In a distant star system, presumably sometime in the future, there is a peaceful mining planet named Hillys. The peace of this planet was shattered not long ago, when mysterious alien monsters called the DomZ invaded this part of the galaxy, striking in surprise attacks, and kidnapping people away to who-knows-where. A military organization called the Alpha Section appears to be keeping the DomZ attacks at bay, but they don't seem to be doing a very good job.In Beyond Good And Evil (2003), the player assumes the role of Jade, a young woman who lives on Hillys with her adoptive uncle, Pey'j. She makes a living as a freelance photojournalist and runs an orphanage in the lighthouse she lives in. One day, after a DomZ attack, she is contacted by the Iris Network, a subversive underground press organization and resistance group, that seeks to expose the truth about the Alpha Sections and rally the people of Hillys against them. She accepts their offer, reluctantly at first, and infiltrates Alpha Section facilities to take pictures of their suspicious activities.Designed by Michel Ancel of Rayman fame, the game plays like a Sci Fi twist on The Legend Of Zelda. It combines simple yet engaging combat, with vehicle action, puzzle solving, stealth, and photography challenges. The environments are detailed and beautiful, the characters are interesting and well-animated, in a stylized balance of cartoonish and realistic. It was released for IBM PC, Xbox, PS2, and GameCube, but sold few copies on any platform.The PC version of the game was even packaged free with a certain brand of cheese in Canada in early February, 2009.Needless to say, the gaming community pretty much went nuts when Ubisoft surprised everyone at their press conference/marketing event in mid-2008 by showing a trailer for Beyond Good And Evil 2. From that point on, the game got stuck in the ninth circle of Development Hell, and seemed to go through endless rumor cycles of being cancelled, not cancelled, moved, and more. As of 2012, the sequel has been put on hold until the next generation of consoles, as the current tech was deemed insufficient for the dev team's vision (or so they say).Not related to the book by Friedrich Nietzsche under the same title. At all. Or, for that matter, the second game in the Xenosaga trilogy.
Beyond Good & Evil provides examples of:
Achilles Heel: The Alpha Sections are vulnerable in their air tanks, and can be taken out if hit from behind. (One will fix another's tank, if there are two of them together. This can actually let you knock the buddy out, too, if you get the first one to face away while being fixed.)
Pey'j, on the first boss: "In the eye, Jade! That's his Achilles Heel!"
Action Mom: Adoptive mother, but it still counts—especially given that Jade's need to provide for her kids is what catapaults her into the story in the first place.
Ambiguously Brown: Poor, poor Jade. The surest way to start Fan Wank regarding this game is to ask this simple question: "So what ethnicity is she anyway?" Depending on who you ask, she's black, Hispanic, Native American, olive-skinned European, Asian, Arab, Caucasian but with a tan, or any mixture of the above. Evidence seems to be that you see her as what you want to see, and some think that she was deliberately created to be ambiguous so more people could identify from her, with In The Future Humans Will Be One Race as justification.
A number of other characters seem to have this going on as well. Double H is very tan, but it's not clear if he's just suntanned or if it's his natural color. And Hahn seems to be obviously a Bald Black Leader Guy, but he's rather pale and also appears somewhat Asian.
Amazing Technicolor Population: Yoa. The camera insists she's "Homo Sapiens," but most humans don't have bluish-white skin.
Anti-Frustration Feature: While dying in most places makes you lose any items you used after the checkpoint, the Looter's Caverns and final boss return items to you after you're sent back to a checkpoint.
As Long as It Sounds Foreign: Several of the game's music tracks contain lyrics in nonsensical languages, with a few recognizable phrases sprinkled in. (The exception is "Fun and Mini-Games/Spanish Bar," which is, in fact, in Spanish.)
Attack Its Weak Point: The Alpha Sections have a brightly colored tank on the back of their armour that incapacitates them if hit with a disk, and sends them flying into the atmosphere if kicked.
Bash Brothers: How Jade and her teammates fight. When she's fighting alongside her sidekick, they can even use a combo "Super Attack" to send enemies flying.
Batman Gambit: The DomZ plan required Jade and the Hillyans to try to take out their lunar base.
Big Creepy Crawlies: The flies, the Crochax, and the Arachnis are all pretty large, though there are normal-sized creepy-crawlies around.
Big Friendly Dog: Woof, who is, sitting up, at least as tall as Jade herself.
Bilingual Bonus: At least one song in the game isn't all in Foreign Sounding Gibberish—the mini-game/competition song has some lyrics in Spanish, about pretty much what you'd expect a mini-game-song to be about (specifically, racing).
