Guest reviewer n00b follows the Yellow Brick road. See if he made it to speak with the Wizard or not.
The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road (DS)
[starreview]
Developer: Media.Vision
Publisher: XSEED Games
Release date: March 14, 2010
ESRB Rating: E for Everyone
The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road is an RPG for the Nintendo DS loosely based on the books and film. In fact it is so loosely based the only real things it has in common are the characters and some locations. This is by no means a game based on the movies or books, it is for the most part fairly original.
As one would expect the story starts out with Dorthy being plucked up by a tornado and deposited in the land of Oz. After following the yellow brick road and quickly meeting her only companions for the game she arrives at the castle. There she meets the wizard of Oz who then charges her with defeating 4 witches and stealing their magical eggs. Thus securing Oz’s place on the throne. Dorthy then sets off for the land of Spring to defeat the witch Flora.
The story of the game is obviously fairly simplistic and there isn’t much depth to it. There’s nothing riveting and most cut scenes take a couple minutes to read through. Some of them are represented by artwork while you thumb through text on the bottom screen. I actually enjoyed this more than things being conveyed in the graphics as it gave it a more storybook feel. There are various cats scattered through the levels you can talk to who reveal a little about whatever witch you’re chasing after or Oz. Some of them even reference other stories such as Alice in Wonderland. All in all the story does what it’s supposed to but nothing beyond it, be there.
The graphics are pretty good for the DS. Everything is in 3D(aside from aforementioned cut scenes) and they all look fairly good, both environments and enemies. The only problem with them is that the enemy sprites are almost reused immediately. This can make things slightly boring as there is rarely a new enemy sprite to look at after the first world. Everything is a color swap of a color swap. The bosses are nicely designed and do add a little bit of flavor, but nothing is really amazing. There are probably only about 20 or so sprites excluding bosses. Additionally, pretty much every sprite acts in a similar manner so it’s rather easy to predict who you should take out first in a battle.
All enemies appear on the screen so there are no random encounters when one does happen the battle system is pretty much your standard turn based rpg system with a little twist. You get four ratio points to distribute to decide who takes an action that turn. Dorthy and Scarecrow both only use one, Lion two, and the Tin Man three. So one can mix and match them as they please. Dorthy going four times, dividing them between Scarecrow and Dorthy, etc. Obviously, the Lion and Tin Man can never act on the same turn. Turn Order is rather weird and I never really figured out how it works. Speed is a factor, but if someone takes multiple turns it gets weird. Only characters that are actually taking a turn can be damaged that round. If the character falls before they can use all their turns they are all wasted. You only get a game over if everyone is dead.
Enemies seem to follow the same system you do. If an enemy is in the back row it’s not taking a turn, but can still be damaged. The damage they take is reduced by some factor. If you defeat an enemy in the front row before they use all their turns they’re all wasted. Unfortunately you cannot target specific enemies in a group. You can only select the group to attack and the AI decides who to go after. Typically they go for the front row enemy, but will attack the back row if an enemy is low on HP. This may seem like a hindrance, but it works fairly well. Also, there’s no need to worry there is auto-retargeting unlike RPGs of old.
Victory
The four characters you control physical attacks are strong against a certain type of enemy. Dorthy is strong against ghosts, scarecrow water enemies, lion hard enemies, and the tin man deals heavy damage to plants. There’s no real guessing to who’s what as the enemies have a bubble next to them showing what type they are. The damage bonus is significant as it often comes down to one-shotting or two-shotting an enemy. The Tin Man later learns skills that helps him do extra damage to other enemy types and for some reason his own.
Skills are not learned through levels ups, but rather defeating father dragons hidden in one of the stages. After beating them you’re given a new skill set. The skills themselves aren’t impressive and there aren’t any elemental attacks and in fact there are very few that are actually offensive in nature. Dorthy focuses on healing/buffing, scarecrow on debuffs, lion on buffs/attacks, and the tin man has purely offensive skills. They are very bare bones and none of them are a true ‘insta-win’ button. Only one of them actually heals HP, which can make boss fights pretty tough.
Actions are often automatically decided by the game, but is very easy to change them and navigate the menu if you want to change your party up. The only problem with the choices the game makes are that it will often try and heal an ailment if there is only one enemy with little to no HP left. It’s more of an auto-battle then anything else.
Moving from place to place is achieved via the trackball on the bottom screen of the DS. It is fairly easy to use and you’ll never really have a problem getting anywhere with it. This is due to the fairly simple level design in the game. There’s no real pinpoint turns so maneuvering with the trackball is fairly easy. The trackball also looks like something you’d see in an arcade, which is a nice touch albeit weird.
Look at that velty texture
The dungeons in the game are all very simple. They never get too large and most are only 3 or 4 forks till you get to the next area. There are really no puzzles to speak of since opening a closed gate usually comes down to finding a torch to light. Then you go on to the next level which is more or less the same. Each stage is about three to four sections with an egg at the end to ‘clear’ the level. There are only four ways to leave a level; go back through the entrance, die, use a witch gate item, or clear it. The last one you an only do once and dying can get complicated if you’re in an old area. So if you don’t have a witch gate it can take a while to get back to the exit. Mostly due to the fact that it is near impossible to dodge enemy sprites when you’re walking down a hallway the size of a graham cracker. There are treasure chests scattered about, but most contain nothing that’s worth it. All items are bought from Oz in his castle, which he updates once you beat a witch. It is also the only place you can save(aside from a quick save).
All in all the game is only difficult starting out. Once you get past the first world things become much much easier, especially if you get the skills from the dragons. There is a challenge in defeating the optional bosses. They are incredibly strong and require parties with levels well beyond what you’d finish the game at. Luckily there are very powerful ghosts that drop a ton of exp and ultimate equipment to help you get there.
The place the game really shines though is its soundtrack. There are many wonderful pieces that you’ll want to listen to over and over again. It’s almost odd a niche game like this would have such wonderful music. Each piece that plays fits perfectly with the setting. I really can’t say anything more about it.
The one rather large problem I had with the game was with how few characters there actually were. There are plenty of other characters from the Oz franchise they could have included, but didn’t. They had the chance to make a fairly interesting Oz game and weren’t even in the ball park of actually delivering on a good story. All that they wound up delivering was mediocrity.
As for whether or not I’d recommend the game comes down to what you yourself enjoy. If you’re the kind of person that enjoys very old dragon quest-ish RPGs mixed in with the Wizard of Oz then this might be the game for you. If you don’t, well then this game may not be your cup of tea. The game features nothing new or amazing and is merely what it is.
