I have finished this game 12 times.

12 times.

And completed every single quest in the entire game.

One of the best games ever.

God I wanted to like this game, and to be honest the first hour or so is really neat. The characters are likeable, the world is interesting, and it sets itself up nicely to be some sort of 3D Zelda-inspired game. However, after the first or second dungeon, the game grinds to a complete halt. The gameplay becomes a repetitive slog, the stealth sections are just tedious, and the game dives right into PS2-era grind at some points in the game. The ending picks up a bit, but overall I was very disappointed.

I’m a bit disappointed that this didn’t become a game I would really love because Beyond Good & Evil has just about everything it needed to become a personal favorite. The weird European influenced SciFi/Fantasy world, many of the character designs, the linear action adventure vibe, the occasionally very ambient soundtrack which slaps, and the more calming gameplay features like taking pictures.

However, these concepts, while pretty neat on paper, aren’t done more than they should in the game to make up a more cohesive experience. The story is certainly ambitious in spirit but it never felt too fulfilling to go through and doesn’t leave quite enough intrigue to make me hyped for what would’ve been the next two parts of this planned trilogy. The actual combat isn’t what I, and maybe even the developers themselves, consider to be the real defining point of what makes this game good, which is why it’s pretty simplistic and fairly sparse compared to other gameplay mechanics which make up the experience. But the photography mechanic rarely has much fun outside of a couple mandatory points in the main story, and stealth still feels like it needs some better ironing out to be completely engaging. The final boss really culminated in these weaknesses by just straight up not being fun when I had to go through it the first time.

What Beyond Good & Evil really shines the best though is in its quieter and simpler moments. From taking in the ambient soundtrack while taking pictures of animals in various levels, wandering around the colorfully populated areas of the world, taking part in races while brash spanish music blares, and just vibing with the slick presentation of the game as a whole. Even if I didn’t strongly connect with the story, I do think this is still a pretty unique world worth adventuring in, and I wouldn’t mind having another chance to play around in this sandbox again.

Beyond Good & Evil 2 isn’t that at all so it’s just aimless daydreaming I guess.

This game is really ambitious and still pretty good for it but it fell short overall. It's immersive and that's probably what I liked most about it. The music is interesting. I wouldn't call any of it bad but it's got its own identity. The combat was uninteresting, but serviceable considering how infrequently it's necessary. That is except for the final boss, which got on my nerves very quickly. Jade is a boring protagonist and the only stand out character in my opinion is the pig. I found parts of it really funny when it wasn't necessarily trying to be. Nothing goes above and beyond in this game. I think it is just 'good.' No more no less.

Beyond Good & Evil…yes I remember that, but for some reason, a certain game called Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was plastered all over TV and stores and B&E was, disappointingly overshadowed. B&E is a lovely and wonderful action/adventure game that was released during the peak of the last generation: 2003. B&E’s premise is something along these lines: You are Jade who is a caretaker of an orphanage on a futuristic (has a Star Wars feel to it) planet called Hillys. The Alpha Section are fighting a so-called war against the alien invasion known as the Domz. Jade and her pig uncle Pey’j must find out the conspiracy behind the Alpha Section and the Domz in order to bring peace and freedom to the planet of Hillys. You take on a job as a reporter/spy for the IRIS Network and along the way you take pictures of animals, take part in speedboat races, and play a familiar air hockey game to earn pearls and credits (the game’s two currencies) to find your way through the world.


A lot of the game is set up around two gameplay elements; stealth and combat. While the stealth is stronger than the combat both are enjoyable and evenly balanced throughout the game. Sneaking around the two major parts of the game to take pictures of Alpha Section’s activities is rewarding and easy to do. Crouching around corners and learning the guard’s patterns is a typical element of stealth, but the great part about the game is there’s no jump button…yes this makes the gameplay a lot more smoothly and you actually know what to do. If you see a ledge Jade can hop up on you know to go there instead of hopping around like an idiot trying to, hopefully, find some collision detection glitch and get up onto that ledge. Sneaking around the guards is also like a puzzle in itself since you have to figure out a way to open certain doors, hit certain switches and even get items without anyone seeing you. The stealth isn’t brutal and is pretty forgiving since if you run out of the area everything will calm down and go back to normal. Most guards have a weakness on their backs (a yellow jetpack) so this can blind them and makes things a little easier. Sneaking around the place is pretty typical and there’s not much to describe, but it is very fun squeezing between walls and ducking in vents and what not. Thanks to no jump button dodging lasers are really fun since you have a run button and a dodge button so you just run and jump over lasers and obstacles and it can be really fun.


