Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road's biggest selling point is its charm. I enjoyed seeing the reimagining of classic characters in a JRPG setting. However, the game itself felt like an exercise in tedium, and neither the gameplay nor story were rewarding enough to warrant slogging through it.

After reaching Oz, I found myself trekking through a labyrinth of pathways filled with enemies that could often deal 10-20% of your health. A particular fight ended with all of my characters at low health, after several missed attacks and an enemy attack that did about 60% of one character's health. By this point, I was out of healing items and had no way to get back to Oz to heal without going all the way back to the start. That was when I decided to bow out, not wanting to know how much progress I might lose if my entire party was knocked out.

It's a real shame that the first impression was such a poor one, as I think this could have been great as a "dip your toes into an RPG" type of game. The enemy affinity system is easy to understand and the game will select who targets who based on that affinity (though be careful, they'll use items mid-battle when you might not want it). I enjoyed the use of a virtual trackball to move, it was a unique little gimmick. Fascinating concept, subpar execution.