Beyond Blue Reviews
Perhaps it’s the pandemic or the challenges of parenthood talking, but as much as I enjoy blowing things up or slashing them to pieces there’s real power in games that help you calm things down and find some inner peace...
Beyond Blue take us for a couple of hour in the deep of the ocean. More a documentary than a game, but perfect for who want a relaxing and fascinating experience.
Review in Italian | Read full review
We've seen how this can be implemented with <b>Ubisoft</b>'s brilliant “Discovery Tour” mode for both Assassin's Creed Origins and Odyssey -- an interactive journey through history; fact and myth alike, where you control the information available to you, and dive in as deep as <i>you</i> like.
An educational way to explore the deep blue sea at your own pace.
Beyond Blue is an educational game that delivers its lessons in a very relaxing manner. Players spend most of the game swimming around and looking at fish, and that's totally fine. Though it doesn't nail the story, that's not really the point – the documentary footage is informative and interesting. Beyond Blue is well worth the time for those curious about the depths of the sea, and the subtle ecological lessons it teaches are valuable enough to overlook its shortcomings.
If you’ve ever wanted to learn more about marine life or wanted to explore the ocean depths without fear of having to fend for yourself, this is the game for you. Not to mention Beyond Blue would be a fantastic way to get children more immersed and aware of underwater creatures. However, suppose you’re looking for a game with a bit more to offer in terms of gameplay and content. In that case, you may be better off sticking to games like Subnautica that provide the same exploration with added goals and an even higher arching narrative.
Beyond Blue excels at being a relaxing experience set in a beautiful ocean. The waters teem with wildlife and its environments are diverse enough to tempt multiple visits. The result is a great educational tool to teach people of all ages about its wildlife. Unlike its partners, it misses its chance to drive home the importance of conservation, though. With more time devoted to the important issues it raises, it could have taught us so much more.
I feel the game would have been a lot more interesting had the developers decided to focus more on the game’s educational and explorational aspects instead of a linear story-based structure. It’s a game that makes the act of looking for marine animals in order to learn more about them really enjoyable. Too bad there’s also a somewhat uninteresting plot in here; one that only drags the experience down.
Although Beyond Blue might not stand out from a gameplay perspective, it hits all the right spots as a remarkable educational tool about the planet’s underwater world.
Beyond Blue is a very interesting narrative experience, which exposes the great disseminating power that video games can have, a field little explored in them, and that places us in front of one of the most beautiful and unknown environments on our planet.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
A calm and realistic marine-diving simulator that unfortunately never goes deeper than the surface.
Beyond Blue is a calm, immersive and deeply didactic proposal, with a very simple gameplay that encourages us, little by little, to fall into their networks. Thanks to a visual section that portrays with great beauty the marine environments and their animals and a very remarkable voice casting, it is impossible not to fall exhausted at your feet. Of course, the proposal is short, because in about 3 hours (something more if we investigate in depth its scenarios) we will have realized its history. E-Line knows how to blur, like few others, that fine line that separates the didactic from the playful: a video game as rich in knowledge as it is absorbing in its playable part.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
I appreciate that the story gave me plenty of reasons to care about Mirai and enough quiet space to shake off some stress among the waves. It's a contemplative journey, one I can't help but recommend.
Beyond Blue isn't going to be for everyone. If you're after action and excitement, this isn't going to be for you. It's a slow but rather peaceful experience and I was pretty relaxed while playing though. Imagine Subnautica in creative mode, minus the building elements, and imagine David Attenborough is narrating it. You can add or subtract a few points depending on how interested you are personally in ocean studies.
The main problem of Beyond Blue is that, in the end, it doesn't do enough to fulfill its main task: to inspire curiosity about the beautiful Blue world of the ocean and make you want to watch all the documentaries of the same name.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Beyond Blue is a relaxing, short $20 edutainment game that’ll be a fun time for gamers who are curious about the deep blue sea and its inhabitants. Just don’t go into it expecting gameplay that’s deeper than a puddle.
Beyond Blue is a relaxing experience that will appease players who cannot get enough nature documentaries on Netflix. I loved taking my time and scanning creatures and just exploring the ocean. There is a lot of interesting info wrapped around a solid gaming experience. Beyond Blue is the kind of game that players will just know they will enjoy by looking at it.
Overall, Beyond Blue is an interesting game with some solid story strands to propel its underwater gameplay. Its emotional impact doesn’t reach the heights of the likes of Firewatch, and its limited gameplay may put some players off if they want something more substantial or challenging, but nonetheless this is a well crafted and calm title that proves its worth. When it comes to education-based games, this is a good example of how engaging it can be.
Writing that's worth wincing at does little to drag down a hyper-relaxing and educational diving game. Beyond Blue lets you take a breath in a medium packed with games that try their hardest to make your blood pressure skyrocket.
Beyond Blue is an entertaining diversion for a few hours, with fun gameplay, but is held back by its small scale and clunky writing.