"Legend of Rage? Streets of Zelda?"

As an RPG fan, you either get to love or hate Medieval settings: Love because it's familiar terrain and a successful formula for the genre, or hate because you've been there so many times that you practically defecate Old English- the culture, not the beer mind you. That's why some gracious souls out there have been giving us different settings to work with. Despite this, many people still get their panties in a twitch if they don't see knights in armor and dragons killing peasants and whatnot. While discovering the different settings, I came upon one that seems to be fairly infrequent, but works very wonderfully with RPG's: Arabic/Persian settings. We simply don't see enough desert-based RPGs. The only ones I've really ever been able to enjoy for any length are Magic of Scheherazde, and this game, Beyond Oasis. The beauty behind this game doesn't come simply from the theme itself, but from the gameplay and solid gaming elements packed into this shiny, black cart. Who would have ever thought that Legend of Zelda and Streets of Rage could fuse so well? Unlike pop/punk or pizza flavored popcorn, this is one hybrid that's actually worth a damn.

In Beyond Oasis, you take the role of an adventurous prince in an Arabic-esque setting. It seems he has discovered some strange piece of jewelry on a far away island. Because of this jewelry, terrible things have begun happening: Monsters have appeared near his kingdom, a wicked plot begins to unravel, and Hollywood just won't stop with the bloody film remakes. There's only one thing our valiant hero can do. Well, okay, two things if you include wet himself and cry. Instead of dying like a school girl, he decides to take responsibility into his hands and battle the forces of evil. Can this be? An RPG storyline that doesn't directly involving saving a maiden? The story to this game actually is nothing special, but works fairly well, given the time this game was made. This one has a few predictable twists and turns, but maintains fairly smoothly throughout the game. It isn't the main emphasis of the game, which is a factor we've all gotten used to in games today. Especially ones with too much story. *coughXenogearscough*

As I've stated before, this game is pretty much like playing a hybrid of Zelda and Streets of Rage. Rather than just being a plain old action/RPG, it's a beat 'em up RPG. Yep, that's right! Not only can you barge into people's houses and take their things while they greet you like a member of the family, but you can bust the chops of you victims in brutal style. All this is a done in an overhead perspective. Whenever you approach an enemy, you don't just get one little slash like many early action/RPGs, but you can launch an assault of combo attacks. It doesn't stop there. Learn how to work the D-pad to your desire and you can unleash some fairly powerful attacks like an all around spin slash or a very showy front-flip-into-a-huge-slash attack (I'm sure there's a parsimonious name for it).

This type of system is what keeps the game solid down to the last drop. This not only heightens the action aspect of the game, but also takes away the tedium of basic slashing that many other action/RPG's have unfortunately packed into their repertoire. If you get tired of the basic slash-to-death strategy, you can add it some flying kicks and other special slashes to make the battle seem much more like a real fight. Unlike some action games, the different skills and strategies you perform will not be effective on any enemy you meet. Different enemies bring to the table different styles of whoopin'. As such, you have to devise your own means of dealing with the enemy effectively; this means not losing life or wasting resources. On some enemies, a basic slash followed by a flurry of kicks is enough to win the battle, while others might involve a bit more fancy footwork and various attacks to dispatch.

Unlike other RPG's out there, enemies do not mysteriously leave money when you kill them. They do, however, leave food and weapons. The weapons part I can see, but I find it kind of odd having picked up a fish that used to belong to an ogre. If health isn't a concern, maybe the storage of the food is. Especially when you consider that the ogres don't wear a whole lot of clothes and chances are your prized fish will be sopping with ogre sweat. Let's just hope that fish didn't fall out of his gooch and get on with our lives. As I said before, you need to conserve resources. This helps make the game a bit more challenging. When you gain weapons, they have a durability on them. After that runs out, this either means they have broken or run out of ammo. Thankfully, the weapon you start with has no durability. The same thing pretty much goes with the food, except there is no durability. Once you eat a food item once, you simply can't eat it again. To do such a thing would be a health hazard.

