The Legend of Oasis: Wayback Wednesday Vol. 34, Part 2

I played Beyond Oasis about 15 years ago while going through SNES and Genesis games I had missed growing up. It was fun but not too memorable, mostly because it was too short (about 5 hours) to make any lasting impression. I remember it had excellent graphics for the time; character sprites, such as the protagonist Prince Ali, were larger than most other RPGs, and there were huge bosses to beat up, but that’s about it. It did nothing egregious, but faded into the background as other, more prominent games took center stage in my memory. Legend of Oasis, for the Sega Saturn, is a sequel I didn’t know existed until 2023, and after beating it, this game is very much the same: Nothing awful, but nothing that stood out.

Taking place long before the events in Beyond Oasis, Leon is tasked with tracking down the six elemental spirits: Dytto the water spirit, Efreet the fire spirit, Bawu the spirit of the earth, Brass the spirit of sound, Shade the spirit of darkness, and Airl the spirit of air, so he may become the spirit king of Oasis. Agito, the antagonist, will stop at nothing to prevent Leon from reaching his goal to destroy Oasis. Honestly, this is a game, to a large extent, more focused on action and exploration than in-depth storytelling.

The world of Oasis is one large maze with many rooms and areas connected with other distant rooms and areas via a switch, lamp, pit, or other obstacles. If memory isn’t your strong suit, this could be tough, as there’s a lot of returning to previous locations to look for specific points of interest. It is one of those cases of seeing tons of blocked-off areas early on that become accessible hours later as you gain new spirits.

Spirits function as the main component that helps Leon see more of the world. Dungeons are long and winding, and require a keen eye to advance. They are well crafted in the sense that it would be very difficult to go into this game blind, but surprisingly there isn’t a lot of information on this game, so you are left mainly to your own devices and intuition. I’ve gone through games like Lufia 2 (SNES) blind, even solving all of the millennial puzzles in Wild Arms 3 (PlayStation 2) on my own, and I found trying to get through this without help difficult; it was one of the rare times I had to resort to a video walkthrough.

I struggle with the 1990s isometric style presentation, like in this game or Landstalker (Genesis). Trying to fully grasp depth and, at times, jumps that seem plausible sends me falling down a pit, sometimes leading to god knows where. Other times, something that might look like a leap of faith is more of a simple hop. Kudos to those who can gracefully run around this game seamlessly because, with Leon under my control, he must look more like Barney Gumble after a long weekend out.

It’s not that the controls are bad; they are decent, they just feel stiff at times. Facing right as I attack, I might push down and attack at the same time to focus on a new enemy, and Leon continues attacking right. I have to make sure he is facing down with a deliberate button press to change his direction and then attack facing down. Other times, the jumping mechanics, especially when trying to run and make several jumps on multiple small platforms, don’t quite feel right. Combo attacks, like in fighting games using the D-pad and attack button, are fairly fluid and can deal tons of damage.

As challenging as navigation is, the bosses go down shockingly easily. Some of the late-game enemies are more threatening, especially the invisible enemies who gang up on Leon. Still, the enemy sprites are impressive, and more clearly animated than some games that came out years later. The world is interesting to explore with varied color palettes throughout.

The music adds to the allure of Oasis. It is ambient, functioning more as background music. Just the same, there is an understated beauty, and every track was pleasant, with a slight uptick in intensity for the bosses.

If only the spirits were a little easier to control. Pressing A once, twice in quick succession, or holding A for a second and releasing allows each spirit to do different things. This ranges from putting out flames, opening up cracks in the ground, creating crystal-destroying soundwaves, giving electricity, healing, pulling switches, attacking otherwise immovable thorns, and offering Leon a ride. Plus, each spirit has at least one strong attack.

Later on, pushing X allows each spirit to give Leon’s sword, dagger, bow, or staff elemental properties, and each weapon can do different things with each element, offering a wide variety of actions. Sometimes the specific spirit or element needed to progress in a dungeon is far from the obstacle, making for burdensome backtracking. For example, the bush needed to summon Bawa to eat the large cannonball might be a lengthy, twisting path away. Switching between the spirits via a menu or button presses would have been so much easier without sacrificing the challenge. Instead, you need to find objects related to their element, seemingly always in large supply when you don’t need it, oddly missing when you are desperate for it. Once found, shoot a beam with the armlet to get that specific spirit.

There are no levels in Legend of Oasis. Instead, stat gains are up to each player. Avoid getting hit; don’t heal (often), and your rank, and thus HP, will be low throughout the game. Want more HP? Camp out near a healing area, continue to get hit by enemies, and go back to heal; rinse and repeat. Every 100 HP healed equals an increase in rank by 1, which means HP increases by 2. That is how I understood it, at least.

The magic meter seems to go up similarly: use magic, go to a magic healing circle, and watch the meter slowly expand. Or perhaps finding elemental scrolls, which power up each element, increases the meter; I could not tell. But there are plenty of scrolls to find, well hidden and scattered throughout Oasis. I’d reckon close to 50 at least. Having a spirit summoned slowly depletes the magic meter. This can get annoying at times, as once the meter reaches 0, the spirit goes away. Usually, the HP and magic circles are spaced at just the right points, as long as you don’t get lost. But that is unlikely, so backtracking to find ways to heal MP is a frequent occurrence.

Legend of Oasis is a short game and relic from the past. It might not be worth the effort to track down, but if the opportunity arises, it’s worthwhile. Get past the clunky controls, and this is a thinking person’s action RPG with colorful graphics. If you are skilled at recollecting the finer details, Legend of Oasis is the perfect fit. Just don’t expect anything groundbreaking.

Wayback Wednesday Volume 1: Final Fantasy 7 and Chrono Trigger.

Wayback Wednesday Volume 2: Super Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.

Wayback Wednesday Volume 3: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete

Wayback Wednesday Volume 4: Secret of Mana and Wild Arms

Wayback Wednesday Volume 5: Illusion of Gaia and Grandia

Wayback Wednesday Volume 6: Breath of Fire 3 and X-Men Legends

Wayback Wednesday Volume 7: Star Ocean: The Second Story and Super Mario RPG

Wayback Wednesday Volume 8: Demon's Crest and Dragon Quest VI

Wayback Wednesday Volume 9: Suikoden I and Jeanne d'Arc

Wayback Wednesday Volume 10: Ranking the first 6 Final Fantasy games

Wayback Wednesday Volume 11: Earthbound and Valkyrie Profile

Wayback Wednesday Volume 12: Legend of Legaia and Secret of Evermore