Also, bits and pieces of Secundo's dialogue are in Spanish.
And Italian. And French.
Black and White Morality: Unabashedly so - Jade and the IRIS Network are completely 100% good, the Alpha Sections and the DomZ are completely evil. Several reviews specifically criticized it for this, as its (publisher-mandated) title seemed to imply a greater degree of moral ambiguity.
Boisterous Bruiser: Pey'j. His politeness runs from "informal" to "obnoxious", he's very capslock, he likes to hang around in bars, he's full of wise advice, his presence is bigger than his physical size, and he's the leader of his very own rebel organization. However, he's The Smart Guy rather than The Big Guy. But if he's not The Big Guy, he gets to be The Pig Guy.
Bookends: The game begins and ends with a shot of Jade awakening from a meditative trance, accompanied by variants of the same song.
Border Patrol: At the borders of the main map, you'll get the warning "you are now leaving territorial waters". If you continue, you'll get picked up and carried back.
Bragging Rights Reward: Collecting all the pearls gets you a minigame that has no effect on the game proper, and taking pictures of every animal gets you an album containing all the pictures you took of said animals.
Butt Monkey: Bad things happen to Jade and Pey'j because it moves the story along. Bad things happen to Double H because it's funny. Even a pre-teen goat boy gets away with picking on him...
Canis Latinicus: All the Petting Zoo People have taxonomical names that end in Sapiens but are of different genus; for example, Jade's "uncle", Pey'j, is a "Sus Sapiens" or "Wise Pig."
Carnivore Confusion: Not only do we have an anthropomorphic cow bartender and a slaughtered cow corpse in a freezer, we also have several jokes about eating Pey'j.
Interestingly, several of the cow-bartender's patrons are sharks (one of whom quips about eating families). Seems like it'd be hard to keep the peace.
Chekhov's Gun: If you check Pey'j's inventory you'll spot an MDisk you can't do anything with. Later on, Pey'j gives Jade the MDisk just before he's captured by the Alpha Sections, and it turns out the it contains important information about Jade's past, as well as telling you about the Beluga.
Chekhov's Gunman: Secundo is seen onscreen twice at the start of the game. You hear his voice every time you acquire certain items, and he comes in handy at the climax.
Collection Sidequest: The animal photographs. You only need to take two at the very least, enough to pay your bills and advance the plot. The first ten also give you the enhanced zoom, which is highly useful for both the rest of the photographs and missions. Its primary purpose after that is to earn money, which can be done other ways. It's the easiest way to make money, though, and will give you plenty of overhead, especially if you buy the animal tracker which marks targets on the map.
To a lesser extent, the Pearls. Yes, you need a certain amount to purchase the appropriate upgrades in the game, but getting them all nets you a mini-game.
Context Sensitive Button: There are two "action" buttons in the game: One for Jade, and one for whoever is following her. The gameplay is heavily based on this.
Continuing Is Painful: When continuing after dying Jade will only be at half of her maximum health, or just four hearts if you've collected enough health increases. This is painful in some moderately tricky stealth sections which feature instadeath traps. Some players don't bother healing up from there since another death is probably just around the corner.
Curse of The Ancients: Pey'j both plays this one straight and subverts it. On one hand, he's prone to several "Consarnits!" and "Conflabbits!" On the other hand, his favorite epithet appears to be the decidedly less ancient "Sweet Jesus!"
Controls for taking photographs switched camera control from one joystick to the other in the PS2 port. This is hell when trying to take a photo during combat.
And if you're playing on the GameCube, try going between this game and Star Fox Adventures. (Or better yet, don't—unless you like mad flailing.) Both have staff combat. Both have partner mechanics. Both have similar inventories. Both are Zeldalikes. Both have completely different controls. (Yet not different enough to stop you from getting confused.)
Controlling the (game) camera is a pain as the X and Y axis cannot be reversed separately and they operate halfway between most games standards. (Most games have tilt left to look left but tilt up to look down, this has left for left and up for up and you can only reverse both at once.)
The final boss inverts your movement controls, which happens between checkpoints so you have to use both the normal and inverted control in the same checkpoint if you fail.
Detail Hogging Cover: The "box art" for the HD rereleasereally ramps up the detail, to slightly creepy extent. The HD game does look slightly nicer, but the cover suggests an almost complete graphical overhaul.
Dialog During Gameplay: Jade and her companions talk very frequently. Sometimes it's to explain things, but sometimes it's just for entertainment.
Door To Before: See that laser fence? The button to deactivate it is on the other side. You know what to do...