The combat, however, is a bit weak since it’s so simple. You just mash the mouse button and Jade will beat the S out of everything with her magical staff; hold it down and you get a supercharged spinning attack. While you can dodge and roll around while running the camera is one of the major flaws of the game and the combat can get so tedious and boring. Thankfully there isn’t much fighting and you mainly just sneak around and do a lot of traveling. The only thing that keeps the combat from being a snooze fest is the unique way of having to kill certain enemies. Double H or Pey’j may be with you so you can order them to do their special attack and it will stun enemies or shoot them in the air. When they are in the air Jade will spin around and knock them across the room and this is good for taking out certain obstacles in your way.

Traveling around the world can be fun and frustrating since the map is useless and the game is very labyrinthine. Since you’re sneaking around everywhere you don’t really remember where you’ve been so if you forget to take a certain picture you don’t know where it was since the map is just a bunch of white blobs that don’t tell you where to go. Finding things like animals, pearls, and other items is pointless since they are big dots on this white useless map so hopefully you have enough pearls (used only at Mammago’s Garage to upgrade your speedboat) to finish the game. Finding all of the animals can be almost impossible since a lot of them are in spots you never knew you could even access, so earning big money in the game is a bit hard and can make you go hunting for items you have to know idea are there. This being the game’s biggest flaw can easily be overlooked since you’ll usually get just what you need by just playing normally. You can partake in four separate races, but they are impossible to beat since there is no speed upgrade for your boat and playing flawlessly, using speed boosts, won’t get you first place.

The races are seriously impossible even if you drive perfectly so this is just retarded. You can play air hockey at the Akuda Bar or a cups game which can be fun and challenging. There are items called MDiscs which you put in save machines to help evolve the story, increasing your health is done by finding PA1s, Kbup, and Starkos are food that give you health so you can see the game tries a lot of original things and is just a fresh world that has been overlooked by many many people. With the game’s unique story, great voice acting, and wonderful yet simple gameplay design you’re sure to spend a great number of hours on this short, yet sweet, adventure.


Picking up the game for any system has its ups and downs: The PC version’s controls are kind of funky for this type of game, the PS2 has a slowdown, the GameCube’s controller requires a contortionist to play, and the Xbox version isn’t backward compatible on the 360 so take your pick. Either way, you’re going to have a blast with this wonderful yet overlooked game. Look forward to the anticipated game next year as well.

I've always heard of Beyond Good & Evil as something of a cult classic; critically acclaimed, but not the system seller or series seller that Ubisoft's later works Prince of Persia: Sands of Time or Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory would become, and as a result Beyond Good & Evil got swept to the side, never to really be heard from again while Assassin's Creed got a million sequels. And it's such a damn shame that happened, because Beyond Good & Evil is so fucking good.

I don't think it's the most polished game out there; there are occasional moments of jank where your AI companion might take a little bit longer to get to your position (and for me, got stuck in the doorway once) and how corner hit detection during races and the goddamn pellet game messed me up multiple times. And the combat is servicable, not amazing; you can get by just hack and slashing most of the time, and this could have used a bit more depth. And yet I will choose to overlook these minor moments, because this is one of the coolest games I've played, and also one of the most thoughtful games I've played. It's just long enough to hide many snug little secrets around the world and make you put in the effort, but short enough to where it doesn't outstay its welcome. The plot is somehow interesting without becoming super convoluted, and it's just dark enough to take itself seriously and stay earnest without sounding overly gloomy or edgy. There aren't a ton of main characters, but the main cast has a lot of personality spread out through the game's relatively short run length. And the puzzles are simple enough to where you can easily figure them out on your own, but still manage to give you a real sense of satisfaction and excitement over how you just managed to piece that on your own. And all the collectibles are spaced apart well enough to where you're naturally encouraged to explore the whole world, with the tools necessary if you need that extra helping hand. Speaking of which, this is probably the first game where I genuinely enjoyed the stealth segments, which I honestly cannot say of any other game I've played up to this point. It's just clean, stylized, stealth that isn't punishing if you mess up yet gives off the feeling that you're being a sneaky secret agent fighting against dirty corporate overlords and seeking justice for those who have been wronged.

