Developer/Publisher: Ubisoft
Platforms: PS2, PS3, Gamecube, Xbox, Xbox360, PC

You know, Ubisoft wasn’t always the god-awful company it is today, shovelling out the same old garbage year upon year. Ubisoft has been responsible for a lot of great games but perhaps most notable of all, is Beyond Good & Evil due to it being both critically acclaimed and a commercial failure. So let’s take a look back at Ubisoft’s cult classic.

Beyond Good & Evil has a very fleshed out and well realised setting to say it is currently the sole entry in the series. It takes place on the planet Hillys which is home to an array of humanoid species including our two main characters: Jade, a human who makes her living as a photojournalist and her adoptive uncle Pey’j, a ‘sus sapien’ (or pig man.)

Jade’s job as a journalist takes a large role in the story as she is asked to gather evidence of a government conspiracy pertaining to an ongoing alien war over multiple planets. It also ties with the gameplay as Jade’s main source of income will be documenting the planet’s different lifeforms for a collectable style quest. This is one of the game’s main draws for me as the creature designs and their placement around the various areas of the world always gave me the feeling there was something new to discover around every corner.

Though not nearly as large as modern open world games, the game provides a sense of scale through traversal around it’s world map with an upgradeable hovercraft which is used to reach the game’s dungeons and the main city. This city especially is a visual marvel in PS2 terms with some great water effects and bustling environments filled with flying cars whizzing back and forth. Beyond Good & Evil also takes a page from the Legend of Zelda’s book of game design and drip feeds the player new abilities which give access to areas which were previously closed off.

It’s difficult to pin Beyond Good & Evil down to just one genre due to the amount of varied gameplay within. The game has you sneaking around dingy factories, puzzling through abandoned mines and again, driving a hovercraft over sprawling landscapes. The combat system is possibly the weakest of these elements, it’s very simple and not particularly challenging, Jade’s attacks are merely one button combos and the direction she attacks in can sometimes be a little imprecise. An AI partner is present for most of the game who will fight on their own but can use a special area of effect attack on command.

The puzzles in Beyond Good & Evil are also a bit lacking and are essentially slight variations on the same few puzzles. The majority of these involve pushing switches to avoid various types of laser beams but the best of them comes later in the game when the player must guide the hovercraft through a mine infested canal system. 

What the game lacks is almost made up for though by the game’s stunning animations which are some of the best I’ve seen on the PS2. This is not just in combat but extends to pretty much all actions in the game. You can tell instantly that the animations were something the team put a lot of effort into. The game’s production values in other areas are superb too. Voice acting is well delivered with a good variety of accents to drive home the multicultural nature of the game’s setting.

The main quest of the game actually cannot be completed without much thought for anything else, but either way it would be a mistake to ignore the game’s many hidden areas and collectables. The level design of Beyond Good & Evil in this respect I feel is on par with the sort of thing you might otherwise have only found on the PC at the time, with games like Thief for example. Many doors require codes only acquired from the relevant, otherwise unremarkable character.

The game’s soundtrack is excellent. It holds a decent balance of epic orchestral score and some bizarre diegetic music that matches the colourful cast perfectly. In terms of story, the final moments of the game are kind of underwhelming if not baffling but the music here really could not have done more to hold everything together and portray the urgency of the situation.

Reading a bit on the history of the game, you can tell that Beyond Good & Evil was a real passion project for the team. Unfortunately the game came out when Ubisoft had just overspent on marketing Prince of Persia: Sands of Time so were not willing to market this game properly. It’s no coincidence that Beyond Good & Evil was a commercial failure whereas Prince of Persia became a huge success, but I suppose it was a sign of things to come when Ubisoft was so reluctant to produce the sequel that the fans have been asking for for so long.

Despite the announcement of Beyond Good & Evil 2, I feel uneasy because all of the potential of the series lied in gameplay which I don’t see them implementing in the prequel, such as the photography. It also relied heavily on the strength of its main characters which are not likely to appear in the next game either. The original game left a fair few questions unanswered and I think it’s now way past the time we should expect they are going to be answered.       

Anyway, it is easy to see the many aspects which could have been improved upon in Beyond Good & Evil but the way the game uses its many gameplay elements to tell such a focussed and well realised story is the game’s triumph. Whilst the game may not achieve any one of its systems outstandingly well, it does them all well enough and presents them in such a beautiful package that it makes it one of the best games to play on the PS2.

Pros:

• Beautifully envisioned world & characters.

• Gameplay variety keeps you on your toes.

• Production values are superb.

Cons:

• Very basic combat & puzzles.

• Occasional stuttering frame-rate.