Beyond Good & Evil [20th Anniversary Edition]

A wholly disappointing game that does not live up to the acclaim and fandom it has garnered.

And I'm not saying this because it's "old". Ratchet & Clank was released a year before this thing and is much better at practically everything. Go play it if you haven't!

I have to point out that there is some potential here, which makes the disappointment sting even more. The world is evocative and has a unique feel to it. There are a few intriguing characters. But none of this is fleshed out. It almost feels like a pilot or sketch for a real game.

And, sadly, it's just poorly made.

The ill-conceived name might have done some marketing work, but let me tell you: this game has nothing to do with Nietzsche, morality, or anything deep at all. The writing is awful, the dialog especially so. The "diverse" cast of characters is presented with truly outrageous racial stereotypes. Like, wow, I can't believe they went there outrageous. I guess it was intended to be humorous, but it feels almost malicious. And even without any of that poor judgment in presentation, the whole story is cliché, predictable, littered with plot holes, and charmlessly amateurish. Not that there is much to it at all. I can summarize the whole plot in one boring paragraph.

How does it play? Sigh. The levels are simplistic and feel unfinished. Again, there was potential here to create some kind of open world with diverse and cool locations, but nobody bothered to do so. As for the game systems, they are all very mediocre: combat is empty and pointless, stealth involves nothing more than waiting for the guard to turn around, and environmental traversal for the handful of puzzles is just moving your controller in the right direction. The only gaming element I enjoyed was the race mini-games. And I hate racing games!

Is there anything good about it? Well, the music is excellent. As are some of the character designs. Yeah, and that's it.

I guess I can kinda understand the nostalgia for Beyond Good & Evil (ugh, just writing the name makes me cringe). It seems to promise so much up front, and if you play through it without thinking too much you might be able to ride on that promise all the way to the end and beyond. But it falls apart if you look any closer than that.

This is a franchise that really does not need to be revisited or revived.