Let us not forget magic, now. No, not that horrid talk show that received some of the worst ratings in history, or the parlor-style pull-a-rabbit-out-of-an-orifice gig. Beyond Oasis's magic system is actually quite unique. It may actually remind some of Brain Lord, except a bit more effective. One thing that the bracelet that our hero finds bestows unto him is the ability to summon different spirits. Through this ability, you can then hit specific button combos to unleash powerful spells to aid you or snuff out your enemies. Each of these spirits can also give you a different ability, which makes the environment that much more interactive. For example, you can summon Ifrit, the fire spirit, and watch as he reenacts a Tyson match on a pillar of ice (sans the ear-biting).

You would almost think that this game would give you more areas to search through since it's a bit like Zelda. The game actually does not have as many hidden nooks and crannies as one would want. There are a few hidden here and there, but aside from those little spots, there's nothing there else to find. You really just have to take what's offered, eat, drink, and be merry. Treasure certainly could have improved the game a few marks by adding some more extra areas and making the world a bit more open to you. Unlike Zelda, our prince lives on a fairly small island, one that isn't inhabited by 10,000 different dungeons. In any case, the environment is sufficient, but still needs more optional extras to keep more involved gamers busy.

While the environment was pretty small, the beauty of the game was not hampered. The graphics are bursting vibrant colors and simply eye-popping detail for its time. Every area of the land seems to carry the perfect mood through the simple use of color and design, which looks somewhat like a splice of Disney's warm expressionism and the campy action of an old school comic book. Even the enemies and the characters seem to carry their own vibrancy and mood. In essence, the graphics do exactly what they are supposed to do: capture the atmosphere, draw you in, and give us the sense that what is displayed before us is authentic.

Usually, I'm pretty harsh on Genesis sounds. I don't necessarily blame the Genesis, because its sound capabilities were a bit dated in comparison to SNES, which I owned an SNES well before I ever got a Genesis. As such, I was spoiled on SNES's sound capabilities. However, in this game, the sounds carry a very solid high score. Like Sonic the Hedgehog, the composer for this knew precisely how to get the most of out a somewhat dated system. Thanks to this, the overall feel of the game was not hampered. Much of the music and sound effects are what you would expect from an RPG or a beat 'em up game: loads of moody music, complete with songs of serenity and despair; and a large array of screams, moans, and roars that play as each enemy is plucked off the mortal coil. The loud slashes and biffs that your enemies take also add vastly onto the action aspect of the game, making all your attacks just sound that much more brutal.

All in all, Treasure and Ancient had their work cut out for them here. They put in the effort and delivered a very solid action/RPG blend. It is an unfortunate shame that many Genesis RPG's were overshadowed by the SNES RPG's, especially this one. Many people still sound somewhat surprised when they find that Genesis actually had a fair amount of RPG's. What really brought this game up was the whole feel of it; the graphical mood colliding with the action-packed sounds and the battle system really make this one killer, old school piece of work. Unfortunately, the two points deducted from the score come from the lack of environment and the greatly linear flow of gameplay. While I didn't expect there to be a lot of side quests, this game still needed more.

This game is definitely enjoyable and gets my wholehearted recommendation along with some of my other favorite RPGs from the 16-bit era. If you are willing to look into Genesis RPG's, be sure you give this one a look. It's only a shame that it didn't garner as much attention as it deserved.

FINAL JUDGMENT
Grahics: Simply amazing, given the age. This one really did age like wine. 10/10
Sounds: Not the greatest, but the composer made the best he could of what was given 8/10
Controls: Very easy to use, and allow for some great stylish combos 8/10
Plot/Storyline: Works very well for this game, but doesn't offer very many twists or turns, save for a couple. A good portion of it is predictable, but this was still fairly fresh for its time. No maidens, no evil dragons and possessed kings... Just a good, straight forward story. 7/10
Gameplay: Addictive battle system, but needs more added to the exploration factor 8/10
All Together: 8/10

Perks
*Outstanding battle system!
*Loads of action
*Superlative graphics
*Great atmosphere

Downers
*Relatively small environment
*Needs more side quests

Recommendations
Any action/RPG fans should give this a try. Also anyone who likes the 2D Zelda games may actually enjoy this.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/30/03