PlayStation 2

Echo Night: Beyond

The puzzles are a bit formulaic and the ghosts aren’t as scary as they could be. Fatal Frame still holds that honor. But if you are looking for a good scare with a sci-fi twist then Echo Night: Beyond fits the bill. It’s not the best adventure game ever made and it’s certainly not the scariest, but it does create a sinister, lonely, and very claustrophobic environment and weaves and interesting tale. It’s definitely a ride worth taking, but probably better suited as a weekend rental.

Malgré une réputation très mitigée, Echo Night Beyond s'avère pourtant détenteur de nombreuses originalités, parvenant à surprendre agréablement et à donner encore un peu de crédit à From Software. Malgré des lourdeurs au niveau des déplacements, et un gameplay un tant soit peu trop classique, ce titre instigateur du genre space/survival se révèle très immersif, et expose une intelligence rare dans la gestion de l'ambiance et du contexte. D'autant qu'avec son petit prix, Echo Night Beyond mérite vraiment un coup d'oeil attentif et posé. Luigi's Mansion Forever.

Echo Night: Beyond is a great idea for a game, and I like it more than I really should. It'd be a great survival horror game, and it's not a bad adventure game, but it's intensely frustrating. It's long periods of searching eerie, near-empty environments punctuated by fifteen-second death scenes, and I can't recommend that to anyone.

While the graphics, story, and presentation are gripping and make you really feel tension of being alone on an empty lunar base, its horrible controls and pacing really sink it. Had those things been polished a bit, this game could’ve been solid. Unfortunately, Echo Night Beyond is nothing more than a bunch of fetch quests gift-wrapped in pretty packaging and bow-tied with a decent story.

When you’re done with the story mode first time through, there are three more endings available should you wish to go back to the game. Unfortunately, due to the horribly repetitive nature of some of the tasks, you’ll likely find very little reason to bother. Because while Echo Night Beyond can garner a lot of credit in some areas, it seems that its dogged determination to stick to the old school rules of survival horror, the backtracking, the Clock Tower style of non-combat and the boring tasks, that ultimately undo it in the end.

I picked up this game on the off chance that it might offer something different. It turns out that it’s just a few years behind. The atmosphere apparently comes from quite the pedigree of solitude-horror games reaching back to the Playstation 1. It’s just a shame it brought the game play with it to this century.

Ultimately, Echo Night is a game with terrific effects that delivers a wonderfully tense mood. But, beyond just walking about and opening cabinets, there's no reason to plod through the underdeveloped puzzles and not so frightening ghosts.

Overall, Echo Night: Beyond is an okay game, marred mainly by its repetitiveness. It’s not a bad experience (well, except for that platforms part), but it won’t hold your attention for long. I would recommend the game to someone who wants to play an adventure game and only has access to a PS2, but not as a representative game of the genre. It might have some appeal to space horror adventure fans - especially as this is an underrepresented theme - if they can disregard the repetitive gameplay. But the rest of the adventure gamers have a good variety of adventures to choose from rather than take the risk. Make this a rental rather than a purchase and you won’t be disappointed.

Echo Night: Beyond is an unusual idea and one with great potential, but unfortunately the dull setting and plodding pace of the game bog it down. Throw in the problems with items that are far too easy to overlook and puzzles that are sometimes very obscure and you're in for a highly frustrating experience at times. Only the most patient of gamers will persevere, and probably then only out of sheer stubborn determination and a desire to find out what's going on and just why all the people on the base have died and are now haunting the place. Survival horror fans might find some enjoyment here, I know I did, but the masses simply won't find enough thrills or gratification here to keep their attention.

Echo Night: Beyond is not quite Project Zero in space, that's for sure. It does begin as an initially promising ghost train ride, but given its short nature - about twelve generous hours or so if you get hopelessly stuck like me because you didn't talk to that damn woman - it's a shame it lapses into average fetch-quest territory all too quickly. With its emphasis on non-violent solutions in an FPS framework, it's an off-path Japanese curio, but a little too hard to recommend to all but the most ardent and accepting of horror adventure fans.