Random battles are an important part of gameplay in Beyond the Beyond.
Gameplay in Beyond the Beyond is, for the most part, standard for a role-playing video game. However, the turn-based battle system does contain one feature that was not standard in role-playing games at the time.[4] Dubbed the "Active Playing System", this feature allows the player to increase the chances of either landing an improved attack on an enemy or defending from an enemy attack by pressing the X button at the correct time during battle. It is similar to the timing-based attacks in the later role-playing game Final Fantasy VIII (1999).[4]
Plot
Long ago in the world of Beyond the Beyond, a battle raged between the 'Beings of Light' and the 'Warlocks of the Underworld'. Before the planet was destroyed, the two sides signed a treaty leaving the surface world to the Beings of Light and underground to the Warlocks. After hundreds of years of peace, inexplicable happenings begin to occur. The player must control Finn, a young swordsman, to stop the evil power that has broken the treaty and invaded the surface world.[5]
Critical assessments of Beyond the Beyond were divided upon its release: While Shawn Smith and Sushi-X of Electronic Gaming Monthly found it to be an impressive RPG,[9] Dan Hsu and Crispin Boyer in the same publication and Glenn Rubenstein in GameSpot deemed it derivative and underwhelming, though still a solid and satisfying enough experience for fans of the genre,[9][2]GamePro's Scary Larry considered it outright "lame and predictable",[14] and Next Generation described it as "painfully derivative, plodding, and not even a terribly challenging adventure".[13] However, there were points of agreement, with even the most positive reviews remarking that the game has a very generic RPG visual style[9][11][2][13] and simply does not look like a next generation RPG,[9][11][2][12][13][14] though some also remarked that the 3D battle graphics are impressive.[9][11][13]
Most reviews said that the story is highly derivative and suffers from overlong, dull dialogues,[9][11][2][12] though Next Generation, which otherwise gave one of the more negative reviews, said the story was pleasingly long and interesting.[13] While Shawn Smith and Dan Hsu praised the music,[9] Glenn Rubenstein, Scary Larry, and IGN all called it tepid and generic, and criticized that it is in MIDI format instead of the high quality Red Book audio that was by this time standard for CD games.[2][14][12] Another common criticism was that the battles are excessively frequent.[12][13][14]
The game maintains a 44% average rating on GameRankings, from 8 reviews. Review scores for the game included a 6 out of 10 from Electric Playground.[8] In a retrospective review, Andrew Long of RPGamer argued that the extensive time it takes to complete the game is due mostly to long and complex dungeons, frequent random encounters, and the steep difficulty of bosses.[15]
^ abNickel, Thomas (Summer 2011), Parish, Jeremy (ed.), "Beyond the Beyond: Beyond Redemption?", GameSpite Quarterly (8), archived from the original on March 31, 2012, retrieved September 12, 2011
^Famitsu staff (November 10, 1995). "クロスレビュー" [Cross Review]. Famitsu (in Japanese). No. 361. ASCII. Archived from the original on April 30, 2022. Retrieved April 30, 2022.
