The not so wonderful Oz games



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MGM The Wizard of Oz should have been a disaster. After the release and subsequent success of Walt Disney & # 39; s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the studio searched for its own potential hit movie to adapt from a children's book. In 1938, MGM purchased Frank L. Baum's best-selling film rights and, over the course of a year, 13 different writers – most uncredited – would contribute to the screenplay. The film's early ideas included Tin Man's transformation into a heartless criminal whose body had been peeled as a punishment, a song and dance number inspired by "The Jitterbug", and a romantic subplot between Dorothy and the 18-year-old Hunk his elder aka the Scarecrow.

The producers may not have had the best ideas, but what they had was a song, maybe the a film song, as well as a child actress who would work 16 hours a day while continuing to feed on pills and other pills, and in total disregard for the health and safety of their actors. It was a movie shoot in 1939 and their carelessness led to one of the greatest movies ever to be on sale.

The Wizard of Oz is so good, so crucial for the movie canon, that almost all tracking attempts have failed. It's just too timeless, and even if some products are making their way to success, like The wiz – the stage musical, not the movie – most are quickly forgotten, even those with a funky jazzy soundtrack. This is also true for the games and today, on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the release of this historic film, I would like to come back to some attempts to turn this classic and convivial fantasy tale into a video game.

The Wizard of Oz

The Wizard of Oz (1985)

Released the same year as Disney and its terrifying fate Back to Oz, The Wizard of Oz Windham Classics is a graphic adventure game written for MS-DOS, Commodore 64, MSX and Apple II. The game is a fairly simple narrative of The wonderful Wizard of Oz and his suite, The wonderful country of Oz. The main difference between the four platforms lies in the available colors, with the MSX having the richest color palette. Although I do not expect someone to look at a complete part of the game, I would suggest checking out the Apple II version of the wizard. I can not decide if he looks more like Marlon Brando or Dr. Evil, late in his career.

The Wizard of Oz

The Wizard of Oz (1993)

Without doubt the best known oz video game adaptations are published by Seta Corporation The Wizard of Oz for the SNES. Developed by the terribly named Manley & Associates – who would become EA Seattle until the studio closed in 2002 – this film featured Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion, who ventured into five different worlds with a surprising number of conquering levels. For a licensed game of a property that is not generally associated with gambling, Manley & Associates assuredly ensured that it was full of content. Unfortunately, none of this content was good. I remember renting it at one of our rental stores and I will never go back for $ 1.50.

The use of the MGM movie's work was what this version of the game had. It's just too bad that such an iconography could not be better used. If you want a more detailed look at the seriousness of the situation and you are ready to let yourself go to the early humor of internet games, The Angry Gamer did an episode about it at the time from GameTrailers.

Remember GameTrailers?

The Wizard of Oz

Oz no Mahoutsukai ~ Another World ~ RungRung (2000)

RungRung had the unfortunate misfortune to launch the launch of the original version of the PlayStation on the output of the output of the PS2. Developed by Affect, this is an RPG collection of objects in which Dorothy tries to gather all the pages of the Rung Book to stop the devil Ugu. According to the review of the game Operation Rainfall, which is the only source of information that I can find in a language that I speak, the game has very little fight because it is more important to make sure that players explore and interact with the inhabitants of Oz is various countries. Unfortunately, it does not seem that this approach has aged very well.

Surprisingly, this game is available in the West but it is not translated at all. The publisher GungHo added it to the PlayStation Store in 2013 without locating it. I'm tempted to give him a purchase, but Operation Rainfall magazine recommends two years of Japanese knowledge and the only Japanese knowledge I have is the obscene dungeon robots, the Miyazaki movies and the Bugs Bunny cartoons, which are extremely inappropriate.

The Wizard of Oz

RICE-ZOAWD (2008)

In 2008, Wild Weapons The developer Media.Vision has definitely stopped working on his precious Wild West RPG to try to break through the myth of Oz. The final result was RICE-ZOAWDor as we know it in the west, The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road. A more appropriate RPG thanks the latest release of the IP, RICE-ZOAWD Players must support four different witches and collect the different magical eggs that nest on their respective lands.

This is not an excellent interpretation of the source, but I have a weakness for the heart and head for this game. First, it's beautiful on the DS; perhaps the best 3D game catalog of the handheld. Second, you move Dorothy using a trackball on the touch screen, which has never aged. Finally, the combat system, although simplistic, lends itself well to teaching the basics of strategy in a role play. At each turn, the player has four slots to insert attacks and each of the four members of the group occupies a number of slots. Dorothy and Scarecrow use one, Lion uses two, and Tin Man uses three. Mixing and matching according to what you were fighting was the key to victory.

