Warning! This could end up seeming a little play-by-play, depending on how long this game is.
Nevertheless, I always appreciated seeing the Fallout games from a fresh perspective as new players encountered that favorite series of mine, and I am new to Beyond Good & Evil.

First off, this game is pretty, very much so. I'm running it at 800x600 on a GeForce FX 5500, which is a somewhat modest card, insufficient even for Spore. Nevertheless, even when I see this game is pushing the card to its limits (and I may play the game at a lower resolution later so as to see a nicer flow, but I find it playable as is), I'm noticing not only good graphics but graphics which have been lavished with love.
I find that makes a huge difference to me. The Tyrian players here will know what I'm talking about. Sometimes, it's what you do with the graphics, not how good they are.

Second off, I'm finding it interesting that the game is doing so much to emphasize the use of that camera. That's going to annoy the #*$% out of me later when I'm trying desperately to photograph something that's killing me, but at the moment it's nice they're introducing the camera the way they are. Not only am I learning how to make difficult shots (again, probably nothing compared to late-game difficulty), but the reward system for photographing lifeforms has me carefully watching the world around me and exploring every nook and cranny I can reach.

Third, I'm already a bit attached to a good many characters. Jade's nice enough, but mildly lacking in wits so far. I realize her naivete is probably important to getting to know the setting, so I mostly accept it as a necessary evil. The orphans are a heavy-handed element, and yet I like them. Is it because they're cute? Is it because they seem to have personalities? Maybe it's just the way the Iris girl was sleeping next to the tree while I was photographing the gulls and fireflies.
Or maybe it's a sunk-cost thing. I had to fight to save those little kids, and dammit, if I'm going to invest my time and nerves in their survival, of course I'm going to like them.
Either way, orphans? But hey, I like 'em, even if it does feel a little manipulative. I'm a willing sucker for this lot.
Maybe it's just nice to see a trope done right. The slightly cartoony art-style is well-suited to playing with familiar archetypes. I expect deconstruction.*

So my initial reaction is:
There's been a lot of love lavished on this game's creation, and the visuals show it.
The game's introducing me to the controls and elements comfortably, as far as I can tell.
The characters are lovable, even when they're a bit stock.

Side note: I'm not far into the book which is the namesake for this game. I've actually read basically no Nietzsche. For all that he gets a bad rap, his contemporaries tend to describe him as an emotional but generally nice guy.
If I find I flounder while trying to read BG&E, I might try to read Also Sprache Zarathustra. I hear it's got a narrative, which may help.

* Also, yes, you'll notice I use some TVTropes terms now and then. To be fair, I knew the word 'deconstruction' before I encountered that site. 'Trope,' however, was new to me. Be fair. The site standardizes a lexicon for the layman, and thank goodness.

Addendum.
The game has collectibles with specific slots for each. While it doesn't seem necessary to get Pearl #5 before you get Pearl #6 and 7, it does seem to create a larger and larger list of things one must either retrieve later or give up on.
The presence of odd keys here and there gives an impression that one may return to a good many places later, once certain teammates are on board or certain conditions met, it doesn't seem to outcompete the terrible sense that I left something behind and can't get it now!
Push that box against this wall instead of that and you start to worry because there's no box reset button. Move on from this place because you think it'll take you down, it takes you up instead and turns out to be one way, you start to panic because there was a hard-to-reach pearl back there, or maybe you just didn't think you'd have so little time to search for animals to photograph.
I've reloaded a lot because of that sort of thing. Everything feels limited, constrained. It's a cause for some concern.

Don't worry, as far as I know you can get all the pearls and take all the photographs later if you miss them during your first hectic run through the levels. There's a point of no return later in the game (almost at the end actually), where you can't return for pearls and photographs anymore, but the game will tell you and ask you if you really want to continue beyond this point.

You sure you can still photograph boss monsters later?
That said, what you said must generally be true from the looks of things, as I've done rather a lot of productive backtracking.

Two more reactions:
1. It was oddly gratifying to get enough pearls to outstrip the game's available freedom. Oh, they certainly figured it was possible that I'd get 20 pearls before I went to the slaughterhouse, and used a Chekhov's Gun they'd introduced in the first few sequences in order to make it work, but nevertheless it was nice to get enough pearls to make of it a necessity that the game tell me how it wouldn't let me progress.
2. Dammit, BG&E, give back those hours! I needed those for sleep!

I'm pretty sure (although not 100%) that all the animals and monsters that don't re-spawn when you re-visit a place or that appear in a place which you can't re-visit, show up again in another place later in the game. If you didn't manage to take a picture the first time you will get another chance. For the giant sea snake boss thingy there is even a dead specimen in a cave somewhere which counts too if you take a picture of it. This makes me believe that the game is designed in a way to you let you collect every photo and pearl also at a later time.

Me gusta!

Well, I photographed all the beasts, got all the pearls, but somehow managed to miss content or something, 'cause as I understand it there's supposed to be some bonus something or other what you get for 100% completion of the game. I have a sneaking suspicion it's a missed disc or two.
I actually didn't know those were a goal.

Anybody who hasn't played this yet and is reading this post, be aware: the game will drop you from your first takeoff in an air vehicle cold and straight into a boss fight. It's not a terribly impressive boss, especially given you've fought it twice before at this point (not much of a spoiler), but it will be more difficult as an aerial fight, and you probably won't be able to figure out the controls until it's smacked you around a bit.
Lemme help you out. You know that button that's been forward this whole time? W, most likely? It's not now. That button you've been using for going faster is now your forward button. Thankfully, as was often the case before, you can tap it once to keep the speed up.

