Beyond Good & Evil 20th Anniversary Review

thesixthaxis.com:

The Ubisoft of the early 2000s was a very different beast to the company that we know today. Before the open world sprawls of Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry, it was Rayman, Splinter Cell and Prince of Persia that were the company’s cornerstone releases. And then there was Beyond Good & Evil. A critical darling that struggled commercially, it built up a committed fanbase that elevated the game to a cult level. The 2011 remaster for PS3 and Xbox 360 performed much better, such that both the 2008 and 2017 sequel announcements sparked momentary optimism, but the long stretches of silence have turned Beyond Good & Evil 2’s development into a meme and the series has felt doomed to become a relic of the past. Still, a 20th anniversary is as good a reason as any to dust off an old classic and revisit the good old days.

Returning to the world of Hillys inevitable involves a huge amount of nostalgia for me, so wrapped up is this game in my memories of venturing out into the world after graduating from university. Lifting the rose tinted specs to appreciate the game in a wider context, it’s clear that Ubisoft has kept the remaster pretty restrained, while making some necessary quality of life improvements to aid a modern audience and adding a few extras and bonuses for the longtime fans.

Assuming you are not familiar with the game already, BG&E tells the story of a young reporter, Jade, and her attempts to unravel the mysteries and conspiracies behind a sinister alien invasion of her adopted home planet. This planet is populated by a mixture of species from standard homo sapiens to humanoid sharks. Jade herself lives on a lighthouse island and acts as a foster mother of sorts to a group of orphaned children alongside her Uncle Pey’j, who just happens to be a boar. When Jade’s home is threatened and attacked by aliens, she is caught up in an adventure that traverses the land eventually takes her to the moon.

BG&E was always a game that benefited from its striking visual design