There’s no story as such to Fat Princess, just the general premise, which is, in itself, very cool anyway. Basically, there are two rival kingdoms. Each wants to steal the other’s princess in order to achieve a crushing victory. In order to stop the other team, you feed your own princess cake in order to fatten her up a bit and make her too chubby to effectively carry back to the enemy castle.

 

It’s simple, but funny and effective, and suits the game nicely, also having the obvious gameplay twist to capture the flag.

 

 

Whilst there is a team deathmatch mode to Fat Princess, the vast majority of the games you play together will be a twist on classic capture the flag. The twist is that the fatter your princess is, the slower she is carried, and therefore the easier it is to get her back. It’s simple enough, and also feels new enough that the game still feels fresh and fun to me after playing for a solid number of hours.

 

 

To add to the complexity, there are loads of different classes to choose from, much like in Team Fortress. The advantage here though, is that they can be changed on the fly, simply by swapping out for another ‘hat’. But never fear, if you don’t like to play as a brutal warrior or archer, the support classes earn points for helping out their more powerful team-mates.

 

You can also get points for a host of other activities, such as collecting resources and using them to upgrade the hat machines, capturing outposts, or sneaking into the enemy castle. However, the big points (and victory) come from capturing the enemy princess, getting her out of the enemy castle and into your own dungeon, which is obviously easier said than done. It is, in fact, a bit too difficult at times, whether you play by yourself or with others.

 

 

Unfortunately though, the game suffers a little bit in its ‘single player.’ I don’t know why these vs. bots levels aren’t just described as training or something, because these missions are dull, repetitive, and just not as fun as playing by yourself.