The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road

Rating Everyone Genre role-playing Publisher Xseed Games External Links

Games built on a franchise, especially one the size of The Wizard of Oz, should have some pretty low expectations. It seems like developers can't help themselves in creating terrible titles for quick cash using a big brand name instead of investing in a good idea. Thankfully for those with a thing for Dorthy, Toto, witches, and men made of tin, Media.Vison did not let you down. Their new RPG, The Wiard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road, takes the bare-bones concept of the classic L. Frank Balm story an inserts a Japanese take on the tale. The result is a surprisingly well made title that stands on it's own two-legs without the help of a wizard. 

The story loosely hitches it's wagon to the tale most have grown up with; a girl is taken by a tornado to the Land of Oz, a magical world most unlike our own. There she is greeted by the mysterious Wizard of Oz, presiding over his realm and needing Dorthy's help to reign in some problems with witches running things not to his liking. Along the way to meet the Wizard in the Emerald City, Dorthy meets up with the same character's from the book, but with different attitudes and styles. There's a guitar-touting Scarecrow, a much bigger and badder Lion, and a nearly mute ax-wielding Tin Man. So yes, things are different, but the genre blending between the westernized thought of Dorthy and the gang versus the Japanese hybrid leads to some great in-game visuals and a fresh take on an old tale. 

To move Dorthy throughout the world, Beyond the Yellow Brick Road uses a unique track ball and a third person over-the-shoulder camera to navigate. Using the touch screen and stylus, the track ball operates just as if playing Centipede in an arcade. This can be fun when getting the character up to a sprint, but can also be frustrating when a delicate touch could be more useful. Case-in-point is the enemies running around the levels. The encounter system is based on physically bumping into these creatures (no random battles), but it can be tricky to dodge them much of the time.

As far as the battle system goes, it is a top-notch setup for a younger gamer or someone new to the RPG platform. Many times it seems the role playing titles have such a steep learning curve there's no place for someone without hours of previous experience. Fortunately, that's not a problem with Beyond the Yellow Brick Road's battle system. The tutorial is laid out in easy to understand steps that introduces the main elements of the RPG while demonstrating what is unique to the title. 

The party might be four people, but not everyone is able to attack each turn.  Each character has a different ratio of power that can be used in a battle; Dorthy and Scarecrow have one, the Lion two, and the Tin Man has three. You can only use four slots per battle, so combining the powers of each character effectively is the name of the game. So Tin Man and Scarecrow can battle together or Dorthy can take all four slots in the battle. Additionally, each group member is more effective against certain types of creatures, so deciding who has the life, strength, advantages, weapons, and armor to destroy the bad guys comes into play as well. 

Overall, The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road is a really good title for the right kind of gamer. For a younger or inexperienced player, this is a fantastic title (rated E for Everyone) to get introduced to role-playing games. The ease of use and somewhat repetitive levels and battles might turn off a hard-core RPG fan, but even those with a lot of time spent on a Final Fantasy title can enjoy the game. Someone looking for a slavish recreation of the book or film might be turned off by the original story and the re-imagining of characters, but the Beyond the Yellow Brick Road isn't built on catering to the past. Media.Vison has done a fantastic job modernizing a much loved franchise and delivering a game that will be enjoyed by all different types of people.