Beyond Oasis / The Story of Thor (Genesis/Mega Drive) - Replay

Super Adventures in Gaming Replay - Game 4

Beyond Oasis, aka The Story of Thor. I last played this almost exactly a year ago, and I still think that the title screen looks like it's from a Windows 3.1 game.

It's not often that I see the game's composer get the star credit on a title screen, but Yuzo Koshiro also runs the company that developed the game, so I suppose he can put what he likes on his title screens.

It's got the classic (yet surprisingly rare) 'SAY-GAH' jingle over the Sega logo, which would earn it a 10 point nostalgia bonus straight away if I actually gave games a score. Here's a useless fact for you, the Sega jingle actually predates this game by at least 10 years. It was used in adverts as early as 1984 for the Sega SG-1000 Mark II: youtube link.

And this is how the game begins. A nicely animated (and totally skippable) intro cutscene.

In my experience, if treasure starts talking to you, it's probably best to do the opposite of what it says.

Nice work kid, you listened to the sinister voice and now your arm's flashing.

Well at least now there's disembodied face to go with the disembodied voice.

Apparently Ali's been chosen to be a video game protagonist. It must have been a difficult choice, as there was literally one candidate in the cave to pick from. But Ali beat the odds, and emerged as the lucky winner of this particular destiny.

Wow, I guess that armlet was the one thing keeping that island from sinking. I hope he grabbed the rest of that treasure while he was there, or else he's gonna need scuba gear to find it again.

Oh damn, I just noticed... his head's hanging off. That whole block of art has been shifted one pixel up and left from his body. Poor guy.

Ali arrives at back town to find that it's exceptionally well pixelled. I know I said this all last time, but this is a really nice looking game. It's just a shame he has no diagonal walking animations.

It doesn't take long for some enemies to come wandering in to cause trouble, but fortunately Ali just happened to be carrying a dagger. So of course he kicks all his enemies to death.

Not that I'm complaining, I love his combo attacks. These kicks really send enemies flying. I could also hold the button down to swipe them, or jump to do a flying kick. I've got plenty of combat options. It's like I'm playing Streets of Rage on the streets of... wherever Zelda is set. Hyrule.

With the battle over, Ali goes inside to visit his sensei (and raid his chest for the precious cheese within).

Hey, apparently Ali's royalty! 'Prince Ali'... why does that sound familiar?

Oh right, he was Aladdin's alias in... 'Aladdin'. Wow, they even share the same taste in clothes.

It seems these enemies are everywhere these days. I can't even take a walk down to the castle without getting ambushed.

There doesn't actually seem to be much point in fighting these guys. Sometimes they'll drop some food, but I don't seem to be getting any experience points from it.


SOON, INSIDE THE CASTLE.

It seems I've found the royal treasure chest room, with four chests on display. I didn't see any 'do not touch' signs, so I opened them all up and found a fish... plus a couple of new weapons.

I can understand the bow having only 5 shots, but weirdly the sword I picked up has limited ammo too. It sort of takes all the joy out of getting new gear, especially as I know I'll end up never using the thing just in case I need it later.


SOME WANDERING LATER.

Damn, I thought I'd be lost in this building forever. The place isn't event that big, they just made me waste time travelling around in a circle and across a bridge to get here.

The King gives me a key and tells me to go find the Water Shrine, wherever that is. Also apparently there's some books in the next room I should read. 

Uh...


A SHORT SPRINT LATER.

I forgot if the King actually gave me directions to the... whatever it is I'm supposed to be visiting. I couldn't find any way to bring up journal, but fortunately I did find the map button! This will do perfectly.


AND SO OUR HERO RACES BACK EAST.

Hey, I can double tap a direction to run. Sorry guys, but I can't be arsed fighting you any more.

Shame he runs so close to the edge of the screen. The screen should scroll to show me more when I'm moving faster, not less.

Pointless somersault spinning sword slash! Even if I never use this move again it's nice to know it's there.

