The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road | Nintendo DS

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The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road is a single-player Nintendo DS role-playing adventure built around a new version of Dorothy’s journey. A tornado carries Dorothy and Toto away from Kansas, and a voice guides them toward the castle at the end of the Yellow Brick Road. The Scarecrow, Lion, and Tin Man join the quest along the way. When the group reaches the wizard, the promise of a trip home becomes tied to defeating four witches who have taken control of the magical land.

The touchscreen controls the entire game, including movement and menu choices. Rather than using the directional pad to walk, you move Dorothy through a virtual trackball on the lower screen. Slow stylus swipes produce slower movement; faster swipes make her run. That gives travel a distinctive physical rhythm as you adjust your gestures along the road. The companions also do not simply join upon meeting Dorothy: you first fight them before they become party members. Those encounters introduce combat while building the group that will tackle the later quest.

Battles use menus for attacks, items, and spells, with enemies shown from a first-person battle viewpoint. A Suggestions system automatically assigns proposed actions, including choices based on an opponent’s weakness. You can change those suggestions before committing, but the feature cannot be switched off. It also prioritizes healing, which may differ from the attack you intended to make. Checking the proposed plan is therefore part of the routine: decide which actions fit the situation, replace an unwanted suggestion, and then let the round play out.

The Ratio system governs who acts in a round. Dorothy and Strawman each cost one point, Lion costs two, and Tin Man costs three, with four points to allocate in total. You can select a character more than once. Dorothy plus Tin Man uses all four points, while Lion can take two actions or Strawman can take four. Members you leave out do not receive damage that round. The decision combines offense and protection: a powerful participant consumes more of the budget, while repeated lower-cost actions offer another way to use it.

Enemy types also influence your choice of attacker. Dorothy is effective against ghosts, and Tin Man is effective against plants, so the strongest-looking party member is not automatically the most useful choice for every target. Spells require a separate effort from ordinary level growth: find Father Dragons on the roads and defeat them in training battles to obtain magical powers. Seeking them out adds another reason to revisit an area. Because commands are chosen ahead of the round, you must also anticipate healing needs rather than changing every action immediately after an unexpected hit.

Exploration shows Dorothy moving through three-dimensional environments; the first-person presentation belongs to battles. The Emerald Palace serves as the central hub, with a shop, healing, and the regular save point. From there you enter new areas or return to previous ones, following roads toward a warp point or a boss. This gives outings a clear structure: prepare at the palace, travel through an area, and return to recover or record progress. There is also a quick-save option under Quit Game, distinct from returning to the hub to save.

Monsters are visible on the field, and contact with one starts a battle. That lets you see an encounter coming rather than treating every stretch of walking as an unseen random trigger. Forks in the road have signs you can mark to remember which direction leads to a dead end or a useful destination. The environments are largely linear, but their branches and repeated visits make those notes valuable. Learning where a path goes and judging whether to approach a visible enemy become part of moving through the world.

The setting uses colorful roads, streams, flowers, and simple three-dimensional character models, with softer artwork for story scenes. Music accompanies both the environments and the narrative, giving the journey a storybook atmosphere. The road also includes straightforward puzzles involving gates, torches, switches, and fountains. Solving one can require visiting a switch and then retracing the route to the newly opened way. This makes remembering an area's layout useful beyond finding monsters or reaching the next destination, particularly when a path has to be revisited after a change.

The overall pace alternates between touchscreen travel and planned rounds of combat. You choose the participants and their commands before the round unfolds, so a change in the party’s condition can leave you waiting until the next round to adjust. Between fights, progress often means following a road, opening a route, and returning along part of it. That pattern suits a methodical approach: check the proposed battle plan, think about who should participate, and keep track of the paths you have already explored instead of rushing every decision.

The ESRB rates this Nintendo DS release E for Everyone with Mild Fantasy Violence. Its opponents include ghosts, carnivorous plants, and witches, and attacks produce flashes and damage text rather than requiring direct action-game aiming. You guide the familiar Oz characters through that fantasy conflict by choosing from combat menus. The distinctive decisions come from the party’s action costs, enemy affinities, and the plan you confirm for the round. Alongside the stylus-driven movement, those systems give the adventure its own identity within the DS role-playing library.