In conclusion, while I don't think Beyond Good & Evil looks like or plays like an exceptional game necessarily (it is a product of its age, after all), it's such a damn well thought out cohesive experience and was the Goldilocks of the action-adventure genre that I never knew I needed. Who would have guessed that combining photography with the Legend of Zelda model and throwing in effective stealth sequences would have done it for me? I lament that the game has been mostly forgotten by Ubisoft due to how difficult it was to finagle a working copy (ex: the PC copy has screwy camera scroll speed, the GameCube copy is letterboxed, and the HD Remaster on PS3 can't be bought on the store anymore to be played on PS4/PS5), because it is such a fun and satisfying title to go through. I'm glad though, that audiences are finally giving it the credit it deserves, and I'll happily join the crowd of dozens that are praying for Beyond Good and Evil 2 outside of development hell.

In recent memory this is the most positive I've felt overall about a game where I strongly dislike the core gameplay. The stealth and combat are incredibly basic and feel forced in, and I'm sure they were used as selling points for the game back when it came out.

This could be the poster child for bad stealth segments. Basic enemy patrol patterns, vision cones that feel very inconsistent in when they catch you, very basic and boring stealth gadgets, and the game's already poor camera controls become so much worse in stealth sections for whatever reason. The worst are rooms that feel like you have to stealth kill your way through but there's basically no way to kill without alerting everyone, setting off the alarm, hiding, and waiting for the rest of the enemies to give up on searching for you 5 seconds later and reset. The stealth really doesn't make up that much of the game, fortunately, but as a big selling point for the game or a genre it tries to be defined by it fails miserably.

The on-foot combat is used even less, and it's less annoying because you can mostly just mash through it, but it's very shallow. This isn't helped by health and healing consumables being meaningless and just resetting at the start of a room whenever you die. It might be annoying if that wasn't the case and the rest stayed the same, but it's still pretty weak. The ship combat and boss fights are a bit better, but still nothing to write home about.

Before I get to more positive things to say, I want to note that the level design is really lacking here. They're clearly trying to mimic Zelda dungeons (among other inspirations from that series), but the level design felt notably bad at many points. I'd like to think I notice when level design excels more than most, but I rarely complain about it when it meets the baseline for good of feeling "invisible". That feeling was broken a lot here, with backtracking through empty zones with nothing to do where other games would loop around to the start, and very poor signposting of where to go with splitting paths where there's really nothing to do in all but one direction most of the time. The levels are also inscrutable to get around during some of those backtracking segments, there's a map that's usually available pretty early on in each "dungeon" and your main path through is pretty linear, but something about them just feels difficult and maze-like to navigate. I'd find myself checking the map far too often, and still being kind of confused on where to go.

All of the above complains largely just apply to the game's dungeons, and despite all of that I sort of wish there were more of them, because the game feels over a little too soon. There's only four main dungeons, with one of them being essentially a tutorial, although the last one is pretty great to end on. Almost everything around those is really cool, and even if there's some other small problems as well the game is overflowing with charm and original designs that make the world feel alive. I'm positive that kid-me would have fallen in love with this game if I'd played it back then, because it does such an excellent job of making the world feel bigger and more alive than it actually is. The characters feel cool and interesting even if their writing is pretty flat, the areas feel like a huge open world with a lot of possibilities even if it doesn't actually take that much time to explore everything, and the side content is impressively varied and fun.

The minigames were more fun to me than the core gameplay, many of them revolving around your hovercraft. There's races that are surprisingly fun, as well as chase sequences. In addition to a couple of other games you can play with side characters, and some secret mini-dungeons in the city, it's really not that impressive of a list writing it out but it feels fun and varied, and a nice break from the core content of the game. Exploring to find this side content is a lot of what makes it enjoyable. Even if both the on-foot section of the main city and the overworld are fairly small, they tie into that feeling I talked about of a big and living world, and they open up over the course of the game in a fun way. I also quite enjoyed the camera aspect of the game, which I don't really know where I should mention. Recognizing if you'd seen a creature before, and finding a good angle to snap a pic of it stayed fun throughout the game. It also ties into the missions pretty well at points where you have to sneak around guards to take pictures of what the baddies are up to, which I wish there was a bit more of compared to the traditional stealth.

The story really isn't anything special, but I cared enough to see it through just on the basis of how cool the characters and world are (with the exception of Double H, fuck that guy). Seeing the citizens not-so-slowly join your cause was a really neat idea, even if the pacing of it is a bit abrupt. The ending was a little out of nowhere but was executed fairly well overall, it was definitely setting up for a sequel we all know at this point is never coming unfortunately. I also still have no idea what the title is supposed to be talking about, there's really no moral ambiguity to be found here.

