NintendoComplete | The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road (DS) Playthrough [1 of 2] @NintendoComplete | Uploaded 3 months ago | Updated 15 hours ago
A playthrough of Xseed Games' 2009 role-playing game for the Nintendo DS, The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road.
This video shows the first half of the game, covering the Spring and Summer areas. Part two, covering Autumn and Winter, can be found here: youtu.be/VLh5ueggZgs
The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road, known in Japan as Riz-Zoawd (リゾード, "Rizoodo"), is a Japanese-style role-playing game adaptation of the American novel "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" by L. Frank Baum, and it was the only DS game to be created by Media Vision, the company behind Wild Guns and the later entries in Sega's Valkyria Chronicles series.
Beyond the Yellow Brick Road is an entry-level RPG designed to appeal to genre newbies, much like Square's Final Fantasy Mystic Quest on the Super Nintendo (youtu.be/OvDTBDEJEQo).The game follows Dorothy traipsing her way through Oz trying to find her way back home to Kansas. With the help of Tin Man, Strawman, and Lion, she has to travel to four lands based on the seasons in search of the magical eggs that the wizard has asked for.
The general flow of gameplay is the same as you'll find in most JRPGs: you scour the "dungeons," fighting enemies and looking for treasure chests as you build yourself up in preparation for the boss battles while occasionally retreating to the castle to buy supplies and upgrade your equipment.
There are, however, a couple of notable ways in which it differs from the norm. The battles use a ratio system (like Capcom vs. SNK!) that provides you four points at the beginning of each turn to be spent on battle actions. Anything Dorothy or Straw Man does consumes one point, the Lion takes two, and Tinman takes three. The characters all have elemental affinities that make them strong against specific enemy types, and only the active characters in any given turn can take damage from enemy attacks, so there's a fair amount of strategy involved. The game provides a recommended course of action at the beginning of each turn, but you're usually better off ignoring it and doing your own thing.
The touchscreen-based control scheme is quite novel, too. You move Dorothy around with a virtual trackball, and though it sounds gimmicky, it works well and is a lot more fun than merely holding the up button to move forward.
The soundtrack is pretty nice, too, but the graphics steal the show. The DS was not renowned for its ability to crunch polygons, but Beyond the Yellow Brick Road is an absolutely beautiful game. The level of detail in the character models and the environments is second-to-none - not even Nintendo or Square managed this level of fidelity on this hardware - and everything moves at a smooth 30 frames per second. Screen resolution aside, it is a fair step up from anything you'd see running on the Playstation or Nintendo 64.
As a game, The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road is a fun and easy RPG romp that doesn't do anything revolutionary, but as a technical showpiece for the Nintendo DS? Wow.
_____________
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
A playthrough of Xseed Games' 2009 role-playing game for the Nintendo DS, The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road.
This video shows the first half of the game, covering the Spring and Summer areas. Part two, covering Autumn and Winter, can be found here: youtu.be/VLh5ueggZgs
The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road, known in Japan as Riz-Zoawd (リゾード, "Rizoodo"), is a Japanese-style role-playing game adaptation of the American novel "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" by L. Frank Baum, and it was the only DS game to be created by Media Vision, the company behind Wild Guns and the later entries in Sega's Valkyria Chronicles series.
Beyond the Yellow Brick Road is an entry-level RPG designed to appeal to genre newbies, much like Square's Final Fantasy Mystic Quest on the Super Nintendo (youtu.be/OvDTBDEJEQo).The game follows Dorothy traipsing her way through Oz trying to find her way back home to Kansas. With the help of Tin Man, Strawman, and Lion, she has to travel to four lands based on the seasons in search of the magical eggs that the wizard has asked for.
The general flow of gameplay is the same as you'll find in most JRPGs: you scour the "dungeons," fighting enemies and looking for treasure chests as you build yourself up in preparation for the boss battles while occasionally retreating to the castle to buy supplies and upgrade your equipment.
