GayGamer writes: "Dear readers, let's have a brief chit chat about some RPG trends that I've noticed recently. I've found it progressively difficult to get into many RPGs today, especially JRPGs. Sure there is the rare exception here or there, but compared to their heyday back in the SNES/PS1 days, these entries have been fewer and farther between these days. Even the ones that do manage to catch my eye require what I would call extensive research to be able to actually play. This got me thinking, what if I was a gamer that hadn't played an RPG before? What games released for today's consoles and handhelds would welcome first timers into the fold without an intense initiation ritual of terrible in-game failures, relying on previous game experience, or tracking down obscure information through FAQs? Someone over at XSEED must have read my thoughts (again) and sent me a copy of a game that might just hit the spot."
gamrReview's Xavier Griffiths: "Movie tie-in games have a reputation for being notoriously bad and shoddy, doing both a disservice to the original film and videogames as a medium. More often than not the movies that get adapted into videogames are high octane, action-oriented summer blockbusters and the aim is simply to extract as much money from the market as possible. Realistically no one expects games based on trashy films such as Catwoman, The Cat in the Hat, or Eragon to be good in the first place, but what about games based on films that have garnered recognition for the highest award in cinema?"
A list saluting horribly wonderful movie games like Street Fighter: The Movie and The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road.
In a cluttered RPG market on the DS there isn't any real reason to recommend The Wizard of Oz. The new story is generic, the exploration hampered by unnecessary backtracking and the dreaded locked door puzzles. An interesting combat system is ruined by the default party actions and clunky menu navigation. This certainly isn't what L. Frank Baum had in mind, there aren't even any flying monkeys.
