Beyond Good & Evil HD Review
Beyond Good & Evil was originally released as a multiplatform title in 2003 and was one of those games that was highly praised but wasn’t met with high sales. The people who played it were very vocal about how they felt about the game, but that didn’t sway other gamers into investing in the world of Hillys and the characters that inhabit it. After experiencing Beyond Good & Evil, it pains me to know I was one of the many who didn’t enjoy this gem when it was first released.
I was still in high school when BG&E was released and didn’t have any source of income, so I couldn’t just go out buying games whenever I pleased. I was initially interested in the game, but I didn’t know much about it and my desire to play it waned as the years passed. Now, with this re-release, Beyond Good & Evil is back to invite players who have fond memories of the title to revisit and welcome those of us who didn’t have the pleasure to come in and explore. Having never played BG&E and knowing so little about it, I didn’t know what to expect from it going in. I was pleasantly rewarded with an engaging adventure game that is true to the genre’s roots by crafting an intriguing story filled with memorable characters and stages filled with environmental puzzles and collectibles.
In the game, you play Jade, a kick-ass (like literally kick-ass… she knows the kung fu) investigative reporter with a heart of gold. Jade and her “uncle” Pay’j (an anthropomorphic boar) have taken in several orphaned children in their lighthouse home and have come across hard times in the war-torn world of Hillys—which is being constantly attacked by the alien forces of the DomZ. While both great characters, Jade is the real star of the story and is presented in a way that is believably human. She doesn’t need to be sexualized to be compelling as her motivations and emotional connections are believable. Rather than being categorized as a “great female character,” she should be regarded as a great character. Period.
Jade, being a reporter in need of cash, takes up a job photographing the wildlife of Hillys for cash—which is one of the first gameplay mechanics you are introduced to after a brief combat scenario. Throughout the game, you’ll be using your photography skills to catalogue the creatures of the planet for money, rewards, and an achievement as well as completing story missions. It’s a neat aspect to the game that I (especially as a completionist) find engaging and addicting as I track down animals I need pictures of in a scavenger hunt of sorts (the search for these creatures is made easier by a device you can purchase that enables you to see animal locations on the map). It also can serve to add a layer of intensity to certain battles as you struggle to get a clean shot of your opponent before it has a chance to attack you (something that reminded me of scanning enemies in Metroid Prime).
The story progresses to introduce new characters that never cease to be amusing as you struggle to uncover the truth behind the DomZ attacks. It’s an interesting premise that becomes more involving as you progress and are introduced to new characters and plots, but it’s one that never takes itself too seriously. That isn’t to say that the plot doesn’t have moments where it surprises you with some grim revelations or ever evoke emotions, but it doesn’t burden the player with forced depth or lose itself in attempts at being profound or self-elevating. The writing is well executed and managed to keep me engaged through the game’s entirety with new story developments and witty character quips.
Gameplay wise, BG&E is an action-adventure game not terribly unlike the Zelda franchise. You are presented with a world that you are free to explore (with a hovercraft as your main mode of overworld transportation) and more areas open up to you as you acquire new tools. The world isn’t so large to the point of overwhelming the player with exploration possibilities, but it’s plenty large and has enough diversity in its locations that each new area you reach feels interesting.
With each new area you encounter comes a mission to complete and the player controls Jade as she makes her way around traps and various other hazards, solves environmental puzzles in order progress to her objective, stealthily sneaks around enemy units, and occasionally engages in combat. The hazards you encounter are fairly easy to overcome; Jade’s maneuvering abilities are limited to doing a forward roll and crouching, so most of the traps you will face will have you diving over or crouching under them (or just looking for a way around altogether). The environmental puzzles are never too challenging, but they do provide a nice diversity and are rarely uninteresting. The stealth scenarios, on the other hand, could have used some refinement.
The stealth mechanics themselves worked fine—having Jade crouch and move silently in the shadows from cover to cover is a satisfying experience that gives the game a nice dose of intensity, it’s the camera that needs reworking. The game’s standard camera works as you would expect a third-person game’s camera to work: press up on the right stick, the camera rotates to look upward; press down, camera rotates to look down. In the stealth segments, the camera removes that upward/downward rotation and replaces it with a camera that elevates and lowers as if it were sliding up and down a pole (I tried to think of a better analogy, but I just couldn’t… sorry). I can understand why they had the camera like this because it allows you to better see over ledges than a rotating camera, but an option to change the camera back to standard or a context sensitive elevating camera would have been appreciated (e.g. only operate like that when you are behind cover).
