Beyond Oasis

"Aesthetically pleasing."

If nothing else, you have to give Beyond Oasis credit for its graphics, which are absolutely amazing for a Genesis game: everything’s oh-so-pretty and well-animated, and most of the bosses would look decent in a Saturn game. Yes indeed, it sure does look good…

And it plays good too, at least for a few hours. Beyond Oasis is only an RPG in the loosest sense of the word; there is very little NPC interaction, and no traditional level-ups (your HP/MP increase by grabbing items, which seem to be dropped semi-randomly by monsters). You go from area to area, fighting monsters. Which is fun, as far as it goes—but, given the decidedly limited scope of the fighting, it doesn’t go nearly as far as it would need to in order to be consistently engaging. The game is short; I think my ending time was something like six hours—you would not think that it would have time to get monotonous in that space of time, but somehow it manages it. Oh yes.

The lack of variety in combat is what really kills the gameplay. The bestiary is slim, as is your armory. There are three types of weapons—swords, arrows, and bombs—but apart from your initial knife/sword thing, they are limited-use, meaning that you won’t be able to blast away at your foes with mad abandon with the other weapons. Not that it would matter much if you could, since bombs and arrows are pretty standard-issue, just-what-it-says-on-the-box affairs; not very inspiring. There are a few simple special movies you can do with your sword, but these lose their charm when you find yourself using them over and over and over and over and over. What’s more, the game is very easy (those awesome-looking bosses sure to go down easily)—you’re never really required to stretch yourself, and it wouldn’t be hard to beat with the exclusive use of your regular weapons (let’s call it a ‘kris.’ I doubt I’ll ever refer to it again in my life, but that sounds about right).

The game’s big ‘innovation’—magical spirits that help you in your quest—is clever to be sure: once you attain one of the four spirits—fire, water, shadow, and, um, plant—you can summon it by firing an energy thing at a source of the element in question; e.g., hit a torch to summon the fire spirit, water dripping from the ceiling for the water spirit, and so on. Once summoned, they can be used to cross occasional obstacles—the shadow spirit works as a sort of hookshot, the plant spirit opens doors, et cetera—as well as whacking enemies. It works well enough, but one wishes they had been better integrated into the game; you really only use them in the most obvious of ways. A little more creativity would not have come amiss.

Beyond Oasis is a vaguely entertaining game in spite of its flaws, but it should have been much better. When I first saw ads for it, I thought from the title that it might be a sequel to the nifty Gamegear RPG Defenders of Oasis. I’ll bet I would have enjoyed that hypothetical game much more than I did this one. By all means, download the ROM and check it out, but don’t expect the heavens.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 08/07/02, Updated 08/07/02