Join Leon in his journey to banish Agito, gain control of the Silver Amulet, and become the next Spirit King of Oasis. Unbelievable hand drawn animation! More than nine special moves. Use scrolls and Spirits to power up your arsenal. Use the forces of six angry spirits to destroy the undead forces of Agito! The action-packed prequel to Beyond Oasis!
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Legend of Oasis is an interesting sequel. It was apparently turned around very quickly after Beyond Oasis on the Genesis, which explains the game's major shortcoming: the overworld is very, very small. It's essentially just a hub to branch off to the various shrines, which are the main areas of play.
Tiny overworld aside, I love this game. It takes all the ideas that worked so well in Beyond Oasis and expands on them. The combat and weapon systems are refined and improved, with a better and deeper combo system (and permanent weapons, thank goodness). The spirits have even more uses, and with six of them the way we use them to progress in the shrines is even more complex. The hand drawn art is gorgeous, with fluid animation and vivid use of colors. Boss battles are highlights. There's a TON of secrets and large secret areas to find. And there's a lot of off-kilter humor throughout, such as the pitifully moaning zombies.
If the overworld had been fully developed and the controls refined just a touch more - less clunky than Beyond Oasis, but still not perfect - this would be a masterpiece. Still, it's one of my favorite Saturn games, and a really unique take on the top-down action--RPG. There's nothing else that's quite like this unfortunately truncated series.
Tiny overworld aside, I love this game. It takes all the ideas that worked so well in Beyond Oasis and expands on them. The combat and weapon systems are refined and improved, with a better and deeper combo system (and permanent weapons, thank goodness). The spirits have even more uses, and with six of them the way we use them to progress in the shrines is even more complex. The hand drawn art is gorgeous, with fluid animation and vivid use of colors. Boss battles are highlights. There's a TON of secrets and large secret areas to find. And there's a lot of off-kilter humor throughout, such as the pitifully moaning zombies.
If the overworld had been fully developed and the controls refined just a touch more - less clunky than Beyond Oasis, but still not perfect - this would be a masterpiece. Still, it's one of my favorite Saturn games, and a really unique take on the top-down action--RPG. There's nothing else that's quite like this unfortunately truncated series.
This has a lot of cool ideas that still haven’t been fully explored in Zelda-likes. You get six spirits in the game that assist with puzzles, traversal, and combat, and six spells for your weapons that do the same, each spell associated with a spirit
You summon spirits by interacting with their element which is really cool and adds a fun puzzle layer (fire for fire spirit, bush for earth spirit, etc)
The abilities are pretty unhinged too, ranging from ‘the shadow spirit lets you pull levers’ which makes no sense to ‘you can basically just fly’ with the wind spirit which is really cool
The game is super unpolished but there’s a plus to that since it lets even amateurs like me do sequence breaks. You can use bombs to blast yourself up to platforms you shouldn’t be able to reach yet
And there’s lots of little neat touches and ‘i wonder if i can try this…wow it works’ moments which is really cool for a Zelda-like. Unfortunately, the combat is fucking abysmal and the controls suck so it’s hard to wholly recommend
And there’s no map! And it does the psycho thing of randomly forcing you to talk to same NPCs multiple times over the course of the game, usually with no clear indication you need to go back and talk to them to progress.
but one last positive, the optional collectible treasures are really good; gems that power up your spirits. I love getting stuff like that more than pieces of heart or money, makes exploration feel more rewarding
You summon spirits by interacting with their element which is really cool and adds a fun puzzle layer (fire for fire spirit, bush for earth spirit, etc)
The abilities are pretty unhinged too, ranging from ‘the shadow spirit lets you pull levers’ which makes no sense to ‘you can basically just fly’ with the wind spirit which is really cool
The game is super unpolished but there’s a plus to that since it lets even amateurs like me do sequence breaks. You can use bombs to blast yourself up to platforms you shouldn’t be able to reach yet
And there’s lots of little neat touches and ‘i wonder if i can try this…wow it works’ moments which is really cool for a Zelda-like. Unfortunately, the combat is fucking abysmal and the controls suck so it’s hard to wholly recommend
And there’s no map! And it does the psycho thing of randomly forcing you to talk to same NPCs multiple times over the course of the game, usually with no clear indication you need to go back and talk to them to progress.
but one last positive, the optional collectible treasures are really good; gems that power up your spirits. I love getting stuff like that more than pieces of heart or money, makes exploration feel more rewarding
I had this when the Saturn came out but I never completed it and I think I know why. Some or the dungeons and puzzles are very, very obtuse. After a couple of hours of aimless wandering I had to bite the bullet and consult a guide. It's a nice looking 2d action rpg but there isn't much story going on. What does shine is the combat and magic system. You inherit different elemental spirits as you progress and their abilities are really fun to use and solve puzzles with. Combat wise each weapon has a move set and special attacks which are quite advanced for the time and still feel great to use now. It's worth a look as there isn't much like this on the Saturn.