Beyond Good & Evil: 20th Anniversary Edition

A bona fide classic remastered with love and care. This edition brings smooth visuals, a beautifully recreated musical score, and well-presented supplemental materials. It certainly shows its age, but like all great art, Beyond Good & Evil weathers the test of time with grace.

Nintendo has been getting heat for the pricing of its recent Switch remasters, so to see Ubisoft's Beyond Good & Evil so lovingly restored for a reasonable price is a true joy. The 20th Anniversary Edition boasts some lovely visual and auditory upgrades, an excellent gallery feature, and a whole bunch of meaningful extras that make this journey back into Hillys well worth taking. Granted, the 30fps performance on Switch is a bit of a bummer compared to other platforms, and there's no denying that the experience has aged considerably in certain areas, but the gameplay is so varied, and the world so unique, that you'd be remiss not to at least give it a shot. Welcome back, 'Yade'.

Overall, Beyond Good & Evil 20th Anniversary Edition is a fantastic remaster with beautiful visuals and remade music. Hopefully Ubisoft follows this with stunning remasters of other classic series like Rayman. Beyond Good & Evil still has engaging characters, fun puzzles and stealth sections that make you think. The world is also glorious to explore and shows Beyond Good & Evil was ahead of its time with how it built Hillys with multiple creatures, cultures and species of people. Unfortunately, the lack of manual saves and camera issues do let down this 20th Anniversary Edition.

It must be said that Beyond Good & Evil 20th Anniversary Edition is a remake worthy of the franchise’s name and the best way to experience it in 2024. If you enjoy platformers and story-driven games with unique worlds and identities, give this one a few hours of your time. You can be sure that beneath some dated mechanics and the game’s colorful appearance lies a hidden gem rarely found in other titles.

Ubisoft dusts off its 2003 cult game for the second time with a successful Anniversary Edition. The game has never been a masterpiece, but it still entertains today as it did 21 years ago.

Beyond Good & Evil 20th Anniversary Edition is a fun remaster that brings back a classic game for both old fans and new players. The game has improved graphics and music, making it look and sound better than ever. However, it has some issues. The camera controls can be tricky. Sometimes it gets stuck on walls, making it hard to see what’s happening during battles or stealth sections. This can lead to unfair situations where you might get caught by enemies because you couldn’t see them clearly. Despite these problems, the story and characters are still engaging, and the puzzles are enjoyable. If you loved the first game or are curious about it, this edition is worth checking out.

Beyond Good & Evil's characters and story still have something to offer in the current age, and its small world is a refreshing change to the huge, open expanses seen in every other game today. Although it lacks quality in a multitude of areas, including combat, stealth sections, and camera controls, Jade's quest attempts to tell a compelling narrative that will have players eager to reach its conclusion. It seems quite clear after playing that Beyond Good & Evil was supposed to be something much more than what it is, and it remains to be seen where things go from here, but this adventure harks back to a fun era in video games and holds up just about well enough that it deserves a playthrough today - just maybe have a guide at the ready to figure a few things out.

Despite a couple of gripes, I’d still say this is probably going to be the best version of Beyond Good & Evil. It at least has the strongest intersection between accessibility and quality. The game runs and looks quite good on the system, with the handful of framerate dips not really detracting from the overall experience. I’ll admit, the brilliant quality of Beyond Good & Evil is doing a lot of the heavy lifting here. The remaster overall is quite good, with this Nintendo Switch version just being solid, I’d say. This is a good way to play one of the coolest games from the sixth gen, but there are definitely better places to play this version. If you’re used to concessions made with these kinds of ports though, you’ll probably have as great of a time as I did. While I’m sure Nintendo’s handheld won’t be able to run the second game whenever that resurfaces, I’m certainly a lot more interested in giving it a go than I was before.

Even though the new content added was far from satisfying, it was quite enjoyable to play Beyond Good & Evil years later on modern systems with better graphics and without any problems. Despite all the time that has passed, it offers you hours of fun with its gameplay and story. Those who will meet Jade and Pey'j for the first time are lucky. Old fans won't find a better excuse to finish the game again.

If you're not afraid of the light but somewhat rusty combat and navigation system, we think Beyond Good & Evil - 20th Anniversary Edition should not be missing from your collection