Beyond the Beyond

"A rather generic, but not necessarily bad, traditional RPG..."

Beyond the Beyond was the first role-playing game released for the Sony PlayStation in the US, and when it was released in September of 1996, it was met with a somewhat less than desirable reception. The average gamer would most likely tell you that it is a bland, boring, frustrating, and un-impressive RPG. However, if you are a fan of traditional (''old-school'') style RPG's, this just might be the game for you.

Story (5.6/10): The basic storyline of the game as follows. You are Finn, a young knight in training under the guidance of your father Lord Kevins, who resides with Galahad, a friend of Kevins', in the village of Isla. Though he is still very young, Finn wishes to join his father as a knight of the kingdom of Marion, who is currently at war with the powerful (and of course, evil) kingdom of Bandore. Galahad proposes a test of bravery for Finn, to go and retrieve some Spirit Water from the cave near Isla. Eventually Finn and his company are drawn into the struggle between the two kingdoms, and the story continues to develop from there.

Although not particularly new or interesting, the story itself does fit the atmosphere of the game well, and the localization and presentation are exceptional -- I noticed no spelling or grammatical errors as I have in more recent RPGs. However, the execution of the story has its flaws. The game moves at a very slow pace, and at times you forget that there even is a story at all. The game also has a terrible habit of giving you no clue as to where to go next, or what to do when you get there. This can be the cause of quite a bit of frustration, backtracking, and wandering around aimlessly. There are also various plot holes imminent, leaving you wondering things like ''Whatever happened to...'', even after the game has ended.

As for the characters, there is very little development or even dialogue between them. Finn is your typical mute RPG hero, whose lines consist of little more than ''!!!'', ''???'', or the ever-popular ''.....'' throughout the course of the game. Though each character has his or her own distinct personality, once they join your party you'll not likely hear much from them again. Although the story serves its purpose, like many old-school style RPGs, it almost takes a backseat to the gameplay.

Graphics/Sound (6/10): From a graphics and sound standpoint, Beyond the Beyond is a 16-bit game masquerading as a 32-bit game. The fields, towns, and dungeons, are all done with sprites, in traditional top-down perspective. The interface is very reminiscent of the Shining Force games, right down to the ''walking in place'' that results from the animation running even while standing still. The battle graphics, however, are rather less impressive. Although the backgrounds are done in 360-degree rotation, the characters are still depicted as sprites, so essentially you have 2D characters rotating amongst a 3D background. It could've been done much better, as the characters and enemies ''rotate'' in 90-degree increments, and are mirrored rather than flipped, which means Finn's sword which was in his right hand ends up in his left hand after turning, and his shield vice versa.

Remember those really old games that only had 2 or 3 frames of animation for the characters? You should feel at home here. Each character has very few animation frames, meaning you'll see Finn raise his sword, slide over to the enemy, and attack. That's pretty much all the animation you'll get. The spells, even the summons, are equally as unimpressive, once again failing to remind you that you are playing a 32-bit game. One thing that I had to allow for was that Beyond the Beyond WAS the first role-playing game for the PSX, but I still say they could've did a better job with the graphics.

The sound suffers as well, mostly in battle, as out in the field you will hear little more than the bleeps and clicks from accessing your menus, using items, casting spells, etc. There is very little variation in the battle sounds, for example Finn's sword makes the same noise upon impact as someone else's staff. Some sounds, such as when charging up for a spell, border on annoying, while the rest are more or less unremarkable.

Graphics and Sound is definitely not Beyond the Beyond's department. Of course, this is reminiscent of most traditional-style RPGs, in which the Graphics and Sound serve much less importance, a trend which is seemingly being reversed in newer RPGs these days. You won't find any FMV or fancy 3-D rendering here, but it really doesn't need any.

Gameplay (6.2/10): The gameplay is likely the section that gets the most attention by most people playing the game, mostly because it can border on being damnably frustrating. Aside from just having plain old Hit Points like in most other RPGs, Beyond the Beyond employs a bit of a different system. Each character has VP (Vitality Points), which essentially act as HP. They also have a certain amount of LP (Life Points). When a character's VP reaches 0, they will fall unconscious, and when their next turn comes around, a set amount of their VP will be restored, at the cost of some LP. If a character is reduced to 0 VP and LP, they will die, and that's when a good bit of resurrection is needed.

Before getting into the battles, one of the most frustrating things about Beyond the Beyond are its labyrinths. I say labyrinths instead of dungeons because, well, that's what they are. The dungeons in BtB are HUGE, and it needs to be said that not a single one of them has so much as a Save or Recovery Point. Just about every dungeon has puzzles connected with it, and although they aren't exceedingly difficult to figure out, far too many of them include pits that dump you back down a floor (or worse). If this wasn't bad enough, the encounter rate is very high, and when you're trying to solve a puzzle the last thing you want is monsters attacking you every few seconds. Nothing is as frustrating as spending 45 minutes going through a dungeon, only to either get wiped out or have to Escape and get healed, and have to go through the whole thing again. Fortunately, only a few of them contain bosses at the end.

In addition, the battles in Beyond the Beyond can be quite difficult. Your statistic gains on level-up are extremely small, which means you'll likely be doing a lot of it. And as you progress through the game, you'll start to notice that increasing amounts of enemies are able to use magic, most of which can hit all of your party members. Generally monsters can use most of the spells that your party has, which hit for essentially the same (high) amounts. You'll learn to hate them just as soon as you hit a party of them and they start firing off spells that wipe out all of your VP in two or three shots. It gets even worse near the end of the game, where just about everything can use magic, even summon spells and the Void spell, which can instantly kill one or more party members in one shot.

The boss fights are more or less nightmares... they are long and bloody difficult. Most bosses can act multiple times each combat round, and have tons upon tons of VP, making for some unnecessarily long boss battles. Without careful planning you can easily find yourself having to fight the battle several times before winning. Fortunately, there are very few of them throughout the course of the game, but the ones that are there will test your nerves to the limit.

Though the frustration level is high, fans of old-style games such as the original Final Fantasy for instance, will feel right at home with it. The rest of you may want to bring along a punching bag or something as such to avoid having something get broken... =)

Replay Value -- Low. There are a lot of hidden and hard-to find items, as well as a few characters that you might have missed the first time, but other than that there isn't much reason to go through the game a second time. Those of you that find it hard to resist the temptation to hurl the controller through the television screen might find it difficult enough to make it through the first time around (and might found yourself out the cost of a new TV set and/or PSX controller as well).

In conclusion, Beyond the Beyond isn't really all that bad of a game, but whether or not you enjoy it will depend on your taste in RPGs. Those of you who can't live without the fancy FMV of newer games and detest frustrating gameplay will want to avoid this one, while those of you who are die-hard fans of the old-school style, like myself, will feel right at home with it.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 04/29/02, Updated 04/29/02