Easter Egg: If you talk to Yoa at various points in the game, she'll tell you some incredibly helpful things. The problem-she barely speaks a word of English, so what you understand amounts to a vague and unhelpful hint, and you probably won't figure out what she meant until it comes up in the course of the plot. The only indication that she's said anything important is her use of the phrase "batahn-batahn", which context suggests is roughly "tadah".
Just a little thing, and it's not exactly hidden, but Pey'j waves if you point the camera at him.
The PC version contains a Parody Commercial featuring Ed, the protagonist from Ancel's Tonic Trouble, on the giant screens above the racetrack.
One of the creatures you can photograph is the Aedes raymanis, a Rayman mosquito.
Electric Jellyfish: "Sweet Jesus! Jellies!" Pey'j reacts with zeal to being zapped by one, though that's probably his Boisterous Bruiser side showing through.
Enemy Within: Jade, who is revealed to be the human incarnation of Shauni, possible queen or goddess of the DomZ, who is important for their survival. Though it isn't really a split personality, but Jade herself actually being Shauni. Might add a bit of Fridge Horror to the story.
Erudite Stoner: The Mammago brothers. Despite being the best mechanics in the land, they're rather, uh, "mellow." Suspiciously mellow. The original concept art for their garage had a marijuana leaf on the door, but they cut that for some unfathomable reason. And while in English the three have the names Hal, Babukar and Issam, in the original French the first one is called Haile.
Escape Sequence: Two of the Alpha Section bases Jade breaks into feature these at the end, forcing you to flee the Beam Spam of the soldiers chasing you.
Pey'j jumping into the pit to save her, while shouting at the top of his lungs. He immediately makes himself a distraction, buying Jade time and defeating the monster.
Double H, mangling Jade's name even as he's enthusiastically swears his loyalty to her. Right after that, he uses his head to get them out of there, and then falls down a pit because he forgot to stop in time.
Everyone Calls Him Barkeep: Double H always goes by his codename, despite the fact that he never addresses anyone else by their codenames. There's one cutscene where he gets called "Hub," though.
Fartillery: Pey'j's Jet Boots run on, er, "home-made biocarburant" and "pressurized methane." If his battle cries are anything to go by, he does have a penchant for Mexican food...
First Name Basis: When Double H stops referring to Jade as "Miss," things have officially Gotten Serious.
Flying Seafood Special: Some species on Hillys look like they should be underwater rather than in the air. The Vorax, the Teratosaurus, both Mantas, and the Nautilus are all major offenders.
Forgot to Pay the Bill: In the opening cutscene, the shield protecting Jade's house from alien invasion gets shut off because the bill wasn't paid.
Friend To All Children: All three of the main characters. Jade and Pey'j most obviously, since they do run an Orphanage of Love, but Double H shows his kinder side off in the Photo Montage during the credits.
Funny Animal: Many characters are non-human, animal-like humanoids.
Bonus: they have plausible taxonomic classifications, like Sus sapiens, which literally means "sentient pig".
Game-Breaking Bug: On some playthroughs the second triangle key doesn't become accessible, requiring a save state editor in order to continue.
Also, sometimes Double H will disappear in the Slaughterhouse and never reappear. Hope you have an earlier save!
Gentle Giant: Double H is surprisingly playful when he's not pounding things into the dirt with his hammer.
Global Currency Exception: Mammago Garage only accepts (illegal) pearls. There are, however, hints that pearls weren't always illegal currency.
Good Scars, Evil Scars: What's with that scar across Pey'j's eye, huh? Fehn (the literal kid) also has one across his nose.
Fehn could have gotten it when the DomZ took away his parents in an attack.
Gotta Catch 'Em All: Your first quest is to take photos of an example of every single living thing on the planet. It keeps you well funded so long as you keep up with it, and you get an album of all the photos you took if you manage to get all of them.
And then, to a certain extent, the pearls. You don't need all of them to progress, but you get a fun little reward for it.
Groin Attack: Shoot a projectile at the crotch of a guard and watch them double-up in pain. It's fun!
The Guards Must Be Crazy: Even if you mercilessly slaughter their buddies, you can run around a corner and they'll dismiss you as "nothing."
Heroic BSOD: "Who did you think you are? Did you think you'd actually be able to make a difference? Well, you were wrong. Completely and utterly wrong."
Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Double H is about a head and half taller and three times as wide as Jade. Heck—most non-child male NPCs dwarf her. Of course, her and Pey'j invert this trope—she's a head and a half taller than him, although much skinnier...
Human Resources: The DomZ use the Hillyans as a power source.
