Recent reviews by Valtix

MAJOR STORY SPOILERS.

I don't often write reviews, but this game dipped it's toes into a concept that I absolutely adore: retained knowledge through timeline jumping.

That seems extremely specific so I'll explain. A lot of games use the idea of story routes and multiple endings, while precious few games use the idea of knowledge obtained in one route being useful in another. The only games I've played that have tried this are the Zero Escape series and Doki Doki Literature Club (both anime VNs which aren't normally my thing.) Zero Escape was plagued with ridiculously bad writing and idiotic characters, but it still holds a special place for me because of how well it did this concept. DDLC was great for different reasons, and the retained knowledge mechanic was extremely minor.

I didn't know that The Pale Beyond would be using this mechanic, so when I reached the ending and ate that peach, the first thing I felt was obviously some extreme excitement! The game just made it clear that my character has gained awareness of previous runs through the game which has all sorts of interesting implications. Maybe me and Hunt can discuss the whole timeline and figure out together how to handle each situation. Maybe that will create some alternative choices throughout the run! Maybe I can go back to the beginning and keep Hunt from abandoning the ship, or get him to take Kurt's advice so that the ship isn't lost. The whole story could change!

But eventually my excitement died down and the problems began to occur to me... that was all basically already the case. You can rewind time whenever you want throughout the game, create alternative branches, make different decisions... the only new development is that it's now being taken into account in the actual narrative that we can do that. This makes it a hell of a lot less impactful. I feel like a better way to do this would be to have the story start at the end, with Shaw eating the peach after it's clear they've failed and coming back to the office with Hunt at the beginning. That would explain why you'd been able to do this the whole time while still keeping most of the narrative from the player. We'd wonder whether it was some kind of flashback or nightmare and we wouldn't know what the hell happened. I'm not a writer, but I think this is an ok suggestion.

The biggest problem, though, is what you're able to do with this new, society-changing, reality-warping ability. The new opportunities that are now available to you, now that you've gained this power. Let's go through the list:
- You can tell Hunt that Minerva's coming, which changes nothing.
- You can tell Minerva that Hunt went down with the ship, which changes nothing.

...That's it. This is truly one of the biggest missed opportunities I've seen in a game. They did nothing with the mechanic. The endings are barely different (if at all.)

There's really not much more to say here, it's just a waste. If they did this mechanic well then this game could have been one of my favourites ever. I really enjoyed the rest of the experience, but unfortunately the magnitude of this missed opportunity just left me with a feeling of disappointment. I hope that this is either something that will be released as DLC at some point, or at least something that the devs will try to improve in their next game.

Really beautiful story.

Pros

Active tight knit community, at least 2 tournaments every week
Fantastic rollback netcode, USA player vs European player matches are perfectly playable
Extremely short learning process
Very well balanced
Diverse characters mostly based on archetypes from other popular fighting games
Good stepping stone to more complex fighting games
Low execution creates a unique experience where the game is almost entirely about reads and reactions
No major bugs excluding some weird interactions in spectator mode
Casual and Ranked queues don't require the core pack, free to play

Cons
Long queue times due to small playerbase
Very sparse updates
The core pack is necessary if you want to join tournaments
While not shallow, the depth compared to other fighting games is pretty lacking
Ranked requires you to pick 3 characters, people who only play one character will have a harder time playing competitively
Rotating in-game store, may have to wait weeks to get the specific cosmetic you want

Cool game