When the global pandemic derailed production of the US version of the Turbografx 16 Mini, with it went my dream of finally playing Ys Book 1 & 2 for a good retro RPG challenge. Still wanting to scratch that itch, I turned to my Sega Genesis Mini and choose Beyond Oasis, an action RPG with great graphics and cool design elements.
Yesterday, I beat the game and decided to revive the type of posts here where I would write fresh impressions of it right after the credits roll. Beyond Oasis certainly made a good impression with its colorful graphics, mildly challenging combat and puzzles, and tight controls.
In addition, I realized that while I had a Sega Genesis back in the day, I had never beaten a single title I had for it - not even Ecco the Dolphin. That’s changed now, thanks to Beyond Oasis.
The nitty gritty of this action adventure are the 4 elemental companions you learn to summon throughout the game. While water, fire, and shadow are pretty common elemental archetypes, the fourth one was plant, which was weird but cool in its execution. Solving puzzles with the unique abilities of each elemental was very fun and satisfying, and balanced well with the hack and slash combat and the game’s great looking 2D sprites.
It should be noted that I took full advantage of the Sega Genesis Mini’s “save anywhere” ability. The game itself did not allow for saving within dungeon areas, but I was able to utilize that tool to save myself from repeated dungeon runs just to get to the boss fight again. On those boss fights they did a spectacular job, creating bosses that require some trial and error to figure out what works.
I would certainly recommend Beyond Oasis to my 1994 self, and tell him to appreciate the Sega Genesis more, but honestly that guy had just been playing Doom on his Atari Jaguar and would probably have none of it.
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