Hyperspace Arsenal: A literal one, the S.A.C.(Synthetic-Atomic-Compressor) device on Jade's hip stores physical objects as energy patterns for later retrieval.
Idle Animation: Jade places her hands on her lower back and thrusts her chest out, stretching. And that's pretty much the only bit of Fanservice you get. Jade's partners have them, as well; there are a couple different ones for each character.
Invisible Wall: Justified. The field of play is bounded by sentinel spires that shoot oddly harmless bursts of energy to turn Jade back if she attempts to "leave territorial waters." It fits well with the general theme of a government that doesn't trust and can't be trusted.
Ironic Nickname: "Peepers," the blind man who fronts for IRIS. (Well, ambiguously blind, anyway. He always wears dark glasses, his gaze is unfocused, and he identifies Jade by smell, but he somehow knows when she approaches, doesn't have a cane, and somehow manages to "see" a picture put up on a screen.)
James Bondage: Both Pey'j and Double H get their time in the, uh, cage.
Justified Criminal: One of the pearls (which is hardly necessary to complete the game) is located inside an apartment. Covertly stealing the room code and the pearl within causes Jade to comment that she has more need of it than its previous owner.
Kent Brockman News: Fehn Digler's news program at the beginning of the game.
Final broadcast from "The Hillyan Word", mouthpiece for the Alpha Section. "The truth has finally been revealed by our trustworthy colleagues from the IRIS Network. The Hilllyan People have joined forces to drive the Alpha Sections out of Hillys. Once again, the honorable journalistic profession was able to show that it had a preponderant role in history."
Lantern Jaw of Justice: Double H has one. A briefly visible, Dummied Out early character model for him actually suggests that it used to be bigger, and Hahn had one as well.
Mama Bear: Just because they're not Jade's biological children doesn't mean you should mess with them. You will get your alien behind handed to you in a plastic bag.
Mood Whiplash: Silly setting plus serious plot—and Tear Jerker scenes combined with outright slapstick—equals one very confused, but at least entertained—audience.
Mook Chivalry: Crochax will always attack one at a time, even when they outnumber you five to one. Averted with many other enemies, though, such as the Alpha Sections soldiers.
Mook Maker: Several areas include devices that continuously vend robot enemies on demand. This is meant to help you disable certain barriers by turning them into projectiles.
Mysterious Waif: Yoa. She has no plot significance that we know of—yet—but she's so strange it's hard not to wonder. Plus, she is either a spy or prophetic.
Yoa has a strong physical resemblance to Yorda in ICO, and even has speaks an unknown language like Yorda. Possibly a Shout Out.
Narrative Filigree: One of the things the game was initially praised for was for the way its setting actually felt like a world, with little details like advertisements, Jade's friendship with seemingly random NPCs, and all the animals.
No Hero Discount: In addition to the normal "making you pay for things even as the world is ending" deal, the game starts off with the energy field that protects you from the aliens failing—because you forgot to pay your power bill.
No Indoor Voice: Pey'j. Being on a stealth mission won't stop him from yelling "I'M COMIN', JAAAADDDEEEE!"
Poirot Speak: Secundo, again. What's weird is that it's never established whether the thing is supposed to be French, Spanish, or Italian. It actually uses idioms from all three languages. (And his grammar is terrible.)
Powered Armor: The Alpha Sections wear massive suits of powered armor. The regular Hillyan army does too—while it doesn't look special, it is laser-proof, and it does provide some kind of strength augmentation.
Punctuation Shaker: Obviously with Pey'j; more subtly with a minor character named Yoa who speaks in apostrophe-laden babble. The game's original story also featured a Last Episode New Character named Toy'l.
The Quisling: Fehn Digler. The instant you defeat The Dragon, he even puts out a news report sucking up to the IRIS Network!
Recurring Riff: Two of them. The first, "Redemption," is the game's theme and appears in various places—most notably, as part of the basic lighthouse music and finally in full in the last cutscene. It's the "high point" riff. The second is the music that appears in numerous battle scenes, and even in the Lonely Piano Piece. It's the "low point" riff.
Roof Hopping: The very, very cool rooftop chase scene, where the leader of the Alpha Sections, General Kheck, chases Jade himself before she makes her getaway.
Fehn:[overlooking Double H] So, I see you're bringing home canned food now?
Jade: I swear, he's not like the others!
Shorter Means Smarter: Pey'j is about three and a half feet tall. He's also the smartest person on the planet, probably.
