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Without L. Frank Baum’s permission the Wizard of Oz has been adapted into a Broadway musical, a film with the Muppets, and an anime where Dorothy travels into deep space. I thought Space Oz no Bouken was the limit of the license, but D3 Publisher is taking it in a more interactive direction. While Riz-zoawd (an anagram of Wizard-Oz) isn’t the only game where you search for the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, it is the only RPG.
As seen in the character art above, the genre shift changed the Tin Man into a bell shaped Golem. Great. Who is responsible for this? Surprisingly, Media.Vision, the creators of the Wild ARMs franchise. They’re working with D3 Publisher to release the game in Japan at an unannounced date. Even more interesting is Riz-zoawd will be Media.Vision’s first console game on a Nintendo platform. Good for them!
Images courtesy of Media.Vision.
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8 Responses to “Follow the yellow brick road to the Wizard of Oz RPG”
June 13th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Is it coincidence, or just horrible miscalculation of culture, that the title is some kind of wanna-be hip-hop pronounciation of “Road”.
E.g. “Fallz da Yellow Brix Riz-zoawd, dog!”
June 13th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
@Ed S - Hmm… I think it’s supposed to be read as “Wizard” in Japanese. It’s hard to explain this, but when you phonetically break it down the two words sound similar. I’m sure if (when?, I mean this is D3’s game) comes to America it will be renamed something else.
June 13th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
I like the new looks of the characters. It’ll be interesting to play an RPG with such a known story.
June 14th, 2008 at 6:11 am
ok, the title is horrible. other then that the art looks ok and I’m curious how this story as an RPG will work out.
@spencer: I’ve pronouned (more like tried to pronounce) the word Riz-zoawd multiple times and I don’t see how its simmilar to wizard, except maybe that both end with a bit of an ‘ard’ sound. if you pronounced ‘wizard’ in japanese wouldn’t it become something like ‘uizaad(o)’?
June 14th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
@Nika - I think the confusion may be in the katakana interpretation of Riz-zoawd. Media.Vision wrote it as rizoodo and as you point out “wizard” is uizaado. They don’t sound the same, but they sound similar. I mean that’s really the only reason Media.Vision would name the game Riz-zoawd.
June 15th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
The entire concept is stupid… They implemented a touch-based trackball, and then not use it! What’s up with that!
Gaming Map
June 13th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
I never thought I would actually consider an RPG with this classic, but I like the art direction they are taking it. Keep us posted on this one Spencer. By the way, I’m getting used to the “NEW” Siliconera look, but I still preferred the old one lol.
Keep it up man.