Yes RICE-ZOAWD had more influence from the world of Oz and a lot less JRPG tropes standard – there is no need for dragon masters to be in a Wizard of Oz game – I think it could have got better with the critics. Anyway, it remains an interesting curiosity for those who are at the center of the player /Wizard of Oz Venn diagram appreciator.

The Wizard of Oz

Emerald City Confidential (2009)

One of the hallmarks of post-Judy Garland's myth about Oz is the idea of ​​darkness. Back to Oz has become black. bad has become black. Emerald city has become black. The man of tin has become really black. There is something called The magician of A.I.D.S. where the wicked witch is killed by a giant condom and I am not quite sure of the message that was supposed to be sent to children in the 80s.

Emerald City Confidential also opted for a darker interpretation of the characters and their world. Located in the infamous underworld of the emerald city, Confidential plays the players under the name of Petra, a private investigator who is looking for a missing person. The game is a black point-and-click adventure published only on PC and, as luck would have it, Destructoid saw it again in 2009, at the time when we suggested it be "rented" for mid-level titles and put end to our ledes with teases on "more after the jump."

The Wizard of Oz

Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return (2014)

Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return is a very, very bad movie. A bit like in 2013 Oz the Great and mightyHe carries the baggage of the classic MGM, something that millions of people across the United States watch every Thanksgiving on TNT, unable to truly establish himself as a valuable companion for this film. But where oz had a huge budget, big stars and the support of Disney to win a box office success, Legends of Oz had a bad script, bad songs and bad animation. He also had a bad adaptation to the video game.

Released for the Nintendo 3DS, Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return is a creepy match-game mobile game that GameMill has tried to play as a $ 20 game. This is not it. If you're really desperate for a match-three with Dorothy Gale, Zynga offers a free mobile-based spin game.

Oz: Broken Kingdom

Oz: Broken Kingdom (2016)

Speaking of derivatives, Oz: Broken Kingdom is the latest attempt to find game success in the merry old country of Oz. Developed and published by Nexon for mobile, Broken kingdom introduces a new girl, Ophelia, who teams up with Tin Man, Lion and Scarecrow to fight a regenerated Wicked witch and a more evil power than her. While this may make a decent game for PC or console, with Nexon at the helm, the end product has achieved the same result as many mobile freemium games, giving priority to reducing and spending money rather than 'building skills and tactical thinking. It's certainly a nice game to see and take a much darker turn on the setting, but five minutes later, I had to remove it from my phone because no good will towards the source material could force me to live a imitative experience.

Other games:

Obviously, this is not a complete list of all games to present The Wizard of Oz. During my research, I discovered a multitude of mobile and browser games, including visual novels with dates, which are either obsolete or never released outside of Japan. Including Tingle's balloon love trip, Nintendo DS tracking Tingle's freshly picked Rupeeland rosé. There is also Oz Chrono Chronicle DMM, better known in the West for Dead or Alive Xtreme: Venus Holiday. I also came across OZMAFIAwhat matters, I suppose.

Code name STEAM

Dorothy and her friends have also made appearances in games that are not completely based on Oz. In 2015, LEGO Dimensions published with an entire level located on the Yellow Brick Road and the Witch's Castle. Unfortunately, apart from a Fun Pack consisting of a flying monkey and the Wicked Witch of the West, none of the characters were playable in the last game. In the much better after-updated Code name S.T.E.A.M., the four protagonists of the film are characters to unlock. Their inclusion was perfectly logical because Nintendo loves to plunder the public domain when creating its games, like all those who play. Wii Music will be able to tell you. The crusaders of lost idols also contains characters and arrangements of the book and the game Rugrats: the country Munchin put his own spin on Oz.

The one we have never seen:

OZombie

It is unfortunate that the most interesting game on the territory of Oz is the one that has never been created. In 2013, American McGee launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the development of OZombie. Similar to his work with Alice in Wonderland, the game would have presented a very dark version of the classic tale that Dorothy's great-great-granddaughter was building an army to defeat an insane scarecrow.

The Kickstarter page for her promised a story-based player experience with RPG RPG and 3rd person exploration. The concept looked rather seductive, but unfortunately, McGee could only collect a little over $ 140,000 on the $ 950,000 that he was looking for the project. Nothing has come since and the last time we heard of the American McGee, he tried unsuccessfully to let EA let him do another Alice Thu.

*****

It's hard to say if the industry will ever get oz right. Games tend to focus on fighting and it's just something that you do not usually associate with The Wizard of Oz. It is not violent or scary, but serious and good hearted. And as he continues to inspire Hollywood to make bad movies but also good TV episodes, I hope the video game industry does not give up looking for its emerald city at the end of Yellow. Brick Road.

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