Posted April 05, 2023
Beyond: Two Souls
I don't quite know what to think. On the one hand it's pretty good, on the other hand rather bad.
Everything involving the cinematic presentation is great, the graphics, scenery, actors, soundtrack (by Hans Zimmer himself), it really is like playing an interactive movie or TV series, and while I'm not sure whether the story can actually be considered good, it is definitely well told. The episodes from the main character's life are presented in non-chronological, dramatically interesting order and with quite a bit of variety between them, from their length (very short to long and involved) to the settings and also the types of stories and gameplay. That also means that some are weaker than others, but overall, the game was very entertaining and I always wanted to know what comes next. Sometimes, it went a bit overboard with the suspension of disbelief necessary, even in the fantastical setting itself, sometimes it hurts the storytelling somewhat that there is no difference in consequence to extreme choices, like over life and death, and some scenes I found kind of tonally off and cringey, but there were enough others that actually managed to engage me and evoke emotions.
The gameplay is somewhere between walking simulator, simplistic but obscure and clunky adventure game, and confusing QTE action, with some illusion of stealth shooter thrown in here and there. In general it's pretty linear and rigid, and I seldom found anything that involved more than walking to actually be fun (even walking didn't always feel right, because there is no running button, or if there is it is toggled off most of the times and in the scenes where you're allowed to run, it is only a half walk / half run thing; plus the camera angles often make it harder to orient yourself as they tend to focus on the character, not where she is looking). Worst were the adventure game scenes that suggested urgency of action, while I was desperately hunting the environment for the few small dots to interact with, barely understanding what the game wanted me to do and whether I was under actual time pressure or not. For most of the game I also never fully understood all the controls, like what direction I was supposed to pull the right gamepad stick in when there was a white dot on screen. I'm still not sure whether I actually get it now. It often seemed somewhat random, and if it wasn't, then the game did a bad job of easing me into it at the start. In the QTE sequences you have a certain time to react and in slow motion the main character will make a move in the direction you are supposed to push, but often I found it hard to recognize and it didn't feel intuitive. Might just be me, but I probably failed almost as often as I succeeded.
Only, it doesn't really matter if you fail or succeed. The QTEs are just there to give you something to do once in a while, and the action might play out a little differently depending on your performance, but the result will always be the same. Which makes the QTEs pretty meaningless, but also a bit less annoying in my book. They never hinder the story progress and you never get stuck because of them, if you manage to endure them. This might also be the reason why this is the first Quantic Dream game that I actually finished. So even though I wouldn't say that the gameplay has much improved from e.g. Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy, it's still a bit of an improvement that it's less intruding. Occasionally the QTEs even came close to purveying some feeling of actually being involved, struggling and overcoming the obstacles the character has to face, but just barely, and I still think they are subpar gaming mechanics. But at least they did not interfere with the cinematic presentation as they do in Fahrenheit.
The game features a bonus episode that you can access from the main menu, and it's a short Portal-like training course with puzzles. Although the puzzles aren't complex, that episode probably had more actual gameplay (or at least more engaging gameplay) than most of the official episodes combined, even though it uses the same mechanics. Quantic Dream just didn't seem all that interested in creating a game that you would enjoy for its gameplay, the focus is entirely on how to tell the story and the mechanics it introduces are mostly there for the illusion of involving the player but are never exploited to their full potential and turned into something fun.
What I hadn't considered before though, is how much games like Life is Strange owe to Quantic Dream as well, not just to Telltale Games (and Naughty Dog?). I guess Telltale itself might have gotten their inspiration from them.
Anyway, it definitely was an interesting game to play, not just from a historical perspective, quite a ride, with many ups and downs, some of the oddest and most unexpected scenes I've experienced in a videogame, and many lessons about bad gameplay offset by the killer presentation and gripping storytelling.
I don't quite know what to think. On the one hand it's pretty good, on the other hand rather bad.
Everything involving the cinematic presentation is great, the graphics, scenery, actors, soundtrack (by Hans Zimmer himself), it really is like playing an interactive movie or TV series, and while I'm not sure whether the story can actually be considered good, it is definitely well told. The episodes from the main character's life are presented in non-chronological, dramatically interesting order and with quite a bit of variety between them, from their length (very short to long and involved) to the settings and also the types of stories and gameplay. That also means that some are weaker than others, but overall, the game was very entertaining and I always wanted to know what comes next. Sometimes, it went a bit overboard with the suspension of disbelief necessary, even in the fantastical setting itself, sometimes it hurts the storytelling somewhat that there is no difference in consequence to extreme choices, like over life and death, and some scenes I found kind of tonally off and cringey, but there were enough others that actually managed to engage me and evoke emotions.
The gameplay is somewhere between walking simulator, simplistic but obscure and clunky adventure game, and confusing QTE action, with some illusion of stealth shooter thrown in here and there. In general it's pretty linear and rigid, and I seldom found anything that involved more than walking to actually be fun (even walking didn't always feel right, because there is no running button, or if there is it is toggled off most of the times and in the scenes where you're allowed to run, it is only a half walk / half run thing; plus the camera angles often make it harder to orient yourself as they tend to focus on the character, not where she is looking). Worst were the adventure game scenes that suggested urgency of action, while I was desperately hunting the environment for the few small dots to interact with, barely understanding what the game wanted me to do and whether I was under actual time pressure or not. For most of the game I also never fully understood all the controls, like what direction I was supposed to pull the right gamepad stick in when there was a white dot on screen. I'm still not sure whether I actually get it now. It often seemed somewhat random, and if it wasn't, then the game did a bad job of easing me into it at the start. In the QTE sequences you have a certain time to react and in slow motion the main character will make a move in the direction you are supposed to push, but often I found it hard to recognize and it didn't feel intuitive. Might just be me, but I probably failed almost as often as I succeeded.
Only, it doesn't really matter if you fail or succeed. The QTEs are just there to give you something to do once in a while, and the action might play out a little differently depending on your performance, but the result will always be the same. Which makes the QTEs pretty meaningless, but also a bit less annoying in my book. They never hinder the story progress and you never get stuck because of them, if you manage to endure them. This might also be the reason why this is the first Quantic Dream game that I actually finished. So even though I wouldn't say that the gameplay has much improved from e.g. Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy, it's still a bit of an improvement that it's less intruding. Occasionally the QTEs even came close to purveying some feeling of actually being involved, struggling and overcoming the obstacles the character has to face, but just barely, and I still think they are subpar gaming mechanics. But at least they did not interfere with the cinematic presentation as they do in Fahrenheit.
The game features a bonus episode that you can access from the main menu, and it's a short Portal-like training course with puzzles. Although the puzzles aren't complex, that episode probably had more actual gameplay (or at least more engaging gameplay) than most of the official episodes combined, even though it uses the same mechanics. Quantic Dream just didn't seem all that interested in creating a game that you would enjoy for its gameplay, the focus is entirely on how to tell the story and the mechanics it introduces are mostly there for the illusion of involving the player but are never exploited to their full potential and turned into something fun.
What I hadn't considered before though, is how much games like Life is Strange owe to Quantic Dream as well, not just to Telltale Games (and Naughty Dog?). I guess Telltale itself might have gotten their inspiration from them.
Anyway, it definitely was an interesting game to play, not just from a historical perspective, quite a ride, with many ups and downs, some of the oddest and most unexpected scenes I've experienced in a videogame, and many lessons about bad gameplay offset by the killer presentation and gripping storytelling.
Post edited November 23, 2023 by Leroux
