Beyond: Two Souls Review (glumski)
'Beyond: Two Souls' is a story-focused game that tells the life story of Jodie Holmes (Elliot Page), who is linked to a paranormal entity named Aiden. Mostly raised by the government scientists Nathan Dawkins (Willem Dafoe) and Cole Freeman (Kadeem Hardison), Jodie quickly finds herself at odds with a government that seeks to make use of her abilities.
I first heard of B:TS when it came out in 2013 and immediately liked its story and characters, though I did not own the console that would've allowed me to play it. Now that it's available on PC (for a reasonable price when on sale), I finally had the pleasure to play through the story of Jodie myself.
And the story is very much the main focus. The fantastic voice acting, especially by Page and Dafoe, combined with the stunning motion capture and excellent light effects, turn B:TS into more of an interactive movie than a traditional video game. This is, unfortunately, also true for the gameplay, which is essentially a walking simulator with some quick-time events.
The story is, by itself, greatly enjoyable. Its non-chronological narration works exceedingly well, alternating Jodie's action-packed run from the law or government missions with more sedate periods from her childhood. Some of these passages felt a bit long -- I was particularly annoyed by the 'Navajo' chapter, which dragged on for longer than many other chapters combined. I'm also not the greatest fan of the ending, especially since the obvious sequel hook seems unfulfilled. The voice cast and motion performances greatly enhance the story, as does the catchy soundtrack.
The gameplay aspects unfortunately fell somewhat flat for me. I generally don't have a problem with walking simulators (SOMA, for example, is very dear to me). Quick-time events, however, are just a genuinely faulty mechanic. Quite frequently I just had no idea in which direction I was supposed to drag my mouse, and button mashing '1' while pressing down 'W' is not exactly comfortable to do with one hand (the other is needed to use the mouse). I'm sure it's better-optimised for use with a controller, but, well. this is a PC game now. Walking through an environment while repeatedly mashing buttons also gets old really fast.
I was impressed by the graphics, though. There are admittedly moments when it becomes apparent that the original game is from 2013, but especially the light effects hold up very well. Facial animations are excellent (though they can get a bit uncanny with characters smile). The motion capture is also great, though this has become the norm nowadays.
While there are different choices to make, I didn't get the impression that the story really depends on them, at least not in its broad strokes. This reduces the replayability quite a lot -- I sincerely doubt that anyone is going to want to replay the game because they found the gameplay fun.
In total I'd only recommend buying 'Beyond: Two Souls' on sale. I got it for about 8€ (should be the same in $), which is fair for about nine hours of entertainment. While the game has its flaws, it's clear that Quantic Dream have a certain vision. I'm looking forward to playing 'Detroit: Become Human' at some point, and I still hope that there will be a sequel to 'Beyond: Two Souls' in the future. Hopefully with a different type of gameplay, though.