PixlBit

It won't take players very long to realize that this isn't the same tale of Oz written by L. Frank Baum over 100 years ago. While the game begins in very much the same way - Dorothy getting swept up by a giant tornado – the tale of Oz as we all know it is not the same tale told here. In fact, the only similarities to the book is the land of Oz itself and the four main characters ... oh and Toto too.

Players begin their adventure in Oz as Dorothy, freshly dropped off at the end of the tornados journey. As she begins to examine her surroundings she spots the yellow brick road and decides to see where it leads. As she follows this path she meets the Scarecrow (known now as the Strawman), Tin Man, and Lion, all of whom she must battle before they join her party. Once the quartet is assembled, they make their way to Emerald City. There they are welcomed by the powerful Wizard of Oz himself, and are told that they are the champions he has been waiting for. He tells the tale of a witch and her evil daughters who have been trying to steal his power. In order to usurp their own power, Dorothy and her companions must travel to each Witch's territory and steal their magical eggs, of which there are ten in total. In return for stealing the eggs, the Wizard of Oz promises to grant each member of the party a wish.

The first thing that players will undoubtedly notice when beginning this game, are the graphics. The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road pushes the DS to its graphical limits to create a lush environment where every detail, right down to the last flower petal, has been taken into consideration. The colors and art direction are simply breathtaking and the music is also hard to ignore. While fans of the movie may be disappointed to know that there are few instances they will ever hear music from the movie (a fully orchestrated clip of "Over the Rainbow" can be heard in the opening title sequence) every area has its own unique soundtrack, and the music is catchy enough that players will be humming along when they don't even realize it.

Unfortunately, this is really where the good aspects of The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road end. While the presentation itself is wonderful, many important elements of good game design seem to have been overlooked.

My first complaint is level design, since the entire game is linear to a fault. Each level can be best described as a maze with paths shooting off in every direction. Every time a player comes to a fork in the road they will encounter a road sign on which they may stamp directional guides for the next time they pass through. After players explore a particular path or hit a dead end, when they backtrack in order to take the proper route they can mark the sign with various symbols as a reminder. If it weren't for these guide signs players would be in severe trouble, as all of the paths look exactly the same. After being in an area for a while the once beautiful looking graphics become mind-numbing as you simply weave in and out of paths looking for treasure, battling enemies or hitting switches or using magical sprites to open up gates blocking paths. The monotony just becomes unbearable. Unfortunately, the most interesting thing players can do is control Dorothy with the game’s unique trackball-like design which requires constant touch screen swiping.

Even battling, the true hook of the game, becomes tiresome after a while. At first, the unique system was engaging. Essentially, with each turn players will choose a string of characters to deploy into battle. Each turn gives players four spaces to input commands, and each character consumes a different number of these spaces, what’s referred to in the game as ratio points. Dorothy and Scarecrow commands each use one ratio point, Lion's use two, and Tin Man's use three. This allows players to stack any combination of commands using the characters as many times as they can. Thus, players can stack Dorothy, Lion, Dorothy or Lion, Lion. Each command allows the player to choose a standard RPG tactic, such as attack, magic, item, or defend.

At first, this system was a decent amount of fun. Because each character has strengths and weaknesses, players can build strategic attack patterns with each round. However, like most other aspects of the game, this quickly wore thin due to various frustrations. My biggest frustration dealt with the game auto-defaulting my commands for the next round. Let me give an example: Say you decide to deploy Dorothy and Straw Man into battle, while in the background, Tin Man is hurt. The game will automatically set Dorothy to healing instead of battling, requiring the player to go into the menu and change her commands back to attack; a lengthy and unnecessary process. The next annoyance is not being able to select a particular enemy to attack, only an enemy type. This caused an all-too-common situation where one enemy amongst a collection of others of the same type was down to 1HP and instead of weakening another enemy with full life, the attack was simply wasted, eliminating any option for a different battle strategy other than the one decided for the player.

Typically, even if a game features a number of frustrating elements, a great storyline will redeem it. Unfortunately, I didn't find that here either. It was obvious from the moment I bumped into the first witch what was going on in Oz. While the story was clearly meant to hook players and then surprise them at the end, the obviousness of the plot twist ruined the overall story for me.

At the end of it all The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road is an underwhelming title. The game offers nothing extraneous from the exploring and the battling, just a pretty backdrop. Long time fans of the Wizard of Oz may be disappointed to find that the game isn't even remotely based of their beloved storyline. If not for the stale gameplay and bland level design, The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road could have been something truly amazing.