As one of the final RPGs that was released for the Genesis near it's final days ( well maybe not days, more like months...or year...or whatever ), Beyond Oasis was a very unique Action RPG for it's time. It was a very fun game but also very short.
Story
Ali, the Prince of the Kingdom of Oasis, one day was searching for treasure on an island near Oasis when in a cave he found a gold armlet and put it on. Then out of nowhere a mysterious face appears ( I'm gonna take a wild guess and say it's Reharl, more on him in a second ) saying that Ali is now the owner of the Gold Armlet. He then goes on to say there's also a Silver Armlet that has already been found and has possessed someone that will lead Oasis to ruin. Now many ages ago there was a war in the shadowlands of the Kingdom of Oasis fought by two sorcerers, Reharl and Agito. Reharl used his Gold Armlet to call on the four spirits while Agito used his Silver Armlet for destruction. The battle that was fought between the two destroyed them both, and the armlets were thought to be lost. Now it is up to Ali to find the four spirits and seek the one with the Silver Armlet and stop them.
Gameplay
The entire game takes place on an overhead view, you can basically go anywhere you want, but if you want to get through the game then you must follow the tasks that are set up for you ( an obvious ''duh'' ). For an action-RPG it feels more like an adventure game, you get alot of freedom controlling your character, which has alot of moves he can pull off. You have your typical moves, slash enemies with your dagger ( your main weapon ), kick, jump etc. and then there are your special moves. You can just easily perform these special moves, but you have to enter certain combinations on the controller, it may take some time to learn at first but once you've learned how to use them, it's worth it in tight situations. An example of one of these moves is when you are ganged up on by enemies you can use a spinning attack that can knock down the enemies surrounding you, thus having the chance to get out of a tight spot and counter attack. This may not sound like anything special my today's standards, but back then it was a pretty cool feature for an Action RPG. Your dagger isn't the only weapon you have, you can find all kinds of weapons like variety of swords, bow arrows and bombs. The bad thing is you only have a limited amount of turns to use them, and you can't perform your special moves too, but the weapons are very useful so it's not that serious of a loss.
But that's not all folks, oh no ( I sound like an advertisement ), you also have the four spirits at your disposal, and what are they? Oh I'll tell you....right after you see this fabulous item that's only a....ummm....oops, where were we, ah yes. You have Dytto the water spirit, Efreet the fire spirit, Shade the shadow spirit and Bow the plant spirit. Once you have one of these spirits, you can easily summon them by firing a Light Ball from you armlet at there certain element ( Ex: Summon Efreet by shooting at any type of fire ). Each of these four spirits have special abilities which will be very helpful throughout your quest ( Ex: You can use Dytto to put out flames and vice versa with Efreet ). But you can't have them out forever, you have a spell bar, and once it runs out if you have nothing to regain it's spell points, then the spirit will vanish. Then there's your life bar, and of course once it's empty you die, but there are plenty of health items in treasure chests or random enemies to get to keep you alive, just like in any other RPG.
Graphics
For a Genesis game the graphics look really good. All of the characters are nice and big and the animations are really smooth. The layout of the backgrounds look good too, very colorful game. And then there are the bosses, which are large and very detailed ( especially the dragon ), for a sec you won't believe your playing a Genesis game here!
Sound/Music
The music composer of the game is none other then Yuzo Koshiro who made music for such games like Revenge of Shinobi and the Streets of Rage series. Although not as good as his past game music, it's still very good and fits nicely with the game. The sounds are really good too, the slashing of your swords or slashing the enemies, from the noises of chests breaking open, to the screams of you foes as they die, it all just sounds great.
Replay Value
As I stated at the beginning of this review, it's a very short RPG, hell even for an Action RPG it's a very short game! Yes even with all of the tasks and puzzles at hand and all of the enemies and bosses to fight, you can easily beat it in about 4 or 5 hours tops. But there are plenty of hidden stuff and interesting secrets that should keep you coming back for more.
In Closing
A very good action rpg that could of easily rivaled Landstalker ( the other great action rpg on Genesis ) if it wasn't so short! But for what it's worth, it's a very enjoyable game while it lasts. And considering Yuzo Koshiro had a hand in making the game (besides the music), it's very impressive for his first time.
Overall - 8
Overall Rating: 8/10