Despite a lot of shortcomings and rough edges in the individual parts, I think Beyond Good & Evil really succeeded overall at what it set out to do. It failed at a lot of the smaller gameplay things that Zelda games do well, but it succeeded in making a compelling world that players want to explore, similar to those games but also completely in its own way. This should have led to a full series of games that could further explore the parts of this that work well and polish up the rest, but sadly we don't live in that world.

Hoje em dia pode parecer simples a maneira como Beyond Good & Evil aborda o jornalismo, governos autoritários e o que hoje podemos chamar de "fake news", mas temos que pensar que se trata de um jogo de 2003!! Sem dúvidas ele está MUITO a frente do seu tempo, seus temas são ainda mais significativos atualmente do que na época em que foi lançado.

Além disso, o jogo é EXTREMAMENTE DIVERTIDO, não pela gameplay ( que é boa, apesar da câmera ser péssima), mas sim por sua trama envolvente, ótima trilha sonora e principalmente por seus personagens, todos muito carismáticos, o que nos faz se relacionar muito com o jogo no geral. Em nenhum momento eu me senti desanimado em jogar, pelo contrário cada parte foi muito divertida, e inclusive até gostaria que ele se estendesse por mais tempo.

Mas como um todo é um dos jogos mais subestimados que já vi, e você deveria dar uma chance pra esse clássico da ubisoft.

Beyond Good & Evil there is simply the truth.

This game is famous among quite a few of the game community though sadly for all the wrong reasons. It isn't known for unbelievable graphics, breaking selling records or innovation, no BG&E is simply known for being an amazing critically acclaimed game that nobody bought.

This game doesn't do anything special to push itself above the crowd, what it does have is personality, and one that makes you feel as if you are right there with it. The game is brimming with emotion and imagination that just immerses you into the universe that Ubisoft created, and few games have I played that can make them feel so personal.

The game focus's on a female reporter called Jade. She is a reporter struggling to get by in a war between her planet Hillys and an alien invader known as the DomZ that are tearing her planet apart. Taking a job to fund herself Jade gets taken into a bizarre series of events that lead her working for the IRIS network, a resistance of sorts that fight beyond sides, beyond good & evil, they fight for...the truth.

The story and characters to this game are wonderful, not to mention unique, full of emotion and humor to accompany Jade on her journey. I mean where else can you fight a pig with rocket powered flatulence boots?

The gameplay is similarly well crafted with just as much variation. The game for the most part plays like a 3rd person action adventure game. Jade can sneak, and hide behind walls to avoid unwanted attention in Metal Gear stealth like sections, but she can also fight using her staff should it come to that with some basic combos and a charge attack.

Jade and whoever happens to be with her as part of the story have a life bar of hearts that can be increased or decreased upon finding items up for the task, these items must be held by the character to be in effect. This includes gaining her life back as everyone knows eating nachos mid battle heals all your wounds :P

What kind of a reporter would she be if she didn't take pictures? So of course there are plenty of sections in the game requiring pictures to be taken, as well as plenty of optional photos in registering the planets wildlife for a lab which I thought was a really nice touch, and a lucrative one as there are camera upgrades and items to be gained for finding them.

The planet Hillys is formed of many islands over a sea so traveling on foot between areas is not an option. Instead for most of the game Jade and her pig uncle Pej will use a hovercraft. This vehicle is however quite versatile as it can jump as well as fire weapons outside of it's obvious "point A to point B" design.

These abilities allow for some of the games more thrilling events such as fighting a huge DomZ alien leviathan creature as well as some optional fast space pirate cave chases, the variation of things to do in this game never allow for a dull moment.

Throughout the game there are plenty of mini games to take part in from hovercraft racing to air hockey all of which can get you rewards such as pearls or money which allow Jade to buy a bigger life bar, healing items, one use speed boosters and hovercraft upgrades to get her though her story. The game is chocked full of various gameplay mechanics and despite this the controls are always simple and comfortable to play with no matter what the situation which impressed me greatly.

Graphically BG&E is a pretty good looking game for it's time though it won't blow anyone away. However the character and wildlife design are fantastic with all types of cat people, bull people, shark people as well as birds, penguins, space whales and plants to look at on Jades adventure.

