Beyond Good & Evil: 20th Anniv. Ed. Review – Gamecritics.com
Jarrod Johnston
https://gamecritics.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/cropped-favicon-32x32.png
Beyond Worth It

HIGH A great improvement over the previous (!) remaster.

LOW Has a somewhat overinflated reputation that may disappoint first time players.

WTF This game is twenty and I feel exceptionally old.

Beyond Good & Evil is a very good videogame. It’s also only that.

Somehow that reads as harsh, but upon playing Beyond Good & Evil again, it’s weird to me that it’s morphed into a pseudo-legendary ‘classic’ when so few players played it upon release in 2004. How few? I bought the GameCube version for $10 back in 2004 a month after launch at a Circuit City of all places, so demand was not particularly high.

GameCritics is older than this game, so it’s already been covered here twice. I’ll skip the basics, so for those who haven’t played it and want a more comprehensive view of the core structure, you can read our other pieces here and here.

From my vantage point, Beyond Good & Evil is a well-done Zelda-like from a time where, surprisingly, there weren’t as many as the market probably could’ve supported. It’s got fantastic music, great character design, an intriguing story with a cool conspiratorial slant, really good voicework from the main cast, and a neat gameplay gimmick in the form of protagonist Jade’s camera supporting her role as an investigative reporter. While it isn’t my favorite Ubisoft game ever, it’s probably the game my brain most associates the company with. (Probably because it feels super-duper French, whatever that means.)

There’s very little wrong with it, but there were better and more important titles from that era that can’t be easily accessed today which I would’ve rather seen come back, and I believe one of the driving factors leading to this extreme reverence for it is the cataclysmic boondoggle that is the continued development saga of Beyond Good & Evil 2.

For those unfamiliar, BG&E2 was originally announced in 2008, and then we heard not a peep for a decade until a very weird and not-particularly-Beyond-Good-And-Evil looking CG trailer was released during E3 2017. It was then shown to select individuals at E3 2018, and went incognito again until the launch of this new 20th Anniversary Edition when Ubisoft essentially said “Yup! Still workin’ on it! Text later, bye!”

As something to consider, the apparent world record for development cycles has been Duke Nukem Forever, which clocked in at around fourteen years lasting from 1997 until 2011. BG&E2, on the other hand, is currently at sixteen. If this sequel is really coming, the people at Ubisoft were wise to make the original release widely available on modern platforms in order to refresh our collective memory.

Most of the legwork for this version was done a decade ago with Beyond Good & Evil HD, an XBox Live Arcade/PlayStation Network release that got the title up and running on then-modern consoles in 1080p with native 16:9 support. While one can still purchase and play that Live Arcade version through Series S/X backwards compatibility, those enhancements never made it to an already-primitive PC version, and the title has never appeared on a Nintendo console outside of the original Gamecube release.

It would have been easy to take that already existing HD version, slap in in 4K, then release it again, but thankfully Ubisoft has done a lot to make this a true anniversary edition.

On top of now running at a locked 4K/60fps on the tested Series X version, some of the character models and lighting have been enhanced, and there are more expressive faces on some characters in cutscenes. Sometimes the lighting can get a little weird, leading to Jade looking like she has different skin tones depending on the locale, but hopefully that can be patched. Granted, this is still very much a PS2 game for those judging it by a strict polygon count, but it was an impressive release at the time with outstanding art design from Michel Ansel and his former team at Ubisoft Montpellier. It’s still wonderful to look at, and this is the best it’s ever looked.

It’s also the best it’s ever sounded, as the original soundtrack was tastefully redone under the supervision of original composer Christophe Héral, and these new versions sound great with a touch more depth compared to the original. Furthermore, this version features new bonus content, including a well-done behind-the-scenes art gallery presented in a chronological order through development with matching written narration. This is an awesome addition with a surprisingly insightful and frank view of the obvious passion behind the game.

However, without question, the most intriguing aspect of this specific release are the new connections to Beyond Good & Evil 2.

Without spoiling anything, BG&E2 is supposedly a prequel. Keeping that in mind, the 20th Anniversary release has added content regarding characters from Jade’s past that will feature in the sequel. This is a ballsy move, and I certainly hope that whatever version of BG&E2 Ubisoft had in mind when they decided to do this is what actually comes out. If we get that sequel, this will end up being a neat thing to add to a re-release, and it has me more excited for BG&E2 than I’ve been since I was an undergrad.

While all of the tweaks and polish and the new connections are great, the only real issue is that BG&E 20th Anniversary Edition doesn’t fix the problems inherent to the original release. The lightweight combat is probably its biggest issue, as it feels like an afterthought. At the very least, it’s functional and not detrimental to enjoying the overall experience.

However, out of the various things that might be seen as negatives, a brief running time is not one of them. There is no original review of the first game (including ours) that didn’t cite length as a problem in their writings. During that era of punditry, length generally equated value, so a short game automatically equaled ‘rental’ or ‘wait for a steep discount’. BG&E was branded with a scarlet ‘S’ at retail it could not quite overcome, and was ground zero for “Yeah it’s good, but it’s only eight hours long“.

Interestingly, I think it’s possible to see a line between the commercial performance of this game and Ubisoft’s hard pivot into many of their subsequent titles being huge efforts overstuffed with content of scattershot quality. Yes, Beyond Good & Evil is probably a 10-12 hour game for first-time players, and someone like me who’s played it a few times can probably bust through it in half of that. But length does not actually equal quality, and the entirety of this experience is of a high standard that features very little fat. I appreciate that as someone who no longer has a fortnight’s worth of free time to finish a game.

When I look at a remaster, my baseline criteria for success is that it should make the original version obsolete, and Beyond Good & Evil 20th Anniversary does that. It is an inherently good thing that this game is now available again in multiple formats, and the new additions are fantastic. It’s the very best way to play a very good game, and I’m happy this new version exists regardless of whether we get that sequel.

I don’t think Beyond Good & Evil is truly an all-time classic, but this is an exemplary remaster of a great game worthy of the classy treatment its received in this new 20th Anniversary Edition. New and old players alike will find it well worth their time.

RATING: 8 out of 10

Disclosures: This game was originally developed by Ubisoft Montpellier, remastered by Virtuos, and published by Ubisoft. The game is currently available on Switch, PC, PS4/5, XBO/S/X, and was reviewed on an XBox Series X. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher. Approximately 8 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E10+ for Everyone 10 & Up and contains Animated Blood and Fantasy Violence. This is good for the young ones. The blood reference (I guess?) is from some ooze that comes out of aliens, and the language is very mild. It’s an easy game for a pre-teen to wrap their head around and has positive themes.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes. Considering that Ubisoft goes hard on accessibility options in their recent releases and have made a verbal commitment to that community, the accessibility features in this release are rather disappointing.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles cannot be resized. The subtitles are readable but cannot be further enhanced. There are no necessary audio cues, and all important information is visually represented on screen. I’d say this is fully accessible.