As mentioned before, I brought back 2 old games from NL last time I visited (and a stack of books, which was missing the first book in the 12-ology. Grrr.). I popped in Beyond Good & Evil and started playing.
Well of course it’s a good game! That’s why I took it back :)
Two things stuck out as better than remembered though: the story, and the localisation. First, the localisation. The game can be played either in French or in Dutch (I probably have the French/Belgium/Dutch version of the game). I played a part in French, but it didn’t appeal that much to me. So I played the most part in Dutch. The voice acting in Dutch is good — really good. Substantially better than the silly dubbing you’d see at children’s cartoons. The way in which the characters speak highlight their characters — Pey’j sounds like a wiley, willful, down-to-earth, heart-of-gold guy, and he is. Double H sounds overly polite, like he’s god a stick up his …, and he sounds like a soldier strongly adhering to the manifest. Well, what did you expect after they addled his brains? He is a bit messed up and falling back on simple settings — and he sounds that way too.
The real gem, however, is when you get separated from Pey’j for a sec in the middle of a dark, dangerous dungeon. You open a door to let him in, and he goes “Wilt u soms kinderpostzegels, mevrouw?”. There is no translating for this, but the blatant flippancy combined with the inherent Dutch-ness of his remark is hilarious.
Second major upside: Story. Having played and finished the game before, the mechanics were known to me and never a big hindrance. So I progressed rather swiftly through the game (at one point, I was busy on the PC while the game idled, and I still finished within roughly 20hrs), which kept the pace of the story going. As it turned out, I waited long enough — I didn’t remember the details of the story (having forgotten completely about the middle third, and most of the other parts). So while gameplay was familiar, and finding my way about was not too hard, there was still plenty to discover, and enough story to discover. The story is creepy. It’s serious. It is, in my view, closer to books in its depth than to movies. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Next, I might play Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, which I remember mostly enjoying for the cool acrobatics. Story, not that much. If I get round to playing/finishing it, I’ll post an update to let you know how it is a second time around.