Beyond Good & Evil™

a game from a era long gone, i miss the old ubisoft

The last boss is a frustrating design disaster. Still game is very fun to play.

I think I heard of this game back when it came out but I didn't put effort into acquiring it. Playing it now, it has a unique style that is quite dated graphically but the gameplay mechanics still hold up. The story is nice and only has a moderate amount of grinding and exploring. There were a few times that I went searching for assistance, but the game flowed well otherwise.

It was a good game; Im glad I played it at least once (and Im always happy to see stuff like this on GOG). But I would definitely recommend getting it on a console (this is coming from a PC loyalist). Camera control is terrible with a mouse. I had to stop playing after a few hours because I was literally sick to my stomach as the camera was repeatedly ripped from my control to stare at the floor, the ceiling or to be fixed in the most unhelpful position possible. Since most of the game is sneaking, most of the time the camera will be staring at the main characters bum or a wall (yes, Im a little spoiled from Human Revolution...). I cant tell you how many times I accidentally pushed the wrong button; trying to run or dodge, only to end up snapping a picture of the thing trying to eat me. Yeah, you can reassign controls, but some consolidation of buttons (like dodging and running) wouldve been helpful. Lastly, the graphics are terribly optimized. Even on the lowest settings, in the City I got a maximum of 30fps and an average of maybe 15-20. This is coming from a build with a GeForce 660 GTX; by no means the best card, but can run many new AAA titles on max settings. Seeing it defeated by an old game like this really deflated my balloon. Conclusion: Good game, get it on the GC.

Its a good game no doubt, and it is very easy to look at it with tinted eyes when compared to bloated worlds Ubisoft has been giving us lately in AC titles. This game has an open world yet compact, has many good things going, quite sufficiently mentioned in the other reviews. It also has a charming and wholesome vibe which is a fresh break from paranoid excitement and violence. However I will like to address some of the points which I found not that great. - The Story: Really? Is it that good? I don't think so. Enough to keep you hooked, but hardly anything novel or ingenuous here. Plus the ending is sort of left hanging probably because they thought they will make a sequel. Instead they are making a prequel for the last 19 years. For a game that takes lot of inspiration from JRPGs particularly like Ys for example, the story is not that good. Not much effort to build up the lore and communicate it whereas there seemed to be plenty opportunity for that. Like who are the DomZ? Where they came from? What other planets are there? What is the history of Hillys? None of these questions are addressed. - Controls and Camera: Gets quite wonky in many segments leading to quite a bit of frustration, and also there is no separate inversion option for the space-ship, so I had to manually change it every time I went in and out of the space ship. In fact, because I had forgotten to change the inverted controls during the excitement of the final mission, I kept dying at the final boss for quite a few times before I realized what was going on! The hovercraft handling also is not excellent. Overall, its a decent idea, decently executed but could have been much better even compared to itself. From my research it seems the makers were over ambitious in their goals, coming from the Rayman games, and then had to settle for lot of cut ideas, content, and features. The story also was changed in response to real world developments. All of this reflects on the game in very obvious manner.