Once again the sound is great with some terrific voice acting that really brings the characters to life, especially Pej the pig (have I mentioned he's awesome? XD ). The sound effects and music are also excellent though I admit outside of one great battle theme they don't really stand out either.

There are so many generic games that just don't aspire to be more then they are now days and Ubisoft have long stopped making games like this or taking risks. If you are reading this, buy this game and give it a whirl, this is a game that everyone can enjoy, and should.

+ Interesting characters.
+ Nice variety of gameplay mechanics.
+ Nice art design.

Beyond Good and Evil has been a bit of a mythical game for me. Ever since I was a kid reading Nintendo Power, I've known about how good it allegedly is, and now that I've played it?

It's about as good as a 2003 semi-open world game can get. That's not exactly glowing praise, but the game is really solid in a lot of places. The world design is incredibly creative, leaning into sci-fi and cyberpunk just enough without feeling like a lazy pastiche of established media tropes. The music is great too, going from reggae, metal, latin, or whatever the mood calls for without feeling pigeonholed into "generic orchestrral score". It's Christophe Héral at his best.

So on the whole, it's artistically fantastic, especially for 2003. It feels at least 4 years ahead of its time graphically and has aged really well. The gameplay, however, is really just about fine. Combat is simple, mash A and rarely dodge an attack with B. Stealth is either too easy or obnoxious depending on if you get insta killed for getting seen. It's not very well done stealth gameplay, frankly.

The main two issues with the game for me are the by the numbers story and (less importantly), the forced widescreen on a Gamecube game that doesn't fill the screen on a CRT or an HDTV. So enjoy 3/4 of your screen as much as possible. The story, though, is about the most basic conspiracy plot you'll see. Government colluding with evil aliens, you spend the game gathering photo evidence and instantly get your rebel army for the end boss. The title of "Beyond Good and Evil" is a bit misleading given how binary the concept is in-game. But I liked the characters and world enough to look past it.

Since Beyond Good and Evil 2 is officially vaporware, I'm a little miffed about the rushed sequel hook ending as well. All they needed to do was put some more satisfying closure shots on Hillys and remove that post credits scene and it would be fine.

Beyond Good and Evil is worth playing out of respect for Michel Ancel's direction, even if the actual game is just a short Zelda with less interesting gameplay and a rushed final act.

Beyond Good & Evil is a fantastic title. I’m not even trying to say that the actual game is amazing, but that the title itself is just wonderfully evocative. It pairs beautifully with the box art of the hero standing not with a gun, but with her camera, ready to capture the horrible truths at the foundation of a futuristic city. It lets your imagination run wild with the possibilities of what you may discover, and that’s exactly what bit me when I started playing. This game is hardly like what the box promises, striking a tone that’s more comedic and fantastical than it is mysterious. You spend a lot of time with quipping sidekicks, doing basic platforming and hitting fantasy monsters with a staff instead of uncovering dark truths. The stealth and photography that seemed like the main selling point are only a small portion of the game, coming to a total of about five pictures required over the course of the entire playthrough. It’s not that this difference from what was advertised makes the game bad, but it’s essentially a different form of the “is it a good sequel” problem. If a game sells itself in a way not reflective of the actual product, can people be blamed for being disappointed in spite of the game’s merits? If I played this game in a total contextual vacuum, I would simply pass it off as a mediocre fantasy platformer with a couple interesting ideas, but the product being so different from the more interesting version that was advertised cast a pall over my enjoyment. I kept waiting and waiting for the Beyond Good & Evil I had in my head, but it just never ended up happening. With how development of the sequel has been going, I’m starting to think that will be the main thing these games have in common.

Beyond Good & Evil is one those titles that has been known and acclaimed for years as a cult classic despite not many people played it.

Being designed and directed by Michel Ancel, it carries a LOT of the elements that makes titles like Rayman 2 special. But also features a lot of thingsthat make it stand out compared to these other works.

It presents a grim but also enthrilling world, with really charming main and side characters and a narrative revolved around the struggle for survival against a menace from space.

It has a gameplay involved about combat, puzzle-solving and exploration that combines so many gimmicks and events that make it a really experimental title for its time, even if the often stiffness of the controls and the janky camera plays against it sometimes.

The open world aspect of it also makes it stand out, as you are free to explore this distopic land alo with the use of various vehicles.

It does a lot of thing and experiments with a lot of assets... sometimes those gimmicks feels undercooked, but still lead to a great experience that never bores you.

Give it a shot, it's a really cool underrated gem!