Beyond Oasis

"Streets of Rage and Zelda had a daughter, and she grew up beautiful."
—James, Insert Credit

Beyond Oasis, or The Story of Thor in Japan and Europe, was an action RPG title for the Sega Genesis, something along the lines of The Legend of Zelda. The player takes control of the young prince Ali, who receives the mystical Gold Armlet at the games outset. Soon after returning home to the kingdom of Oasis, Ali finds that strange forces have invaded his homeland, and he sets out on a quest to gain the aid of the four spirits of the armlet to fight against them. The Four Spirits are Dytto, the Water Spirit, Efreet, the Fire Spirit, Shade, the Shadow Spirit, and Bow, the Plant Spirit. With their help, he attempts to challenge the forces of Silver Armlet, who uses his armlet's power to lead the invaders against Oasis. As the story unfolds, the prince discovers more details behind the origin of the armlets, the character of Silver Armlet, and the dark power the silver armlet contains.

A notable game for a number of reasons. For one, while it was quite like Zelda, one interesting difference was breakable items: if you used a weapon or item too much, it would break and become unusable. Since there was no way to repair broken items, the player is forced to try and conserve what he or she is given.

The game was followed up by a prequel: Legend of Oasis for the Sega Saturn, which is more merciful with the weapons, and adds two new spirits, Airl the Wind Spirit and Brass the Sound Spirit. Legend of Oasis focuses on Leon, the apprentice to the wizard Ordan who battles the evil Agito to become the Spirit King.

Tropes used in Beyond Oasis include:
  • Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Underneath the castle, although there's a reason for this; something important is hidden down there.
  • Apathetic Citizens
  • Arrows on Fire: Not only did they give you fire arrows, but they threw in bomb arrows for good measure.
  • Artificial Stupidity: Combined in a weird way, as although the AI controls the Spirits, the player can give them basic guidelines of where to move and what to do based on the direction he or she is facing and what buttons are pressed. The worst example of this is a secret minigame to get a special item.
  • Attack Reflector: Tired of bombs being thrown at you? Arrows too? Wanna have a good laugh? Using any sword besides the fire sword you can bat those suckers right back at him.
  • Authority Equals Asskicking: The Prince Ali, hero of the game, as well as Silver Armlet, who turns out to be his mind-controlled sister.
  • Back From the Brink
  • Back Tracking
  • Behind the Black
  • Bittersweet Ending: Agito is destroyed and Ali becomes The Good King, but his sister Gwyne, who he spent the entire game trying to save, chooses to remain in the spirit world to be the guardian of the Armlets for the rest of her life.
  • Block Puzzle: The myriad switches which must be held open with rock/iron/steel balls. No reason is given for this.
  • Bonus Dungeon: Quite a few.
  • Bottomless Pits: A danger at first, these become less so after acquiring Shade, who will pull you up when you fall.
  • Breakable Weapons: Everything except the Alt. Knife and a handful of infinite-use weapons that are very hard to find.
  • Cherry Tapping: While wiping out enemies with the broadsword is fun, there's a certain satisfaction that can be gained form using the knife. Plus, it has all those nifty special moves that are hard as hell to perform.
  • Cognizant Limbs
  • Dark World: Shadow World, after defeating Evil Eyes.
  • Doomed by Canon: Legend of Oasis has two spirits that didn't appear in Beyond Oasis. Naturally, you find out why by the end of the game.
  • Elemental Embodiment: The Spirits.
  • Emergency Weapon: The Alt. Knife.
  • Giant Enemy Crab: You have to defeat one to claim the first spirit companion.
  • Inexplicable Treasure Chests
  • Infinity+1 Sword: The Infinite Omega Sword. Actually, any of the infinity weapons count as this.
  • Living Shadow: Spirit Shade is depicted as an afterimage of yourself and attacks by extending your shadow and scratching enemies. His Super Mode involves Ali going into a meditative state and Shade separates from him, becoming invincible.
  • Long-Lost Relative: Ali's sister, who turns out to be the antagonist, and turns into a giant hideous monster in the final boss fight.
  • Low-Level Run: Very easy to do, as "level-up" power-ups are hard to come by, and don't do much aside from raising your maximum HP by a few points and allowing you to do extra damage. In fact, the game ranks you better if you do a low level run. It keeps track of a number of things and ranks them at the end: Ali's level is one of those things.
  • Marathon Level: One of the bonus dungeons has 100 floors. Each floor has enemies that need to be slain before you can advance to the next floor. If you can beat all 100 floors in a row, your reward is an unbreakable sword that can set your opponents on fire.
  • Some Dexterity Required: Ali has a few special attacks he can do with the Alt. Knife, including a backflip with the somewhat unintuitive "forward-back-forward-Attack" motion.
  • Summon Magic: The core of the gameplay.
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