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Upcoming discussion schedule:

November 22nd: Hotline Miami
December 6th: Gunpoint
December 20th:: The Shivah
January 3rd: Her Story
January 17th: Zeno Clash

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Welcome to the first edition of the Gaming Symposium, where we'll convene every two weeks for a dedicated in-depth discussion on a single game, with no restraint on spoilers. This week's game is Beyond Good and Evil, suggested by Vainamonen.

In this first post I'll posit a few questions in an attempt to jumpstart a discussion, I'll leave my own opinions for a subsequent post.

1. Did you play this game close to release or much later? How did its reputation influence your thoughts on it? Did it live up to expectations?

2. What are your thoughts on the ending? What sort of followup do you envision for it?

3. What would you change about it, if given the chance?

EDIT: You don't have to answer these questions, you may freely share all your thoughts on the game in whichever way you like, the questions are only here to help if you don't quite know where to begin ;)

1> Much later. Can't say that opinions influenced me as I read very little about it, went to play it more from the curiosity rather than the rep. Was pleasantly surprised by some things but it didn't "rock my world". Good and compelling game, great characters, great world, and I realized why it had the reputation after I played the game and then reading more impresisons.

2> It was alright. Concluded the overall plot of the game (you discover the conspiracy and defeat the baddies), left some questions in the air (Jade's powers) and introduced/pitched ideas for a possible sequel (DomZ spore on Pey'j's hand).
Now with the announcement of the sequel (or possible prequel) it gives more to think about it, but overall, that ending it's fine for me.

3> More voice acting for NPCs, a bigger world and/or cities (not open world, just a tad more bigger), some more quests involving more citizens/NPCS, some combat and stealth tweaks (feel a bit stiff sometimes) also some tweaks for the PC interface/controls.

I have no history with this game, playing it now for the first time it was indeed enjoyable, but I didn't find it to be anything special. I have to wonder if I wouldn't have felt about it differently if I had played it at the time. This also informs my opinion of the ending, the one thing I always heard about it was that it ended on a cliffhanger doomed to never be resolved, but I was pleasantly surprised that to see the amount of closure it still offered.

I have to say, despite never having played it before, there was definitely something nostalgic about it. It feels so "early 2000s", between the unwieldy camera, the block pushing and the forced stealth sections, it was definitely characteristic of its age. Like I imagine that sandbox games where you climb towers to unlock the map will feel in ten years time.

My biggest problem with the game is one I have with a lot of Action-Adventure games, they end up as a jack of all trades, master of none. Here the combat was very simplistic, mostly I just mashed the attack button. The puzzles were some occasional block pushing, and finding and inserting codes; I although I did enjoy when they integrated them with the game world, like the patron at the bar trying to hide his code. The stealth didn't employ tools or much interaction at all, it's just a matter of waiting for the guards to pass and walking behind them. None of it is terrible, but it's just passable.

What I did like was the photography mechanics, it shows off the details in the maps and was very appropriate for the character. I liked that instead of blowing up all of the evil facilities, instead you collected evidence on them.

If I could change the game I'd scrap a lot of the gameplay mechanics and force it to specialize. Because I liked the photography side, I'd lean on the stealth since it's the better fit, as opposed to combat. I would scrap all combat arenas, not worry about any puzzles either, in a good stealth game the entire level is a puzzle. Give her some distraction tools, and extra movement methods. The existing photography side mission was the animal cataloguing, I would switch to something more connected to the main plot, optional objectives in each map for extra challenge and rewards. I'm fully aware that at this point I might be turning it into a completely different game, but I find it preferable to the Action-Adventure hodgepodge of gameplay styles.

1. I played it on the Xbox right after it was originally released. I enjoyed it, although I can't say I've been pining for a sequel. If it happens, cool, but if not I won't be brokenhearted :) I'll try to play it again and see if my opinion has changed. One thing I do remember is that I thought the stealth sections were okay, mostly because they played relatively fast compared to other games I had played. I think most stealth games of that era were still in the "you have to walk really, really slowly" part of their evolution, which could be frustrating, especially if you failed a mission.

2. Uhhh, I guess I will have to play it again because I really don't remember. I just remember something about there being a cliffhanger but not specifically what it was.

3. I've never liked Pey'j's voice acting. Every time he spoke, I could hardly wait for him to shut up again. So a new actor, maybe someone with a deeper voice, more like Sam Elliott, would have been good.

1. I played the HD rerelease on the PS3, I had heard the hype from various 'Games that should've sold better etc' threads. Strangely one of my favourite parts was the photography stuff, as a big fan of pokemon Snap. That stuff never got mentioned in every review I heard and I really enjoyed it.

2. I despise endings that lead on to sequels, especially if a sequel never gets made for the game. Not really that hyped for a sequel tbh.

