Grand Beginnings, flawed endings

I finished Beyond Good and Evil recently and I agree with the two general consensuses about the game: The first is that it's quite fun and the second that it's cut short too quickly. I have a theory that BGaE developed a cult following because of the excellent beginning that welcomes you with open arms as you boot up the disk and explore.

The reason Beyond Good and Evil 2 has been so eagerly awaited even before its announcement in May of 2008 was because the original drew the player in to the game so quickly. You start at this tranquil lighthouse which doubles as an orphanage and then disaster strikes; meteors rain down from the sky and out rise mummy-like aliens try to steal the kids. You fight them off, the army arrives late and claims victory, and then you're interviewed by the local news and their only question seems to be what it was like being rescued by the army.

From this point you are broke and must bring in some cashola by taking some pictures of the inhabitants of the planet (both flora and animals, half of which are anthropomorphic and talk in very familiar accents). After getting familiarized with the lighthouse, your off in your hovercraft to a) have it repaired by Jamaican Rhinos and b) explore a city teeming with things to do like shop, play a variant of air hockey, race your water-floating vehicle or just get an earful of local propaganda.

The city opens up into your main hub of the world like a zelda title and stays like that for the rest of the game. There in lies the problem of BGaE: If you're an explorer type of gamer like myself, then you'll seek out every nook and cranny before even heading to the first dungeon. You'll consume the hidden areas and side-quests and the game won't be able to keep up leaving a world map that's mostly covered before dinner time.

So the big complaint about Beyond is not that it's too short (Games do NOT always have to be epic or meet the standard 15 hours of gameplay motiff, they should be as long as they need to be. But they should at least be priced appropriately for what they deliver) but rather that it gives you this charming open world at the start with so much potential but then shrinks at an exponential rate. The wondrous places you're supposed to encounter aside from the main mission turn out to be 5 minute distractions where you destroy a bunch of enemies or leap through a series of conveyer belts in a platforming section.

The player is lied to at the get go about the scope of the game and only realize about halfway through. This is the smart thing though, because after that amount of time anyone who has been enjoying the wonderful characters or delicate blend of gameplay styles will have been immersed enough to see the story through to the end. Disappointment will settle in when everything wraps up so quickly and the chance of a sequel is teased but the initial excitement of unraveling the world of Beyond Good and Evil will linger as a good memory.

This is why it's much more important to have an excellent start than a satisfying ending. In a perfect world, games would have both but as any vg enthusiast can tell you, that is not the case. Stories hampered down by overzealous tutorial levels or sequences that throw you right into the action and take too long to get to the motivation to continue on have a serious threat of never being finished. Players will get bored and give up somewhere along the way so that great ending where everything is reveal or that amazing showdown with the final boss won't mean diddly. No one will see it and while those games become forgotten, the ones with grand beginnings become classics or cult favourites.

Compare:

Great Starts:
- Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
- Chrono Trigger
- Resident Evil 2

Weak Starts:
- Silent Hill 4: The Room
- Dead Rising
- Siren