Steam Sale Review: Beyond Good and Evil

Finally last game:
When you look at that, what do you expect? When I bought this game all I had to go on was that picture, the title, and people occasionally mentioning this game as underrated.

What I expected:

I figured BGaE would be a mix of genres. There would be some Indiana Jones/Tomb Raider style adventuring mixed with some multi-faction conspiracies and some good old cosmic horror elements.

What I got:

Space opera.

You see those space ships in the above picture? I thought they were meteors. I hadn't been this wrong about a genre of something since Lost.

For those who may not know, space opera refers to series like Star Trek or Star Wars; sci fi at its softest.
BGaE takes place on a little planet called Hillys, under attack by a mysterious race called the DomZ. You play as Jade, a reporter who also looks after a bunch of orphans on a lighthouse. In need of cash to power the shield protecting the lighthouse, you take up a job to investigate the why the Alpha Sections (a military group whose exact political position is rather vague) are doing such a poor job of dealing with the DomZ.
Naturally there's revelations, tragedies and a big space battle by the end.

BGaE is another one of those games who, much to my chagrin, contains several gameplay styles. The on foot sections remind me of 3D Zelda games what with the basic platforming and 'dungeons', but the actual combat is fairly weak. There are also times when suddenly it becomes a stealth mission and then you are playing a poor man's Metal Gear Solid. Outside there's what seems to be a big open sandbox until you realise there's almost nothing there, and what is there is probably compulsory. You explore this pseudo-sandbox in a vehicle that handles like someone from Indigo Prophecy (woo continuity nod). and finally there is a small degree of RPG gameplay, but like the sandbox is either compulsory or just irrelevant.

As I must have said before, I'm not fond of things that jump between moods or genres. While I don't won't all fiction to instead to become either grimdark angstfests or wacky lighthearted romps, I wish that tone wasn't allowed to jump so far.
An early scene in BGaE has Pey'j your pigman accomplice demonstrate his fart-powered rocket boots. Much later in the game Jade breaks down after [MASSIVE BUT FAIRLY OBVIOUS WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT SPOILERS]. For me the emotional weight of the later scene was lessened by the earlier scene, and all of its ilk.

It's been so long since I actually played this game I've forgotten most of the details, and all I'm let with are slightly bitter memories. There's nothing inherently terrible about this game (hmm I think I've already used that exact phrase previously, never mind), there's just nothing particularly good about it. BGaE has developed a fanbase so who knows, perhaps this is all just a combination of my very high standards and my disappointment that this was not what I expected.

If nothing else I can say that BGaE is an experience you don't get all that often despite containing alot of typical features, kind of like Fifth Element.