates itself and asks little reading.

How it plays

Each tale offers three ways in. In the story option, the chosen fairy tale plays as narrated animation with a voice for each character. The create-your-own option lets the player move the cursor over objects, which are named aloud and animate.

Four minigames round it out. Animation asks for a shake of the Wii Remote when something moves. Pairs is a concentration game. Memory matches a picture against one shown above it, and Puzzle builds a picture from square pieces.

The Wii Remote is a pointer. The A button advances or speeds up the story, and the 2 button returns to the main menu.

Release and credits

WorthPlaying gives 9 December 2010 for the release, Visual Impact for development, and a price of $20. The publisher appears as Storm City Entertainment in the review header and the game page, while the text of the review says Storm City Games. No ESRB entry for it was found in the sources used here, so no rating is stated.

Reception

The review scored it 6.0 out of 10. Dumlao liked how quickly the game moves between modes, with no loading screens, and described the narrator as warm and the character voices as well done. The artwork is colourful, and parents would probably value the interactivity.

The Animation minigame drew the main complaint, since it is slow to register shaking and makes up a quarter of the content. Graphics are simple, with three or four frames per object, which the reviewer felt suited a downloadable title more than a full disc. Music is generic and repetitive, and sound effects are few. He thought older titles such as Spy Fox and Freddi Fish look better.

Can you still play it?

The disc plays on a Wii, and on a Wii U through Wii Mode. Because this game is driven by the pointer, a Sensor Bar is needed on the Wii U, and the Wii U does not accept GameCube controllers. The Wii Shop Channel closed on 30 January 2019, but a disc does not use it. Discs are region-coded, so a North American copy fits an NTSC-U console.