Its emerging shareware scene was one of the main draws towards the IBM PC platform for gaming in the early 1990s. Unlike the tightly controlled games console ecosystems, this platform gave smaller developers opportunities to make something against the usual conventions and consequently drew players as well.
Published by Epic Megagames, one of the "big 2" of the shareware market, One Must Fall gives a spin to the one-on-one fighting genre which had been tried a couple of times before, but got buried under the typical special move extravaganzas of the early 1990s. Namely, it puts a lot of focus on character development over the course of the game.
The time has come. The night of all nights has arrived, where I will dive into darkness. Evil awakens and a nightmare comes true: Dracula rules our city of New York and the lord of darkness is also the head of the local corporation for cyber-genetics, cyber-space, cyber-surgery, cyber-technology, cyber-weapons and cyber-surveillance. Appropriately, it has been a very long time since the city has seen any light; we are in an apparently endless night.
Blood and thunder rule the country: The vicious Death Adder inflicts war on the kingdom and kills people by the dozen. Amongst the numerous victims are the relatives of three great heroes, who finally, when even their best friend gets slain right in front of their eyes, swear revenge.
So much for the usual excuse to have player controlled muscleheads beat up some baddies. But all of this is not communicated overly well in the actual game, is it?
