Beyond Good and Evil has been a bit of a mythical game for me. Ever since I was a kid reading Nintendo Power, I've known about how good it allegedly is, and now that I've played it?
It's about as good as a 2003 semi-open world game can get. That's not exactly glowing praise, but the game is really solid in a lot of places. The world design is incredibly creative, leaning into sci-fi and cyberpunk just enough without feeling like a lazy pastiche of established media tropes. The music is great too, going from reggae, metal, latin, or whatever the mood calls for without feeling pigeonholed into "generic orchestrral score". It's Christophe Héral at his best.
So on the whole, it's artistically fantastic, especially for 2003. It feels at least 4 years ahead of its time graphically and has aged really well. The gameplay, however, is really just about fine. Combat is simple, mash A and rarely dodge an attack with B. Stealth is either too easy or obnoxious depending on if you get insta killed for getting seen. It's not very well done stealth gameplay, frankly.
The main two issues with the game for me are the by the numbers story and (less importantly), the forced widescreen on a Gamecube game that doesn't fill the screen on a CRT or an HDTV. So enjoy 3/4 of your screen as much as possible. The story, though, is about the most basic conspiracy plot you'll see. Government colluding with evil aliens, you spend the game gathering photo evidence and instantly get your rebel army for the end boss. The title of "Beyond Good and Evil" is a bit misleading given how binary the concept is in-game. But I liked the characters and world enough to look past it.
Since Beyond Good and Evil 2 is officially vaporware, I'm a little miffed about the rushed sequel hook ending as well. All they needed to do was put some more satisfying closure shots on Hillys and remove that post credits scene and it would be fine.
Beyond Good and Evil is worth playing out of respect for Michel Ancel's direction, even if the actual game is just a short Zelda with less interesting gameplay and a rushed final act.
It's about as good as a 2003 semi-open world game can get. That's not exactly glowing praise, but the game is really solid in a lot of places. The world design is incredibly creative, leaning into sci-fi and cyberpunk just enough without feeling like a lazy pastiche of established media tropes. The music is great too, going from reggae, metal, latin, or whatever the mood calls for without feeling pigeonholed into "generic orchestrral score". It's Christophe Héral at his best.
So on the whole, it's artistically fantastic, especially for 2003. It feels at least 4 years ahead of its time graphically and has aged really well. The gameplay, however, is really just about fine. Combat is simple, mash A and rarely dodge an attack with B. Stealth is either too easy or obnoxious depending on if you get insta killed for getting seen. It's not very well done stealth gameplay, frankly.
The main two issues with the game for me are the by the numbers story and (less importantly), the forced widescreen on a Gamecube game that doesn't fill the screen on a CRT or an HDTV. So enjoy 3/4 of your screen as much as possible. The story, though, is about the most basic conspiracy plot you'll see. Government colluding with evil aliens, you spend the game gathering photo evidence and instantly get your rebel army for the end boss. The title of "Beyond Good and Evil" is a bit misleading given how binary the concept is in-game. But I liked the characters and world enough to look past it.
Since Beyond Good and Evil 2 is officially vaporware, I'm a little miffed about the rushed sequel hook ending as well. All they needed to do was put some more satisfying closure shots on Hillys and remove that post credits scene and it would be fine.
Beyond Good and Evil is worth playing out of respect for Michel Ancel's direction, even if the actual game is just a short Zelda with less interesting gameplay and a rushed final act.