The Wizard of Oz: Beyond The Yellow Brick Road certainly isn't the first JRPG for Nintendo DS, but it's one of the most unique we're likely to ever see. Reinventing the Land of Oz using with its own visual and narrative language, the game takes the familiar story of Dorothy's first voyage to Oz and turns into something very new, and very different. For starters, you won't have to wait too long to meet the Oz himself, the Lion isn't so cowardly, and two other witches are added into the mix. As someone that is somewhat familiar with some of Oz outside of the 1939 film classic, I was impressed with how much original content, characters, story, and settings that have been created here and how well they lends themselves to not just the game's RPG gameplay, but the extended universe of Oz.

The game controls entirely with the stylus, having players kind of flick Dorothy around with a virtual trackball on the DS touch screen and tapping buttons to select battle options. For the most part this works out well since the title's interfaces are clean and direct, but it can be a little tiring when navigating longer "dungeons" featured in the game. The battle system itself mainly consists of matching the enemies approaching you with a matching party member's strengths (Dorothy combats ghosts/spirits, Scarecrow can fight fish/sea creatures well, etc.). To make this as simple as possible, the developers wisely choose to color code this system, allowing players to quickly arrange their attacks after just a few rounds into the game.

Thankfully every part of this system (and every other system in the game) is concisely detailed for the player in-game, eliminating the need to constantly refer back to an instruction booklet or other information source. The localization keeps the instructions informative, but light hearted. Beginners will be able to figure out the next steps easily, and advanced players won't be overburdened with endless tutorial text.

The rest of the game seems to follow this trend of providing everything that someone on their first RPG adventure would need to know, without boring genre veterans. There are even a few options (that can be turned off) that automate some battle actions. For example, if Scarecrow gets poisoned in battle, the next turn will automatically line up a curing potion for him. It's little things like this that do a tremendous job of helping beginners find their way while letting advanced players do it themselves.

The overall result of the game is something that is likely to entertain anyone who's intereste is piqued at the thought of an anime styled Oz. It's easy to recommend this title to gamers that enjoy RPGs, but I think it is more significant that I can safely recommend this title to those who have never played through a RPG before. Beyond The Yellow Brick Road is a carefully constructed game, and one that was developed with the full range of the DS audience in mind.

8 out of 10