Shout Out: There's a pretty obscure reference to the creator's most well known creation, Rayman. There's even a fairly well-hidden reference to Tonic Trouble, an even more obscure game by the same creator. To elaborate, the reference to Rayman is in the Factory dungeon. In a fairly out of the way hidden area, you can find a cow skeleton. If you examine the skeleton, you can find a small bug sticking on to it. The bug is Aedes Raymanis, or Rayman mosquito. Fittingly enough, the mosquito is Bzzit, the first boss from the original Rayman and one of Rayman's friends. The Tonic Trouble reference is the lead character of that game, Ed, advertising K-Starkos, a health item.
The official name for the two-legged factory boss appears to be Metal Gear DomZ, if the soundtrack is anything to go by. This is quite fitting considering you fight it after a long stealth section.
Smooch of Victory: Double H tries this on Jade when you beat the final race. Jade's reaction is mixed, at best. Since we don't get to see the actual thing itself, interpret the reaction however youwill.
Space Base: The location of the Alpha sections' primary base is on the moon.
Space Whale: Megaptera Anaerobia, or "whale that doesn't need oxygen."
Spiritual Successor: To Rayman 2. Both feature a pristine, Scenery Porn laden location invaded by machine-like beings, who kidnap many of the protagonist's friends. Since they were made by the same developer, this is hardly surprising.
Stealth-Based Game: Any area with Alpha Section soldiers will lock down automatically if they spot you. Only by killing them all or sneaking past can you progress. Combat against the Alpha Sections is possible most of the time, but difficult because their shields block your attacks and only drop when they swing their hammer, which has a fair bit of reach. Some areas render it difficult or outright impossible by adding insta-kill floating laser cannons that zap you if the guards see you in their field of fire and guards which cannot be covertly killed. One saving grace is that a guard with a ruptured air tank can't see you, which can be exploited to covertly assassinate them if they're isolated.
Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: Although not actually a ghost, Yoa has the appearance of such, and apparently the ability to predict the future.
Stupid Statement Dance Mix: In an interview, the game's composer, Christophe Heral, said that a significant portion of fan favorite track "Propaganda" was created by remixing portions of a telephone conversation between himself and a Bulgarian woman. In the original version, dialogue from the game production team was included, but got cut. (The Bulgarian phone conversation remix is still there.)
Super Window Jump: Pey'j is introduced diving from one of the lighthouse windows and onto the eye creature that has grabbed Jade.
Timed Mission: Saving Double H from the DomZ disease and getting out of the exploding moon base.
The World Is Just Awesome: After leaving the atmosphere in the Beluga for the first time, Jade momentarily forgets the solemnity of her mission in order to have a moment of pure squee:
Jade: Algenib? The Omega Dipper? We—we're surrounded by stars, Double H...
Twenty Four Hour Armor: Double H never goes anywhere without his armor. This is apparently Hand Waved somewhere in the Manual, saying that wearing armor makes him feel manly and empowered.
Use Your Head: Double H, though he uses a forcefield when doing so.
Uncancelled: Everyone thought that poor sales of the first title pretty much doomed the game to being a one-shot: up till Ubisoft dropped the trailer for the sequel out of nowhere.
What Could Have Been: A recently-revealed series of design documents for the game reveal that its early design was much different. It featured such things as the IRIS Network (here called, uh, SPOON) having a flying home base, a second alien race called the Nazh, lost characters such as one Colonel Garis, and others.
You Have Failed Me: When you reach the end of the Factory area, you overhear the Alpha Sections chief telling his DomZ boss that the intruders have been captured. As they both notice Jade, the Alpha offers to take care of her himself, but the DomZ kills him.
The sequel provides examples of:
Cool Car: The car Jade and Pey'j manage to crash into a tree in the desert. It makes it here only because it's a hovering car.
Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The city which Jade is being chased through has a mix of Indian and Middle Eastern culture.
Jitter Cam: Used during what is rumored to be actual gameplay, though this is yet to be confirmed.
Le Parkour: A trailer features Jade going parkour-tastic in an urban India-esque city, leaping off roofs, the heads of policemen, and some poor guy stuck in a bathroom.
in Canada in early February, 2009.Needless to say, the gaming community pretty much went nuts when Ubisoft surprised everyone at their press conference/marketing event in mid-2008 by showing a trailer for Beyond Good And Evil 2. From that point on, the game got stuck in the ninth circle of Development Hell, and seemed to go through endless rumor cycles of being cancelled, not cancelled, moved, and more. As of 2012, the sequel has been put on hold until the next generation of consoles, as the current tech was deemed insufficient for the dev team's vision (or so they say).Not related to the book by Friedrich Nietzsche under the same title. At all. Or, for that matter, the second game in the Xenosaga trilogy.
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