XSEED Will Be Localizing The Wizard of Oz: Beyond The Yellow Brick Road

XSEED announced earlier this week that they will be localizing The Wizard of Oz: Beyond The Yellow Brick Road (called RIZ-ZOAWD in Japan, which is an anagram for Wizard and Oz) for North American shores. This isn’t very surprising, as XSEED has made their interest for the title quite clear before it was even released in Japan back in December of 2008. Even so, to get official word from XSEED that they will in fact be localizing it makes this RPG fan incredibly happy.

The great thing about TWoO:BTYBR is that it follows the original story of The Wizard of Oz, but only up until a certain point. The story is followed accurately up until Dorothy, along with her new party in the form of Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion, arrive in Emerald City to talk to the Wizard. From that point on, the game gives it’s own imaginative spin on the series and what happens next.

Artistically, everything about TWoO:BTYBR is top-notch. From the colorful and very beautifully 3D rendered game world to the charming, uniquely designed characters. For instance, Tin Man’s design gives him a much more robust appearance which goes perfectly with his job as the heavy hitter of the group. And I really can’t stress enough how beautiful the graphics are for this game. They just might be the best the DS has to offer so far.

As for the gameplay, everything is controlled with the stylus. The player moves Dorothy through the game world with a giant trackball on the bottom screen. There are no random encounters, instead the player must make contact with the enemy while traversing an open field. Once a battle is initiated, it will be carried out in a first-person perspective, much like in the Dragon Quest or Earthbound series. Characters’ abilities are also heavily influenced by their storybook counterparts, i.e. one of Lion’s special abilities is giving your party the chance to flee from battle, which is inspired by his cowardly attitude. Check out the first Japanese trailer, as well as a gameplay video to get a better look at TWoO:BTYBR.

Honestly, after the announcement of this localization by XSEED, I think they might be one of my favorite American publishers of Japanese gaming. Not only are they bringing over one of my most anticipated Japanese games of the past year, but they’ve practically read through my personal wish list of wanted games and are seeing to it that they get a proper release stateside. We have Fragile, The Sky Crawlers, and Ju-on to look forward to by the end of 2009. Not to mention Beyond The Yellow Brick Road is expected for a Fall release here, so we certainly have a great deal to look forward to thanks to XSEED. The only problem they made so far is their choice for the American TWoO:BTYBR boxart… yeah. American publishers really need to learn to just keep the original Japanese boxart:

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