If you've been completionist in the slightest and have tried to stay ahead of the curve in this game, the endgame will start rushing at you at a manic pace. This isn't scaling difficulty or anything, it's just that there'll be little enough left except for hammering away at the last stages of the game, whatever they be.
Which reminds me, I really wish I'd figured out how to install the stabilizers before I raided the HQ of the big bads. Would have been interesting to see if I could install the space engine. (This is not a spoiler. The darn thing's there as a Chekhov's Gun from shortly after the second boss fight.) Can anybody tell me how they go about not selling you the space engine before you raid the HQ? I certainly had enough pearls at that point, but was rather impressed with how they kept me away from the second stabilizer.
Unfortunately, I have a four month old child who therefore needs a fair amount of my attention, so breakneck speed plot execution without a pause button during the cinematics is a bit cruel. I didn't see half the end credits. Barely managed to get back in time for the stinger.

The interface can be troublesome. In addition to the problems I had trying to figure out flight controls without a tutorial during a boss fight mentioned above, there were times when the adrenaline was high enough to aid performance where I would attempt to select an option and would instead fall flat on my face.
I suppose it would help if I were better at the air hockey game. I do wish he'd play his best when you weren't betting 1000 against him so that you could practice against his optimal performance for lower stakes.

Anyway, I may go back and try to achieve the last bits and pieces once I establish what they are and how to obtain them, but for now I consider the game finished and I'm pretty happy with it. I wish I'd been able to afford it long before now.

The bonus is a little game you get for collecting all the pearls. You receive it on an Mdisk. Use one of the Mdisk terminals to play it. Here's a youtube video of the bonus game.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LokpoqTthHU

I don't think there's any additional reward for collecting all the disks and all the photos are only needed to get all the pearls as far as I know.

Oh, okay.
Well then, I guess I did pretty good.

Apparently I missed a photo montage in the end credits. Pity, that.

It's worth mentioning that some of my photos over the course of the game barely met the game's qualifications, were blurry, and occasionally has serious and problematic obstructions.
(SPOILERS! SNAPE KILLS TRINITY WITH ROSEBUD!)
I'm actually proud of one. You get a view of an Alpha Section man without his helmet before a good camera angle comes along. Well screw that! Who needs a good camera angle when you can scoop it with a bad one? So I experimented, dicked around a lot and eventually found an angle which barely met the minimums, photographing that plot point in advance of getting back in touch with Double H, who excitedly pointed out the good opportunity to photograph the bugger.
Fun stuff. Kept seeing that one showing up in the reports.
At one point, my photographs were getting good enough that, when they went by in reports, I started to wonder if I was seeing footage crafted beforehand. Nope! Every now and then one of my really awful ones would reassure me, that's my craftsmanship.

The game is not bug-free, and if my playthrough is typical you may well encounter one or two identifiable errors over the course of the game. One of mine was easily remedied, an AI error resulting in an enemy I was required to kill being unable to engage in combat because it was stuck behind a wall. (Not inside the wall, just behind.) The other probably crops up only occasionally, as I missed some exposition by Pey'j because the sound cut out during a cutscene. Pity, really.

Dialogue seems to be a strong point in this game. I did not find at any point that the dialogue in the game pulled me out of the experience. Indeed, reading a TVTropes page about the game afterward pointed out a few subtleties I'd missed, and gave names to a few that I'd caught and appreciated.
Good writing in general, really. The foreshadowing here and there wasn't too obvious, the Chekhov's Guns laid out often and cashed in on usually much later, and as stated above the dialogue's quite nice. At one point, Pey'j describes a building you'll be looking for, I paraphrase here, as 'a prybar for giant nails' or somesuch. It has the distinct mark of Pey'j's irreverence, yet is also nicely descriptive. (He is, after all, trying to make sure Jade doesn't get lost.)

In general, I'd say the NPC followers do a good job of not getting in the way. I find this comes at the expense of them not being incredibly helpful in combat, but they aren't complete wallflowers in battle, and I'll take limited or selective combat usefulness over them being obstructive any day.
What's more, they're quite likeable in my opinion. Even the airhead is very, very endearing.

To beat a dead horse:
I suspect I'll be thinking about this game a lot over the years. Just little thoughts here and there. About aesthetics, about certain kinds of bravery, about loss, and even about inconvenient errors.
I suppose that puts it in the same league as Deus Ex, albeit Deus Ex led me to more philosophical and theological questions. For example, I have a slightly better understanding of the religion of my in-laws because of Deus Ex, whereas BG&E more or less catered to my existing biases. This probably has less to do with quality of writing and more to do with my background as a player and individual, though.

The soundtrack continues to grow on me. Just sayin'.

So I'm hanging out on Dantooine in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (2003)...
Bear with me here.
In the sky above me there's this giant manta ray swimming through the air lazily, and a flock of white birds dimly seen passing in front of the sun.

All I could think was, even knowing this wasn't how it really works in that game, knowing it was wholly irrational:
Dammit, where's the camera button?

For those wanting 100% completion, you need to do a minigame on Ubisofts web pages to get the code to the locker in Akuda Bar, which contains an Mdisk.

Here's the web page:
http://beyond-good-and-evil.ubi.com/beyond-good-and-evil-hd/en-GB/dark-room/index.aspx

You'll need the code from your save game (from the load/save game screen).