Beyond: Two Souls hit stores last month to mixed reviews. Not everyone appreciated the game’s attempt to bridge the gap between films and video games, but those who were willing to immerse themselves in the innovative narrative design and game world were rewarded with an enriching experience no other game can truly compare to.

Beyond gets a decent amount of flak for having a lackluster story, but compared to the slew of AAA Games titles that have come out in recent years, Beyond sticks out as a breath of fresh air — for most of the game. Still, for a game with a major selling point being its story, more attention could have been paid to improving the weaker spots in the script. 

Players go through the game as Jodie Holmes (voiced and motion-captured by Ellen Page), a girl who is tethered to a mysterious psychic entity named Aiden. The game goes through 15 years of Jodie’s life in non-chronological, episodic chapters.

Much of the story explores Jodie’s relationship with Aiden as she develops from a little girl with a despicable monster following her to her loving and interdependent friendship with it. If the game emphasized that relationship and inner struggle the entire time, Beyond: Two Souls would easily have been one of the best games I’ve played in a long time. 

Sadly, the game tries way too hard to be the save-the-world action thriller it was never meant to be, especially in the last 20 percent. The parts of the story that involve government conspiracies and political unrest are, by far, the most poorly written segments and detract from the beautiful simplicity of the chapters that deal with Jodie’s struggle to come to terms with her self-image and her gift.

David Cage, Beyond’s director, said the mixing of different genres was an intentional choice. In this case, it was definitely a decision that hurt what the game could have been.

Players can choose to play the game either alone or with a friend: one person controls Jodie, and the other controls Aiden. 

Controlling Jodie is easy enough, but Aiden is another story. Aiden is essentially a floating camera that can roam wherever he pleases—which is cool, but his controls were uncomfortable and felt unnatural. It got easier after playing the game for a while, but it was definitely a pain to work for far too long.

Another bad mark against Beyond’s controls is the camera. My god, the camera.

For much of the game, the camera angles are beautiful. Players can definitely tell the creators took their sweet time honing their cinematography skills. On the other hand, there are more than several instances where I really need the camera to look just a little bit that way, and it just won’t cooperate. 

Beyond’s biggest innovation lies within the choices the game affords the player. Sadly, the choices players make in Beyond are subtle, so subtle, they may go unnoticed. Sometimes, players might not even realize they had a choice at all. 

For example, there is a chapter in which Jodie sneaks out of her room to go to a bar with friends. If players make certain choices, they get caught before even making it out of the neighborhood, and the game acts as if you were supposed to get caught all along. On the other hand, players might get to the bar successfully, but decide to leave early once things get too fishy. Or players might tough it out to the bitter end. And most amusingly, if players have Jodie sit in her room and cry and play guitar all night, they might not get the chance to sneak out at all. 

The game rewards those who pay attention to their surroundings. A player could miss entire scenes if he or she goes from point A to point B without interacting with the world. The missed scenes aren’t necessarily essential to understanding the story’s plot, but if someone breezes through the game thoughtlessly, that person might have a much blander experience than by taking the time to explore and tinker around.

I thoroughly enjoyed playing Beyond: Two Souls. It definitely had its fair share of issues, but if you like immersive and interactive stories in your video game, I can’t recommend Beyond enough.