Beyond good & evil: a retrospective.

 "Poor Woof... I know how you are, you tried to help them... You told yourself that you wouldn't let them come to any harm, that you'd be there to protect them... I know, boy... But that isn't what actually happened. The kids are gone. And you... You couldn't do anything... You're here... alive and well. Who do you think you are? Did you think you'd actually be able to make a difference? Well Woof, you were wrong boy... completely and utterly wrong... There's nothing anyone can do... There's nothing anyone can do..." - Jade.

What is a hero? Do we need another savoir? and is it all about judgement? these are the questions that most come to mind when i think about beyond good & evil the game. one of the most lively charismatic games ever created. first and foremost you play as jade a women who is struggling and barely scraping by to help orphans of a cosmic conspiracy of liberating if confounding proportions. jade for us is a theme and a symbol of a cosmic guitar solo as played by god and let me just say after recently having played the game: that now we can say without a doubt who taught Jimi Hendrix how to play. but all joking aside the game is a resounding achievement. more about themes then characterization. however this is more by emphasize then a question of quality when it comes to narrative decisions. so what are the themes you ask? well the grand ones. love, loss and the relationship of the individual to the rest of society. what it tries to instill in the player is that you can't just naively trust every source of information as a fact. because not every provider of media has as honest a intention as beyond good and evil. most of them are trying to coerce your brain into being another cog in the machine of a system that is only looking out for it's survival and it's survival doesn't necessarily rely on yours.

having now sprinkled enough minutia to hopefully get you to go play the game i will now do what i do: ramble on about something that irrelevant to the topic at hand. just kidding, jades journey will take her to a moon, discover her family's history and possibly even save the galaxy. all with sombre hints after the credits that this journey is just beginning and that there may be no limit to it's casualties, we just don't know. because the game didn't do good financially, so here we are a decade and a half later, with the question what the hell happens next? then came the trailer from e3 and i think i can speak for anyone who is a fan of michel ancel's work that we were all amazed and surprised. i had a whole theory (spoilers alert!) that jade had spent all these years fighting her beloved uncle page and had even lost a arm in the conflict. then we were told the game was a prequel and all these day dreams were dropped out the window. what mr ancel has given us in interviews however is more in tune with the times as (not in my life time but maybe yours?) we increasingly live in a strange psychedelic scientific romance that is increasingly a anti-utopia. a corporate religion, a new mythology that is ultimately shallow and only benefits a very exclusive class. a world where science is seen as some strange kind of mysticism that us monkeys would like to use as a means to satisfy ancient and irrational urges that have haunted our species ever since we have had a collective memory. we will end this where we started but with a few answers to some questions. what is a hero? i would say a hero is someone who does the right thing even when it goes against their own interest. do we another savoir? i would say technically no, but seeing the shit were in i think we should take all the help we can get.  finally, is it all about judgment? ...i don't know you tell me? but i only say that because i don't know if you have played beyond good & evil or not.