There are, however, a couple of notable ways in which it differs from the norm. The battles use a ratio system (like Capcom vs. SNK!) that provides you four points at the beginning of each turn to be spent on battle actions. Anything Dorothy or Straw Man does consumes one point, the Lion takes two, and Tinman takes three. The characters all have elemental affinities that make them strong against specific enemy types, and only the active characters in any given turn can take damage from enemy attacks, so there's a fair amount of strategy involved. The game provides a recommended course of action at the beginning of each turn, but you're usually better off ignoring it and doing your own thing.
The touchscreen-based control scheme is quite novel, too. You move Dorothy around with a virtual trackball, and though it sounds gimmicky, it works well and is a lot more fun than merely holding the up button to move forward.
The soundtrack is pretty nice, too, but the graphics steal the show. The DS was not renowned for its ability to crunch polygons, but Beyond the Yellow Brick Road is an absolutely beautiful game. The level of detail in the character models and the environments is second-to-none - not even Nintendo or Square managed this level of fidelity on this hardware - and everything moves at a smooth 30 frames per second. Screen resolution aside, it is a fair step up from anything you'd see running on the Playstation or Nintendo 64.
As a game, The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road is a fun and easy RPG romp that doesn't do anything revolutionary, but as a technical showpiece for the Nintendo DS? Wow.
_____________
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
![The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road (DS) Playthrough [1 of 2]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Dgib_OW7g3w/hqdefault.jpg "The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road (DS) Playthrough [1 of 2]
A playthrough of Xseed Games 2009 role-playing game for the Nintendo DS, The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road.
This video shows the first half of the game, covering the Spring and Summer areas. Part two, covering Autumn and Winter, can be found here: https://youtu.be/VLh5ueggZgs
The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road, known in Japan as Riz-Zoawd (リゾード, Rizoodo), is a Japanese-style role-playing game adaptation of the American novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, and it was the only DS game to be created by Media Vision, the company behind Wild Guns and the later entries in Segas Valkyria Chronicles series.
Beyond the Yellow Brick Road is an entry-level RPG designed to appeal to genre newbies, much like Squares Final Fantasy Mystic Quest on the Super Nintendo (https://youtu.be/OvDTBDEJEQo).The game follows Dorothy traipsing her way through Oz trying to find her way back home to Kansas. With the help of Tin Man, Strawman, and Lion, she has to travel to four lands based on the seasons in search of the magical eggs that the wizard has asked for.
The general flow of gameplay is the same as youll find in most JRPGs: you scour the dungeons, fighting enemies and looking for treasure chests as you build yourself up in preparation for the boss battles while occasionally retreating to the castle to buy supplies and upgrade your equipment.
There are, however, a couple of notable ways in which it differs from the norm. The battles use a ratio system (like Capcom vs. SNK!) that provides you four points at the beginning of each turn to be spent on battle actions. Anything Dorothy or Straw Man does consumes one point, the Lion takes two, and Tinman takes three. The characters all have elemental affinities that make them strong against specific enemy types, and only the active characters in any given turn can take damage from enemy attacks, so theres a fair amount of strategy involved. The game provides a recommended course of action at the beginning of each turn, but youre usually better off ignoring it and doing your own thing.
The touchscreen-based control scheme is quite novel, too. You move Dorothy around with a virtual trackball, and though it sounds gimmicky, it works well and is a lot more fun than merely holding the up button to move forward.
The soundtrack is pretty nice, too, but the graphics steal the show. The DS was not renowned for its ability to crunch polygons, but Beyond the Yellow Brick Road is an absolutely beautiful game. The level of detail in the character models and the environments is second-to-none - not even Nintendo or Square managed this level of fidelity on this hardware - and everything moves at a smooth 30 frames per second. Screen resolution aside, it is a fair step up from anything youd see running on the Playstation or Nintendo 64.
As a game, The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road is a fun and easy RPG romp that doesnt do anything revolutionary, but as a technical showpiece for the Nintendo DS? Wow.
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com/) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!")
