I bought Beyond the Beyond because it is made by one of my favorite developers, Camelot, but I enjoyed this game because it is a great and challenging adventure.
Beyond the Beyond has mostly average visuals. I really enjoyed the 3D world map and the nice looking tile based towns and dungeons. Perhaps the weakest portion of the graphics would be the turn based battles. Personally I really love the large and stylish battle sprites, but I can see how others might find the battle graphics to be unattractive. To me it was like playing an old Shining game from the Genesis with a nice graphical face lift. I wasn't expecting, nor did I even want, graphics of the Final Fantasy level. Camelot has a style that I like a lot, but I do feel that Shining the Holy Ark, which they did the same year on the Saturn, looks a lot better than Beyond the Beyond.
As far as music goes, I would love to own this games soundtrack! Unfortunately I can't find a soundtrack for Beyond the Beyond other than an arranged album that is pretty much unavailable anyway. The music is done by Motoi Sakuraba who is one of my favorite composers of game music and he did an excellent job here. Once again though, I think Shining the Holy Ark got the better deal in music as well, but Beyond the Beyond got a lot more tracks and variety. There is a sound test available later in the game and after listening to all of the pieces individually I can say that this is definitely quality RPG music, I love every piece!
Gameplay is very basic in this game. Combat and progression are very traditional. There are lots of areas and the pacing is great throughout. The characters are all different and deciding which to use can be a difficult choice. You can take up to 5 characters into battle with you, which I really appreciate.
I have tried to determine what it is that people hate so much about this game, but I am unable to come up with anything. How is this game really any different from Lunar or Breath of Fire or any of the other popular traditional RPG's on the 16-bit systems? I have heard people say that this game is hard, but on my first playthrough I didn't even have a single character die even once.
Beyond the Beyond has a plethora of fun and interesting towns to explore as well. And I personally really enjoyed the story. At first I thought it wouldn't amount to much, but as I played through it I realized that I really wanted to know what was going to happen and I was even surprised a few times by the plot. Another good thing about this game is its length. At thirty-some hours it didn't even come close to wearing out its welcome and I enjoyed every moment of it. Beyond the Beyond is a game that I will always think fondly of and I am glad I gave it a chance.
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