Beyond Good and Evil Review

Despite my plans to review all my Dreamcast games, the first of my games that I get a full review done for is Beyond Good and Evil. It was just a distractingly good game. So here I go. I will be reviewing the NOT HD remake version, and will make considerations for the graphics as such.

STORY:

The story is a good set up for this adventure game. Jade is an orphan living with her caretaker, Payj the pig man. She makes a living as a photographer as she tries to care for a group of orphans living in a lighthouse. The planet they live on is being assaulted by a group known as the Dom-z. The local military group, the Alpha-Section, resists them. Jade gets drafted into the IRIS resistance group who have her capture incriminating photos of the Alpha-Section's corruption.

Its a creative set up that allows Jade to be a part of the story without feeling like some SUPER GOD OF SAVING PEOPLE!!!! You rarely stop the Evil, you just document it. But the story works so well because of the well written characters. Jade and her uncle Payj are very likable characters who have a very believable repartee. And despite of the cartoony style, the writing can tug at your heart when it wants to. A very solid story that compels you to keep playing, even when the gameplay may force a bit of dragging spot.

GAMEPLAY:

As a third person adventure game, BGAE has a lot of variety. Combat is responsive with easily directed attacks leading into combos. Puzzles are usually fairly easy environment ones that don't have more than one obvious solution. The driving sections are a tad unresponsive but still fun due to their scarcity. There is a very definite treasure hunt element since vehicle upgrades are necessary to progress in the story and can only be bought with pearls. A solid (if unrewarding) stealth mechanic has you sneaking behind very oblivious guards who will murder you if they spot you. And its all rounded out with some pretty good platforming mechanics.

Now the drawback to all this variety is that some of the elements don't work so well. The stealth is very binary, with failure having huge or zero consequences. The boat controls are just a bit too slippy to be fun. But the rest of the elements are good and the pacing between the sections is still solid. Only real flaw is that the camera can be pretty disobedient. It mostly happens on the hovercraft, but sometimes it flares up in cramped hallways.

GRAPHICS:

Some really well designed visuals in this game. It has an appropriately cartoonish feel mixed with the darker elements of its story. The character models are surprisingly fluid; the only game I can think of with better facial animations is Half Life 2. It has a good cinematic feel with well designed levels that clearly emphasize the things that can be interacted with. I must make a note for anyone who buys the steam, not HD version. My computer experienced some pretty serious graphical tearing. It wasn't game breaking, nor did it ever cause a crash. But it was distracting. 

OVERALL:

As a straight adventure game, BGAE is one of the best. It doesn't rely on set pieces to wow you, nor does it have some exceptionally compelling game play to carry the experience. It has a tightly crafted narrative and lets you take part in it. And it is obvious that the developers approached it with the idea of making a good game based around the story they had. For fans of adventure games, nearly a must play.

8/10

COG: Animal Crossing

So access to the summer island finally opened up and I went and visited the island with a friend. The island has some really nice mini games that have you catching bugs and fish and hunting down dinosaur fossils. It was actually a lot of fun. I also finished building a new street light in the town. The towns people were pleased as punch. Now I'm going to build a new bridge to aid in travel. Lastly, I got roped into a game of hide and seek with some of my neighbors. It was really cool and fun. 

Kapp'n sings while he sails

The beach access will never be dark again.