I count myself among those who have been waiting for a sequel to Beyond Good & Evil for a good 15 years, among those who have replayed the original more than a dozen times, and also among those who doubt that Michel Ancel’s ambitions will come true and he will be able to surpass the level of the original, not to mention bring the game to release, because as everyone knows, the sequel was already announced in 2008, and it was a direct sequel to BGE, a little later they even showed the gameplay of the alpha version, but after that the game simply disappeared from the radar. In 2017, we were given a cinematic trailer for a prequel to the story about the adventures of the cute girl Jade and her uncle Page, and a year later, we were baffled by the appearance of the protagonist in the E3 trailer. Some say that this is a “younger Jade,” although in the original she was clearly very young, some believe that this is the mother of the main character, but then Page would be younger, which you cannot tell from his appearance in the prequel. But somehow I’m completely distracted from the point, because this is not analysis and analysis of trailers death strand beyond good and evil 2, but an attempt to write my first review of a timeless classic. Well, let’s get started.
The game begins with a news https://lionslotsonlinecasino.co.uk/login/ release in which the presenter declares that war has come to the planet Hyllia, after which a decisive and confident voice declares that the Alpha Corps will always stand guard over order and the protection of citizens, then we are shown a scene of the main character meditating at a lighthouse on the shore of a small island. As usually happens, something went wrong and now the planet is under attack from alien creatures DomTs (in the original DomZ). Jade, being a kind of guardian of children and the head of a local orphanage, owes electricity, so the protective shield cannot be turned on and she has to fight monsters who have taken control of the little inhabitants. After winning and saving the children, Jade falls into a hole, where she has to fight the boss, and we get to meet the second key character in the story: her uncle Page, who is half boar, half human, and, having defeated the enemy, we receive the meaningful “The sector has been cleared, you can leave the territory” from the aforementioned Alpha Corps, we get out to the lighthouse and immediately get on the news broadcast. Page, however, is far from optimistic, and states that if next time the defenders of the planet also “rush” to the rescue, then there will be no one left to save. The reporters and the Alpha Corps leave, after which Jade faints and wakes up inside the lighthouse, remembering how during the boss battle she saw a certain figure calling her “Shaunie”… This is the beginning of the storyline in Beyond Good And Evil.
There will be several plot twists along the way, but I don’t want to reveal them, because, firstly, this is not a retelling of the plot, and secondly, suddenly among those reading this review there will be someone who for some reason missed the project and wants to see all the intrigues of this project in person. I will only say that in some moments the game reveals real drama, which is quite unexpected to see from the author of the cheerful and carefree Rayman, perhaps that is why I loved the game so much and left a mark on my soul, forcing me to play through it at least once a year in order to again plunge into the atmosphere of the project and meet already familiar characters.
From a gameplay point of view, this is an adventure game, with a lot of stealth and less battles with enemies and bosses. Also, the heroes have access to a Hovercraft, in which they can move around small areas of the planet, shoot enemies, participate in races for pearls (the local currency for upgrading the vehicle), and at a certain point in the plot, even attach it to a spaceship and fly to the moon. In addition to all of the above, Jade has a camera that can be used to photograph the local fauna, for which the heroine will be showered with credits, which can be used to purchase a health upgrade, several types of first aid kits, as well as repair robots for Hovercraft. Plus, the camera becomes an integral plot attribute, since the main character becomes a reporter for the local opposition, and she needs to penetrate local “hot spots” and make photo reports from the scene of events. The gameplay of BGE is balanced, there are no too long stealth missions or too difficult battles, and the main emphasis is on the plot, which, although it does not claim to be brilliant (Metal Gear Solid 2 had already been released at that time), but keeps you on the screen until the final credits, and the scene after them gives a direct hint at the continuation that fans have been waiting for too long.
Graphically, the project looks nice for those years, and still does not cause rejection with its picture. The game supports FullHD resolution, has a very extensive set of settings and runs smoothly on modern computers, although not without reservations; in some scenes, instead of a line of dialogue of the hero, the sound sometimes jams on one word, or even turns into such a cacophony of interference and noise, as if Doctor Who decided to once again stun the Daleks with his sonic screwdriver, although, perhaps, only I encountered this problem.
The soundtrack in the game is amazing, the main theme is still recognizable to this day, and some tracks from particularly dramatic moments still hang in the playlist and make you want to listen to them in a special mood.
In conclusion, I would like to return to the topic of continuation. Michel Ancel knows how to make quality games, he has a sense of style, and thanks to BGE, he has faith that he can deliver an interesting, exciting and dramatic story, but his ambitions are a little scary. In the sequel, he promised an “absolutely living open world” with procedural generation of planets, while on each planet it would always be possible to find something, but all these promises are reminiscent of another game, No Mans Sky – a lot was also promised, but none of this turned out to be at release, even though the game was “fixed” two years later, but the residue, as they say, remained. Plus, the decision to involve fans in development, including writing the soundtrack, art, and other things, seems very strange. That is, it is certainly cool that anyone can become involved in this project, but it is also a sign that the developers do not have enough of their own resources to develop such an ambitious project. In addition, there is no news from Ansel regarding his other project – WILD, which was announced at the Sony conference at Paris Games Week in 2015, after which it disappeared from the radar. On Twitter, Michel recently confirmed that he is still working on WILD, which makes him doubly afraid for the continuation of BGE, since it is very difficult to pull off the development of two large projects at once, and therefore it is difficult to believe in the imminent release of either of these two games. Yes, and looking at the concept of BGE2, you involuntarily begin to doubt that at the end we will get a game that is even remotely similar to the original, which only intensifies concerns about the project. Michel Ancel initially conceived the Beyond Good And Evil series as a trilogy and now everything will depend on the sales of the second part, if by some miracle it does come out. The first one, by the way, sold very poorly, despite the fact that critics greeted the game warmly. We can only reassure ourselves that we have been waiting for the continuation for 15 years, and another two or three years will not change the weather, and if the developers manage to realize all their ideas, then the series has a chance to become more popular. We can only hope that if successful, we won’t have to wait almost another 20 years for the third part.