Combat is simple but requires strategy and is rewarding. Jade has an attack, a charged attack, and a dodge while her companion has a “super action.” Jade’s charged attack takes quite a while to actually charge, so I rarely ever actually used it; you can string her standard attack into devastating combos, though, so I don’t feel like I really missed out with not using the charged attack. The dodge move is useful for avoiding attacks (duh) and is absolutely necessary when facing enemies with shields. Your partner’s “super action” comes in handy during combat several times as it will launch the enemies up in the air allowing you to give them a good thwack.
The game’s soundtrack is fittingly diverse and weird. The music ranges from tracks that are wonderfully composed and beautiful to more mellow stuff during emotional parts to obnoxiously catchy and just plain fun tunes. It’s a suitably strange set of music that is oddly enjoyable. The voice acting is pretty strong, especially for the main cast, and never detracts from the experience—which is a good thing. The line reading often feels sincere and rarely ever forced.
Graphically, this game is dated… but it’s not ugly. With games (old, new, and even HD re-releases), I often judge graphics based more on artistic merit than polygon count and texture resolutions and BG&E has a beautiful world full of fantastic locales and oddball anthropomorphic animals. You won’t be “wowed” by the character models or raving about how beautiful this game is in the strict sense of polys and textures, but it’s very easy to get sucked into the world of Hillys and all of its imaginative locations.
The game is not without fault, though, as I encountered several issues with the camera I would have liked to see fixed (including the aforementioned stealth camera), some issues with your AI companions, and achievement unlocks.
Initially my only problem with achievement unlocks was that the game would pause for a couple seconds (no sound, frozen image, and no controller input feedback) before an achievement unlocked and fooled me a couple times into thinking my XBOX had froze—and one time it actually did. It wasn’t such an issue that I couldn’t live with it, but it was annoying. Then, one of the achievements (“Moneybags” which has the requirement of collecting 80 pearls) unlocked before I had actually earned it. When the achievement unlocked, I was still missing 23 of the 88 pearls (I went on to collect the rest of the pearls (using a guide to find two or three of them), so I didn’t just take the achievement and run).
The AI partner issues I had were more humorous than anything, but still should have been addressed. You can talk to your companion at times and they’ll give you hints about what you need to do next, but my companions didn’t like me or something because, more often than not, when I tried talking to them, they would turn their backs to me and walk away. It was somewhat funny, but kind of frustrating at times (not that I needed the hints, but sometimes I just like having somebody to talk to…). Also, there are some time-sensitive scenarios in the game where you have to reach a certain objective before the timer runs out (usually I am not a fan of these because they usually give you just enough time to complete the task, but BG&E is nice about it and gives you plenty) and I found my partner getting hung up on geometry or just plain refusing to move. I found their lack of motivation to remove themselves from dangerous situations astounding.
The game’s camera is usually fine when it’s operating like a standard third-person camera (even the fixed angle cameras work fine), but the stealth camera, as I have mentioned, and sometimes the hovercraft camera can be downright frustrating. The hovercraft’s camera usually works like the standard camera and you can have it angled downward so you can see what’s in front of you, but there are parts in the game where it decides your vision is not important and places the camera directly behind the hovercraft to destroy your viewing area and perception of depth. When the camera is like this, it does a sort of “snap” thing where you can’t control it in any fine sense and you are forced to assume whether or not something is in front of you. It’s frustrating and something that should have been addressed in this re-release.
Even with those complaints, Beyond Good & Evil is a satisfying experience that can easily keep you engaged for 10+ hours (it took me and my dinking around 14 hours to do everything). Progression through the levels is varied enough that it never feels stale, the story and characters are intriguing, and it’s just a solid and fun experience. At a mere 800 MSP ($10... and most XBOX re-releases on Live are straight ports with no HD capability and no achievements cost 1200 MPS) and 10 or more hours worth of content, there aren’t many better ways to spend your money on XBLA.
Throughout the game it becomes clear that this was intended as more than just a one-off providing setups for a more expansive story than can be contained in one game. So, now that I know what all the fuss was about, when are we getting that sequel, Ubisoft?
