Defenders of Oasis is a JRPG released for the Sega Game Gear in 1992. It is notable for being one of the very few JRPGs localized in the West for the system. Has no relation to Beyond Oasis, another Sega game released for the Genesis.
The game plays like a Dragon Quest game set in a Middle Eastern setting rather than a Europe-ish Medieval setting. The game draws heavily from Persian mythology, featuring Ahriman (the personification of evil in the Zoroastrian faith, the ancient religion of Persia) as the Big Bad.
The game saw a resurgence of relevance when it was released for the 3DS Virtual Console in 2013. However, the 3DS Virtual Console has now been shut down, meaning that the only way to play it is either by finding an original Game Gear cartridge or sailing the high seas.
Tropes
- "Arabian Nights" Days: Played as straight as possible.
- Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves: They appear.
- Auto-Save: An early example, the game automatically saves itself frequently. This is good if you die so you won't lose hours of progress, but bad if you want to quickly leave a dungeon by Save Scumming (since there is no way to quickly leave dungeons except by backtracking).
- Big Bad: Ahriman.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: A villain named Gaddafi appears, perhaps referencing Muammar Gaddafi, who ruled Libya at the time the game was made. This character's name was changed to Kohle in the English version.
- Translation Matchmaking: The game has no connection to Beyond Oasis, which was originally titled The Story of Thor in Japanese.
- Rocbird: The roc appears towards the end of the game to ferry the player to the final boss.