Beyond the Beyond was Camelot Software Planning's first detour from the Shining franchise, an 'old-school' JRPG whose combat mechanics predate the likes of SMRPG and FFVIII. That level of creativity (and foreshadowing, considering what they worked on later) is also found in their numerous dungeons, with eclectic and sometimes difficult designs that reveal their dungeon-crawler roots. Other than that - boredom prevails, from its slow pacing to the overlong scenes and dialogue bloat (which appear to be chronic issues for Camelot), from the excessive encounters to the bland story & characters. Its Active Playing System, that rewards timely inputs via guards, counter/bonus attacks and super moves, manages to keep the player awake but could hardly offset the genre's trademark repetition.