That bridge is blocked by a chunk of ice that's impervious to all my weapons. Ali's far too honourable to just walk around it, and there's no way he's going to get his feet wet. So I'm going to have to go another direction.

At last, I've entered the Water Shrine.

I thought this game seemed a little similar to the Zelda games before, but now that I'm going through a blue dungeon collecting keys I'm getting full on deja-vu.


A FEW ROOMS FULL OF ENEMIES LATER.

Wow, for a second there I though that thing was going to jump up and attack me.

Oh shit, it's got me, it's got me!

I tried whipping out my crossbow on it, but I don't seem to be hitting the weak point.

In the end I got bored of trying to figure it out, ran right up to its face. and just kept hamming the attack button until it went down. It cost me a decent amount of health, but fortunately I still had that cheese I stole from my teacher earlier. The stuff's as good as any health potion.

You want me to do WHAT?

Eventually I pressed the right button to get the door open, and was rewarded with... a fairy sidekick!

With one tap of the magic button, she fires off a bubble of water. Two taps heals me slightly, and holding the button unleashes a whirlwind of water that spins around the screen, hitting anyone too slow to dodge it.


EVENTUALLY, BACK AT THE CASTLE.

I'm sure there must be a quicker way to get to the throne room.

I kinda wasted all my magic along the way, and the fairy abandoned me. No more healing for me. On the plus side though, my magic started recharging after she left, so the annoying 'low magic warning' beeping has stopped.


SOON.

The boss sent me right back out to this waterfall to find another shrine. I'm seeing how the game might be falling into a pattern here.

I probably would have been stuck here for while, but fortunately I fired off my light ball at the waterfall just for the hell of it, and it brought my fairy back. And she knows how to open the secret waterfall door!


TWO MINUTES LATER.

Well I already used up all my magic, somehow. But I still have my trusty foot to take care of these snakes. And I think I may have just spotted a health upgrade.

Hell yeah! Look at that, I just boosted my max H.P from 200 to 202!

Well to be honest I was hoping for a little more, but I'll take what I can get.

Ah, I just push the block to press the switch, and then use my magic light ball on the steam to summon the water fairy to shoot a bubble at the flames blocking the door. It seems I can summon a spirit I've unlocked by simple shooting my light ball into something of the appropriate element.

I think I'm starting to get the hang of this now.


AND THEN...

Son of a bitch, it's a boss. And he's kicking my ass!

Once it's spat out three fire creatures it's happy enough to go off and leave it to them to deal with me. He won't show his ugly glowing face again until I manage kill one of them. And I don't know how to kill them!

I tried firing my light ball at the water to summon the fairy, so she could use her bubble attack on the flames, like I did at the door. And that ended up doing absolutely nothing. She fires from wherever she's hovering at, not where I am, so I can't tell if her attacks are useless or if they're just way off target.

In the end I just ran up and kicked one of the fire creatures to death. I was expecting to bounce off with my foot on fire, but nope. Foot beats fire monster.

But the head only sticks around just long enough to spit another fire creature at me, before disappearing off again. This is going to take forever.

Oh wow, now his hands have joined in? That really isn't helping.

Well I'm pretty much out of healing items now. So that's it, I'm screwed.

Unless... I fill up my magic, summon the fairy, and use her to heal me! Sure it'll only be a tiny amount each time, but it's better than nothing.

Well thanks for finally sprinkling your healing magic on Ali's burning corpse, that's a big help.

There's no lives or continues, but there doesn't have to be because I can save the game anywhere outside of buildings. But yeah I think I've seen enough of that boss for now.


The first time around, I stopped playing the game because "if I get caught up playing this, I won't get through any other games", which makes this the first game on the site I actually wanted to keep playing. In fact, I even made up a little badge to award to the game, because I felt like it deserved something to tell it apart from the crap I'd played earlier.

And after playing it a bit more, I still think it's good. It's nothing amazing, but it seems like a quality Zelda 'em up action-adventure game with an emphasis on putting boot to face.