Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return

Genre: Match-3 Puzzle

Players: 1

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Review:

Legends of Oz is a Match-3 Puzzle game released on Nintendo 3DS in 2014 that plays a lot like countless other games in the genre, namely Bejeweled. This game stands as a reminder that the original books in The Wizard of Oz series are in the public domain, and pretty much anyone can create works based on them. I say this because wow, this is a pretty absurd use of the characters from the story.

The presentation doesn’t help. Everything about this game just screams “disposable mobile game”, from the ugly hand-drawn character designs, the atrocious menu layouts, and the cheesy way the story and characters have been shoehorned in here. For one thing, The Good Witch Glenda tends to the special item shop, allowing you to pay for these items with gold bricks (presumably that Dorothy pried up from the story’s famous road).

As for the gameplay… well, this is pretty much just Bejeweled. And that’s fine, I suppose, though it’s a tired formula we’ve seen countless times before. It’s not put to very good use here, either – there’s no endless mode, no puzzle mode, only a limited number of stages that end when you’ve used up a finite supply of moves. That’s it. Sadly, there doesn’t even appear to be an options menu that I can find.

I suppose, for $5, Legends of Oz is a passable, albeit substandard, take on the Bejeweled formula. But it’s lazy, lacking features and options, and it’s a terrible use of the characters and story. If you’re a huge fan of the Oz stories, you’re likely to find this game insulting more than anything. And if you’re indifferent to the Oz stories and are just looking for a decent Puzzle game, you have countless better choices on the Nintendo 3DS.

tl;dr – Legends of Oz is a Match-3 Puzzle game that slaps ugly knockoff versions of the characters from the beloved children’s books on a mediocre version of Bejeweled. For a mere $5, it’s still a passable Puzzle game, but you can do so much better on Nintendo 3DS.

Grade: C-

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