April. Reception Contemporaneous The Wizard of Oz garnered generally good reviews upon its release, with the Associated Press calling it the best film-to-video-game adaptation ever. The graphics were especially highlighted and some liked the music. The Associated Press praised its "excellent" animation, "detailed original background graphics, and big character graphics". Data Carvey of GamePro admired the colorfulness, Mode 7 effects, multi-layered scrolling backgrounds, and the "distinctive details" and personality of the "somewhat stiff-moving" character sprites. Sam Hickman of Super Pro opined that more detail was needed in the "fairly well drawn" backgrounds. Carvey and Nintendo Power praised the challenging gameplay; Nintendo Power highlighted the use of secret items and places, and Carvey commended its "imaginative enemies and some big bad bosses". Reviewers liked the playable female protagonist, with the Los Angeles Times recommending it for girl players to practice problem-solving and hand-eye coordination "in a setting they know and love". The film license was criticized; Billy R. Moon of Game Players criticized "real action scenes" like the tornado sequence and Dorothy's visit to Munchkinland being reduced to either brief cutscenes or levels featuring elements not from the film. Hickman noted the munchkins and "jolly singing" was replaced by enemies like "a few dumb looking cats" and that Dorothy looked more like Ma Larkin from The Darling Buds of May (1991–1993) than the "dainly young" teenager in the film. Moon said The Wizard of Oz left the SNES's capabilities unfulfilled, and Hickman assumed it would fail to attract its young demographic due to its scarcity of short-term rewards, its high difficulty, and its lack of appealing details. Nintendo Powers positive review admitted hit detection problems and the top screen display blocking the view of enemies. Carvey suggested the game could have used more sound effects and playable characters that were "speedy and versatile". Other criticisms included the gameplay, for its lack of variety and being reminiscent of THQ's video game adaptation of Home Alone (1990); and the "annoying" and "muddy" music making the famous songs difficult to identify. Retrospective Wizard of Oz was far less well-received in later years, ranking on several lists of the worst games of all time. This includes The Verge naming it one of the top five worst film adaptations on the Super NES, Screen Rant ranking it the tenth worst film-based video game of all time, The Gamer ranking it the fourth worst, The Things placing