3. Not much I'd change, though actually thinking about it, that final boss fight can be extremely frustrating and I seem to recall using a healing item then dying, but I didn't get to keep the healing item and had to redo the boss fight without it.

This is my first time playing it. I'm not finished with it yet (*hides*), but I did play some of it and I really like the world building.

1. A few years later... It was its reputation what made me want to try the game in the first place.... And it far surpassed my expectations.

2. It seems the series was heading towards a very science-fictionish narrative. Jade is probably some kind of artificially-created messiah.

3. The ending, so the game could be a standalone... And we wouldn't need to wait forever for the promised sequel.

That would be Thief Photography Edition :D
Cool idea nonetheless

If I know Michel Ancel, we can wait for even more platforming goodness, and less scripted events this time. And I don't why, but something tells me we'll have multiple worlds to explore. And a huge lot more of Pey'J, both in narrative and in gameplay.

1. I played it back then when it was first released. Back in the day, it was not well know among my friend, and I was the only one who played it. I really like it. It is a cool action adventure game. Sure combat is simplistic and challenge is near zero, but world building, storyline and some gimmick like motorboat jet racing makes up for that. I ignore animal photograph almost entirely. I played it for a long tome. Probably almost a month.

2. I wish they simply remove the part showing DomZ spore on Pey'j's hand. Seriously. If it ends there, it would be a nice closure. And NO, I don't want any follow up

3. I answer it in my 2nd point. But perhaps we can make combat a bit better? Like more movement variation, or more type of enemies. A new special move perhaps? I remember Jade "jump and turning round and round" to be underwhelming. Perhaps also some other tools to use in battle?

I was thinking I was unintentionally turning it into Thief when I was writing it. XD

You could easily go the opposite direction and focus primarily on the combat. I just picked the stealth route because I liked the photography part.

I guess for combat you'd have to definitely add more enemies. Maybe some combos as well. It did have pause combos but I only recognized two. Then there's the problem of a dominant strategy in the combat. At first I thought it was the "attack-pause-mash attack" combo, because of how many hits it landed, but soon I realized that this combo didn't seem to trigger a stagger animation on the enemies, leading me to getting hit. The button mashing "attack-attack-attack" combo did cause them to stagger, which leads me to thing that the most mindless option might also be the most effective one unfortunately. Granted, I only played it on default difficulty.

The idea of having enemies that require your partner's help to defeat was good, but it mostly stuck to the "hit the ground to send them flying" strategy. Maybe an alternative to giving Jade more combos would be to give the partner character more moves? Like the ground pound, something that affects the enemies' status? If you had more orders to give perhaps you could build combos just the same, but instead of simply being a matter of hitting enemies with Jade, you could juggle them somewhat between characters?




As for my criticisms of the game, calling it milquetoast in the gameplay department, I do get why it is the way it is. The game is meant to have mass appeal and be accessible. If you put too much combat you scare away people that don't like combat, if you put too much stealth you scare people who don't like stealth, in either case they don't get to enjoy the world and characters you created, so you reach a compromise. Not every game is all that gameplay focused anyway.

My problem is more that I'm kind of sick of games with this mindset. Skyrim is a good example, it can be quite entrancing, and God know it kept my attention for dozens of hours, there are so many different things you can do in the game! Until one day the wool was pulled from my eyes and I realized it all sucks. You can do combat, but the combat sucks. You can do stealth, but the stealth sucks. You can do roleplaying, but the roleplaying sucks. It has shells of all those mechanics, but it doesn't do any of them very well because it chose variety instead of mastery. Now I look more for games that will do something very well, even if it is only one thing, and even if the things surrounding it aren't as great. If I wanna shoot a bow I'll play Overwatch, if I wanna do stealth I'll play Thief, if I wanna roleplay I'll play Pillars of Eternity. None of these games give me everything, but I seem to find that more satisfying now.

Then again Shadow of Mordor was a sandbox game where you climb towers to unlock the map, had stealth right out of Assassin's Creed and combat right out of Arkham, and I loved it. So maybe I'm just talking out of my ass here



About the difficulty, it wasn't challenging, true, but like I said I played it on default difficulty, for all I know different levels are completely different. I wouldn't blame it for that though, it can be enjoyed by adults but it was definitely a game that was meant to be accessible to children as well, and when I was a kid I was shit at games. Or rather, slightly more shit at games than I am now. I would have appreciated the game for meeting me halfway. Plus, despite being easy it didn't feel patronizing in the way a lot of modern games can be.


Regarding it being a game for kids: it has a PEGI rating of 7+ on Europe, and a rating of T for Teen on the US. How crazy is that?



P.S.: Pardon me for the wall of text. When I made this thread I envisioned a freeform conversation, much like a book club, so I might have waxed a bit philosophical here.