Beyond the beyond was the first ever RPG I played and left me confused as a kid. What genre was this and why did the opening music make me feel like I was about to embark on a massive adventure? I decided to replay it for this review and expected epicness and nostalgia instead it's pretty meh in terms of Jrpgs even compared to the games on the SNES at the time. It breaks no new ground in terms of characters, storyline and gameplay and basically plays like a poor man's Dragon Quest. There will be leeway in terms of scoring because it was the first ever RPG released in America and was released at the start of the Playstation era, back when the system's true potential has not yet been reached.
Plot: Unnamed silent protagonist lives in a quiet town with his adoptive parents and sister. He trains with his father who is a knight for the Kingdom once a month. One night, his adoptive brother comes home to warn them about enemies that have taken over the castle and captured the prince. Together with Annie (his adoptive sister) and Percy (the brother), they leave the quiet town to check on protagonist's father and accidentally saves and travels with the kidnapped Prince.
Opinion: The plot is your typical run of the mill fantasy Jrpg. It never strays too far from the norm and not much I can comment about other than the story feels very traditional but that's not necessarily a bad thing, just very niche. 3/5 Soul
Setting and Graphics: The setting is medieval with lots of forest and caves and wooden houses. Typical for a Jrpg during that time period.
The graphics are honestly butt ugly, it looks like a slightly better version of a SNES Rpg and one could mistake it for a port. Not that SNES games are ugly but games are also judged on the capabilities of the system they came out on. Of course this game came out at the start of the Playstation 1's life and you could make the argument that they did not know the full capabilities of the Playstation 1. 2/5 Soul
Gameplay: The game plays a lot like Dragon Quest in it's interface and interaction with people and objects, it is all done via a menu or the triangle button. Each character has a role and there are no customization which is normal for early Jrpgs. Also this game is littered with FUCKING random encounters! Can u imagine doing a somewhat complicated puzzle with random encounters occurring every two steps??!! It was a nightmare!
The battle is turned based and has a Legend of Dragoon style 'hit the button at the right time' system but other than that there not much to note about it. 1/5 Soul
Characters: There are five slots in the party and two of them tend to be revolving doors for short term party members. In the other 3 slots there is silent protagonist who has no personalty to speak of, Annie and Edward the prince.
Annie: Bullheaded and stubborn, I quite like Annie. She thirsts for adventure and defies her conservative parents to be able to play with the big boys. Unfortunately, she falls into the typical adoptive sister stereotype that won't stop obsessing and in turn having romantic feelings for her silent brother...gross.
Edward: Boring.
Overall: Boring, ugly and with a stupidly broken random encounter meter, I cannot give this game higher than 1/5 Soul I thought this review would be filled with nostalgia-filled scores and comments seeing as how this was the game that started my RPG obsession but I can't do it without feeling dirty after.
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