![Skies of Arcadia Legends (GameCube) Playthrough [1 of 4]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/GmEUHvLivxs/hqdefault.jpg "Skies of Arcadia Legends (GameCube) Playthrough [1 of 4]
A playthrough of Segas 2003 role-playing game for the Nintendo GameCube, Skies of Arcadia Legends.
This video is the first part of a four-part playthrough, showing through the end of the Ixataka segment of the story.
Links to the other parts:
Part 2: https://youtu.be/xswwHkbCYLo
Part 3: https://youtu.be/dDeKtt1U91M
Part 4: https://youtu.be/UKHTPRVIzFA
Skies of Arcadia was one of the last major hurrahs for the short-lived Sega Dreamcast when it released in November of 2000, a mere five months before the machine was officially discontinued in North America. It wasnt a bestseller, but those that played it - myself included - tend to count it among the very best that the Dreamcast had to offer. It got a second chance when Sega brought a directors cut to a new audience via the Nintendo GameCube a few years later, where it unfortunately underperformed once again. Its lackluster sales were never a reflection of the quality of the game, though. Skies of Arcadias critical reviews and its devoted fan base are testaments to that.
Its a classical turn-based JRPG that takes heavy inspiration from the likes of Jules Verne, Dragon Quest, and Laputa. You play as Vyse, a young air pirate and a member of the Blue Rogues, a Robin Hood-style band of friendly thieves who live in the skies of Arcadia. The story begins as Vyse and his friend, Aika, lead a raid on a Valuan imperial cruiser where they find and rescue a kidnapped girl, the mysterious Fina. Despite knowing little about her, Vyse and Aika vow to protect Fina from her pursuers as she attempts to complete her secret mission, thus kicking off a massive swashbuckling adventure with a middle finger aimed squarely at the man. They are pirates, after all.
And what an adventure it turns out to be! Few games have ever so magically captured the pioneering spirit of the Age of Discovery. As you forge your way across vast expanses of uncharted sky, youll stumble upon relics of a time that predates recorded history, make contact with cultures that were thought to exist only in fairy tales, take part in large-scale airship battles, and even explore the boundaries of time and space.
The ideas driving the game arent all original, but the way theyre handled in Skies of Arcadia makes them feel fresh and exciting, and the twenty-three years that have passed since its original release havent dulled that shine in the slightest. The eminently likable cast of heroes, the incredible attention paid to world building and pacing, and the twists and turns of the plot all click together in a way thats sure to hook anyones imagination given the chance.
Overworks, the internal Sega team responsible for the game, was comprised of some of the biggest talents in the RPG business, including several members who had previously worked on the Phantasy Star (https://youtu.be/BHez3iJePI4) series and Panzer Dragoon Saga (https://youtu.be/vjGNgkZgyQA), and the experience, skill, and passion these folks poured into the project clear is from the get go.
The presentation is impressive in its scope and production values. Skies of Arcadia may have come out the same year as Final Fantasy IX and Legend of Dragoon did on the PlayStation, but it blew by both by taking full advantage of the Dreamcasts generational leap in hardware. Each environment is meticulously detailed, and since the entire game is rendered in real-time, you can scrutinize and appreciate all the little flourishes from any angle you like. The characters expressive faces and body language go a long way in selling their unique personalities, and the enemies - especially the bosses - stand out for the creativity they display. The soundtrack is also fantastic throughout, going so far as to include battle themes that dynamically change to reflect how well youre doing.
The battle system is a bit slow and fights can feel overly repetitive at times, but it generally plays quite well, and the Dreamcast versions biggest problems - the ludicrous encounter rate and irritating load times - were fixed for the GameCube port. Legends comes packed with a lot extras, including new discoveries, characters, and the DC versions DLC content.
Legends would be the perfect version of Skies of Arcadia if not for its terrible sound quality (the difference between the DC and GC versions is stark, especially in the battle themes) and fuzzier visuals (the DC version ran at 640x480 over VGA while the GC one only supported 480i over composite or component).
But in light of everything is gets right, Skies of Arcadias missteps are easy to ignore, and the experience it offers still hits just as hard now as it ever did. If you enjoy JRPGs, this classic is a must-play.
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com/) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!")
