This Beyond Galaxyland review has been played and tested on Xbox. Beyond Galaxyland has been released for Nintendo Switch, Steam, Xbox One and Series X/S, Linux and PS4 and 5. It is available for € 17.99
Sam Enright has delivered a true ode to the gaming community of the 90s. Beyond Galaxyland has every positive part of gaming from that era that we all love. A blend between pixelated graphics during gameplay and a bit smoother experience when going through story progress. A lovely story with plenty of depth and exiting, fluent gameplay.
To infinity and beyond?
In Beyond Galaxyland you are playing as Doug. At one night you bring home your (girl)friend to let her meet Boom Boom, your guinea pig. As Boom Boom is an aggressive little bugger, your parents are all too happy to see you taking him outside to meet your girlfriend. As you step out of the house she’s gone and you are met with a floating monster that’s out to get you. You start running and praying for the best. You manage to outrun the monster, but nothing good ever happens to main characters in these type of games. You outrun the monster but your only means of escape is throwing yourself through a portal. Here goes nothing…
Thank you Robot
When you wake up you find yourself in a spaceship. Soon after you find out a alien robot has fostered you back to health and all of mankind is kinda wiped out. Bummer.. Also the alien robots have changed the looks of Boom Boom a teensy bit. Well actually quite a bit. He’s now the size of a 14 year old child and the alien robots thought it would be a great idea to give him a gun. You learn the alien robots gather survivors from planets all over the galaxy which have met the same fate as earth. They pick up those survivors and re-inhabit them on planets suitable for their species.
Beyond Galaxyland is game that takes a short while to adjust to. At first you think it is just one of many, many average games. But after half an hour you notice you have fallen in love with it. The graphics grow on you and the story drags you in. And then it hits you: this game was made by just one man!! I could hardly believe it!
A strange new world
Gameplay in Beyond Galaxyland is based on the 90s gameplay of adventure games and turn based RPG’s. You get to walk around in a 2D game world in which you can walk left or right. At some times there is also a shift to the background of the game. So we might even call it 2.5D gameplay during some parts of the game. The shifts into the background add a nice extra layer of depth into the gameplay. It now truly becomes an adventure-game.
A nice addition to the game is the possibility of taking pictures of either the scenery, the inhabitants of the planet or even your enemies. If you take pictures of your enemies there’s an added bonus. You get to learn about your enemies (how much health do they have, what type of enemy is it etc).
A big portion of the game is based on discovery. Be it of the new homeworld you got thrown onto, or towns, caves and sewers to fetch small items you need. Any truly safe planet is of course inhabited by a multitude of enemies. So your new home world is no different. When encountering an enemy gameplay shifts to turn based RPG style. You and Boom Boom line up on one side of the screen, your enemies on the other side. The order in which you get to attack or defend is based on a sort of clock. If it fills up, you are ready to go.
A bit of Poké…
Pretty soon into the game you are told that your enemies are not just cannon fodder waiting to be slaughtered by you. No, you can also catch them and let them do part of the fighting for you. Sound familiar? No. I didn’t have a clue either ;-).
The nice part of this monster collecting is that the game actually has your best interest in mind. Of course you’ll fail on several occasions to capture a monster. But every time you fail to capture a monster, the game increases the odds of capturing it next time. No more completely elusive monsters you would have wanted to collect, but couldn’t. Now perseverance is the key.
Speaking of monsters, that’s another part where this game shines. Be it birds of prey, a huge blob of goo, or a humanoid pig thingy, this game lets you battle all sorts of enemies. From pretty standard to completely wacky. You will need all your battle-skills to defeat these monsters. During battle you have all sorts of basic abilities at your disposal. You can use your basic attack, use a skill, put one of your captured monsters in the battle or use one of your items.
Hit or Miss
Battle in Beyond Galaxyland has a great twist that most of the games in this genre completely oversee. You can actually miss when you attack. And that’s not the only thing. Missing attacks has an extra consequence, your Ability Points which you need for using skills deplete. This offers an extra layer of depth in gameplay.
Unfortunately it also has a negative to it. I for one could not grasp what decides a hit or a miss. If it is something I did wrong or just didn’t time right, I have no issues with it. My fault, my problem. If it is random, then I do have some issue with it. Why? Well because later on in the game, skills can take up to 7 Ability Points out of the 13 available. That’s a big chunk, which you then rarely get to use because of (seemingly) randomly missed attacks. Leaving you with a substantially depleted Ability Points meter. It’s not too bad, but I feel it could have been managed better for the latter stages of the game.
As is usual with RPG’s Beyond Galaxyland has plenty of side missions for you to complete. If you are a fan of movie cult classics, you’ll love it. Anything from The Thing up to Murder on the Orient Express is there. Just for you to experience it. I for one loved these references.
Save me! If you can find me that is.
Ok, let’s be honest about this game. I loved 97% of it, 1% I’m still not sure about (what decides a hit or miss in battle) and 1% I just blatantly hated. And that’s the saving mechanism in this game. There is no automatic saving, all has to be done manually. This means loads of back-tracking to a save-point whenever you’ve had a hard fight. Also when you decide you have played enough for the day, you will have to back-track to a save point or accept lost progress (sometimes there’s a lot of progress you risk losing).
If you counted the percentages correctly, you know it only added up to 99%. There is still one part I wanted to mention. The map is the last 1%. It falls in the category of minor gripe. The map just isn’t as clear as I would have liked it to be. Sometimes you can hardly see what’s what. It is not something that is gamebreaking, but it would have been nice to have a map that was a bit more clear.
If you like this Beyond Galaxyland review, you might want to check out our other Xbox reviews!
