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"The Story of Thor is the story of excellence"

It's odd how this action-RPG has two official titles, neither of which says anything about the game itself. The more widespread one, "The Story of Thor: A Successor of the Light", I still think sounds a lot catchier. This is one of the Genesis greats, a semi-isometric action-adventure which defiantly refuses to belong to the RPG genre it emulates. Originality shines from the title, moulding a genre of its own. It's a fairly linear game with a clear, pleasing storyline, and one that's quite tough to see through.

The Story of Thor is the story of Prince Ali of the kingdom of Oasis. One day whilst excavating, he happens upon a beautiful Gold Armlet, which he adopts at the request of the spirit of its previous owner, the powerful but good sorcerer Reynhart. An evil sorcerer named Agito wore the Gold Armlet's antithesis, the Silver Armlet, used for evil. Unfortunately, the Silver Armlet has likewise been found, so Ali goes in search of the four spirits the Gold Armlet governs, in order to stop the culprit. To survive against the hordes of assorted minions, he'll soon have the assistance of Dytto, Efreet, Shade and Bow. Four very different but very useful and charismatic spirits.

Once again, the Sega Megadrive/Genesis showcases what a beautiful game it can craft. Oasis is a luscious world full of beautiful nature and architecture. The enemies are quite impressive, and they are about as varied as they can be; starting with little rat-like enemies and the standard armoured enemies, eventually you'll grow accustomed to huge armoured knights and even raptors. The Spirits are excellent, especially the fire spirit, Efreet, the unofficial star of the game as he pounds on enemies and even goes supernova at your command. The bosses are then just amazing. Two of them jump to mind; a giant marble serpent and especially a spectacular red dragon, breathing fire on our hero. As you can see, the graphics capability was really put into high gear here, making the world of Oasis come to life like a gorgeous animated movie.

The Story of Thor has a simple but intuitive style of play. As you control Ali, you start with a dagger, which never ever loses its sense of usefulness due to the wide variety of moves Ali can perform with it. Soon you can pick more powerful weapons such as swords, bows and even bombs. However, your inventory only allows you to carry seven additional weapons at a time, so you may want to consider whether you need a weapon before picking it up (if you have one that's more useful, I mean). It is a bit dodgy how the jump button also makes Ali crouch - if you press it lightly, he jumps, but if you hold it down, he'll just crouch - but this becomes second-nature in a flash.

The play control of the spirits is where the game's play mechanics reveal just how thought-out they are. After you acquire a spirit, you can only call on him or her by pressing the A button while facing in the direction of a certain surface. To call on the water spirit, you have to face water and shoot the spirit beam at said surface. Efreet is called by shooting fire - and not just big bonfires (numerous of which are in the game) but also bomb fire, gone in nearly an instant. Any surface that counts does just that, counts. Shade can be summoned from your reflection - this includes your reflection in an enemy's armour! See the picture? How well thought-out this was, and how inspiring!

The Spirits themselves are your absolute best friends during this game and not just in the friendly sense. They make life much easier for you against the hordes of enemies. If an enemy's strength doesn't do you in, chances are a lot of them can weaken your chances. That's where your spirit chums come in, all of whom function quite differently and have different but equally-justifiable uses. Dytto is endlessly useful for healing you (after all, she IS a water spirit). Shade and Bow can both help get you places where the barrier seems insurmountable. The powerhouse of destruction, however, is Efreet, my favourite character in the game. He can breathe fire (which is impossible to aim properly as he moves around all the time) and dash into enemies. Then he can near-explode in a form of Armageddon-supernova, a blast that can easily destroy all on-screen enemies. All these attacks are easy to perform by properly tapping the A-button. I can't describe in words just how much fun this is.

This might make the game too easy, if it weren't for the Spirit Meter. You have two life meters to look out for, your Life Meter and your Spirit Meter. Your Spirit Meter only depletes when you have summoned a spirit to your side, then it slowly starts to deplete. When a Spirit Meter reaches zero, your spirit says bye-bye. Most areas refill your spirit meter when you have no spirit selected, but particularly sadistic action areas deny you this luxury. Then you can also eat certain fruit to mitigate the blue bar. Just like the weapons, though, you are limited to the number of food items you can carry, though thankfully only a handful. There is food of all shapes and sizes for you to take with you, and you have to be wise to store your more nutritious food for later battles, consuming as much less-healing food as you can. Both choosing weapons and food involve screens that are easily accessed by certain buttons on your controller.

Your Spirits may be useful to you from the beginning, but what about when your enemies become tougher and more numerous? Well, just like you can level up, your Spirits can as well. You, however, must help them in that area by collecting Spirit Stones. A number of these can be found and/or acquired all over the game. Each Spirit has their own shade for their gems, and some of the challenges to get them can be quite ingenious. If you get in deep trouble and need a spirit but cannot get to an appropriate surface, you can relax if you have picked up Spirit Calls. These rare items (which you carry with you) allow to call on a Spirit, but only one time per item, so only use these in times of need.

Indeed, that's part of the Story of Thor's challenge - knowing when to have this sword equipped, when to eat this, when to take this Spirit with you. Of course, the more immediate challenge is the enemies, and I don't just mean the bosses. No matter how much Ali can level up (in the form of Hearts that appear at impossible-to-tell parts), the enemies can still deliver him a severe beating if he lets them. Practice Ali's dagger moves to make things a lot easier - not to mention more fun. Then you should level your spirits up as often as yourself. There is no boss where your stats aren't high enough to defeat (the RPG trait I hate the most), but this still doesn't mean that you encounter any pushovers. Even the game's first boss (whom I don't see has anything to do with the element of water) can be pretty tricky.

The Story of Thor's story may lead you onward, but there's no stopping you from straying from your intended goal, especially when you have acquired more Spirits. Shade has the power of getting you from ledge to ledge, provided both have poles. This alone is reason enough for you to go on a huge backtrack quest to collect a ton of hidden goodies. There is a particular, well-hidden secret treasure room you can enter late in the game, and getting everything from that place is even more of a challenge than finding it. The game's final level completely goes against its soothing music in its number of enemies and challenges, and the semi-final boss is in my opinion the game's hardest, no question. Rest assured, nothing is handed to you on a silver platter in this game. Which is great news!

Yuzo Koshiro did the scores for Actraiser and Streets of Rage before taking on this project (which he is oddly credited for a whole year before the game's release - I love how he is always credited in the title screen). This talented veteran does not disappoint. In fact, the Story of Thor's soundtrack is astounding, full of tunes so inspiring, soothing, dark and foreboding or terrifying (all depending on the melody) that I often enjoy listening to them on their own. The voice-tracks of screaming enemies are rather grating, however - I don't know what it is, but as great music the Genesis is capable of producing, its voice tracks always sounded grating. Why is that? Doesn't matter much, as the soundtrack is the final touch to the excellence of this game.

A true work of excellence, the Story of Thor/Beyond Oasis is the most original RPG I have ever played, an ambitious and inspiring adventure that will allow for hours upon hours of absorbing gaming. I have played it often, and still I feel like playing it again. All its little secrets don't spoil matters. One of the most unexpected and delightful ones involves Efreet and racing laps... Quite simply the finest bit of fantasy fun the Megadrive ever made. Enjoy.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 12/18/09

Game Release: The Story of Thor (EU, 1994)