Fight aliens on land and sea, photograph local wildlife, sneak your way through top secret areas and much, much more in Beyond Good & Evil.
What Is It? Jade is a photographer living on the planet Hillys which is frequently under attack by DomZ; a group of aliens who capture humans for reasons unknown. Jade and her friend Uncle Pey’j live in a lighthouse caring for orphans. Soon Jade, the character you control, finds herself diving deeper into these attacks, the mysterious DomZ, and the local Alpha Sections, a group helping to stop the invasions and protect the people of Hillys.
On the gameplay front, Beyond Good & Evil is, above all else, a little bit of everything. There is melee combat, hovercraft driving/racing/fighting, puzzle solving, stealth sections, chase sequences, small bits of platforming, photography, some light puzzling, and even a few minigames. The really wild part is how all of these are, at the very least, entirely functional.
Combat is a one-button affair which gets a bit clunky at times, but mostly works well enough. There is a jumping enemy type that only shows up once and is incredibly annoying to try to hit, but that’s my biggest gripe there. You will spend a lot of time in your hovercraft exploring the small area of Hillys the game covers. The controls take some getting used to, but after the game has you racing and fighting, you will get accustomed and likely have a good time doing so. Stealth makes up the other of the most prominent mechanics. You will find yourself sneaking around powerful enemies to avoid conflict, and often instant death. The enemies are dumb enough to make these sections fairly simple, but, in a running theme, also a fun time.
Sprinkle in the rest of the mechanics and you’ve got a game that can be finished in about 10 hours but provides a lot of variety for its size and playtime. You will mostly play through a linear path of the open world game, with clear map markers pointing you towards your next objective. In order to fully upgrade your ships, you will need to collect pearls, this represents the most free roaming you will do. Buying the early upgrade to put the pearl locations on your map goes a long way to helping, but there is still fun in the exploration trying to find their exact locations.
The game looks just fine for the era, with better voice acting than I expected. The story is engaging and even a bit touching at times as you follow Jade’s journey. The game will give you a companion for most of your adventure, they have abilities to open up spots you couldn’t on your own as well as bouncing enemies in the air so you can smack them into electrical fences to disable them. It’s a small, but nice touch.
The Best Part: Not many games pull off the variety that Beyond Good & Evil does. The combat is the worst part, but is entirely functional. You will also spend plenty of time sleuthing in stealth mode, driving/racing/fighting a hovercraft, puzzle solving, collecting pearls, playing the occasional minigame, and photographing local wildlife. None of these are perfect, but they are all well done and, most importantly, fun. There are optional chase sections for the hovercraft which seem impossible at first, but after a few tries you will be controlling that thing like an expert and having a great time. It’s impressive to see a game competently pull off so many different mechanics.
The Worst Part: The clunky combat. It is far from bad, but you only have one move in close range combat and you will often swing at air instead of your enemies. The worst aspect here are the few times you need to use your disc launcher to shoot something while it is firing at you. The controls aren’t good enough to allow that level of speed/accuracy. Combat isn’t a negative overall, but it was clearly the weakest aspect of the game for me.
The Verdict: Beyond Good & Evil is significantly better than I expected going in. That expectation was solely my own and only based on the generic name and not knowing what the game offered.
It is to the game’s detriment that there is no single standout feature, but if you can appreciate the sheer volume of things the game does really well, there is a really fun ten hour adventure waiting.
How to Play: PlayStation 2*, Xbox. Various remasters: PS 3/4/5, Xbox 360/One/Series, Switch, PC
*console played on for this review
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