14 DAY TRIAL // Beyond: Two Souls might suffer from a general lack of big gameplay mechanics but it’s when the experience requires combat that it becomes truly painful to play through a scene, however important it might be to the overall story.
The training course that the CIA makes main character Jodie go through (spoilers from now on) is fast and mixes enough elements to seem interesting. But soon after, players actually have to use the simple stick moves they have learned to take out real enemies and sneak move around the environment.
The train sequence starts off in an interesting manner but the cop fist fight that takes place on the roof and in the rain is preposterous and does not do justice to the atmosphere or the story.
The development team at Quantic Dream should have made Jodie much weaker in a physical battle, relying on actress Ellen Page’s natural ability to look frail and underpowered.
This would have allowed them to put more emphasis on the awesome powers of Aiden, the entity that Jodie has been linked to since birth.
The entity can interact with a wide variety of objects and persons and he can simply throw cars into the air, blow up gas stations or force SWAT operatives to turn on each other, as well as heal Jodie and protect her from harm.
The only limitation is that Aiden cannot move too far from Jodie and that Beyond: Two Souls only allows him to affect the environment in pre-determined places.
I would have liked to see Aiden being given more freedom, to simply roam the environment and use his energy on whatever object he wanted to.
As it stands now, there’s too little contrast between the entity and his charge and the relationship between the two lacks some tension that could have added more weight to the narrative.