Video Game / Beyond Good & Evil

"Expose the conspiracy. Capture the truth."

In a distant star system, presumably, sometime in the future, there is a peaceful mining planet named Hillys. The peace of this planet was shattered not long ago, when mysterious alien monsters called the DomZ invaded this part of the galaxy, striking in surprise attacks, and kidnapping people away to who-knows-where. A military organization called the Alpha Section appears to be keeping the DomZ attacks at bay, but they don't seem to be doing a very good job.

In Beyond Good & Evil (2003), the player assumes the role of Jade, a young woman who lives on Hillys with her adoptive uncle, Pey'j. She makes a living as a freelance photojournalist and runs an orphanage in the lighthouse she lives in. One day, after a DomZ attack, she is contacted by the Iris Network, a subversive underground press organization and resistance group, that seeks to expose the truth about the Alpha Sections and rally the people of Hillys against them. She accepts their offer, reluctantly at first, and infiltrates Alpha Section facilities to take pictures of their suspicious activities.

Designed by Michel Ancel of Rayman fame, the game plays like a SciFi twist on The Legend of Zelda. It combines simple yet engaging combat, with vehicle action, puzzle solving, stealth, and photography challenges. The environments are detailed and beautiful, and the characters are interesting and well-animated, in a stylized balance of cartoonish and realistic. It was released for Microsoft Windows, Xbox, PlayStation 2, and GameCube, but sold few copies on any platform.

The game got a download-only HD remaster for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in 2011, simply called Beyond Good & Evil HD.

The PC version of the game was even packaged free with a certain brand of cheese in Canada in early February 2009.

In 2008, Beyond Good & Evil 2 was announced but ended up stuck in Development Hell, before briefly emerging in 2017, though with no substantial news having emerged since, it is safe to assume that it is back there. See its trope page for more information.

In the late July of 2020, Netflix announced that a film based on the game is in development. Rob Letterman, who previously directed another video game-based film, Pokémon Detective Pikachu, has been tapped to direct. While the film has yet to materialize, characters from the game are set to appear alongside other Ubisoft properties in the 2023 animated series Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix.

Not related to the book by Friedrich Nietzsche under the same title. At all. Or, for that matter, the second game in the Xenosaga trilogy. And not to be confused with the Above Good and Evil trope.

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Beyond Good & Evil provides examples of:

• Achilles' Heel:
  • The Alpha Sections are vulnerable in their air tanks, and can be taken out if hit from behind. (One will fix another's tank, if there are two of them together. This can actually let you knock the buddy out, too, if you get the first one to face away while being fixed.)
  • Pey'j, on the first boss: "In the eye, Jade! That's his Achilles' Heel!"
• Action Girl: Jade, who fights head-on with her dai-jo staff.
• Action Mom: Adoptive mother, but it still counts—especially given that Jade's need to provide for her kids is what catapaults her into the story in the first place.
• Adventure Game: A pretty straightforward example of the 3-D action/adventure genre.
• Air-Vent Passageway: Jade crawls through many of these during levels, which can be used for traversal and stealth purposes.
• Alien Invasion: Hillys has been undergoing one from the DomZ for years, but they thankfully have the Alpha Sections to help turn back the tide! Except not really.
• Ambiguously Brown: Poor, poor Jade. The surest way to start Fan Wank regarding this game is to ask this simple question: "So what ethnicity is she anyway?" Depending on who you ask, she's black, Hispanic, Native American, olive-skinned European, Asian, Arab, Caucasian but with a tan, or any mixture of the above. Evidence seems to be that you see her as what you want to see, and some think that she was deliberately created to be ambiguous so more people could identify from her, with In the Future, Humans Will Be One Race as justification.
  • As we learn in the ending, she's actually not human at all.
  • A number of other characters seem to have this going on as well. Double H is very tan, but it's not clear if he's just suntanned or if it's his natural color. The same applies to Hahn, but he's rather pale and also appears somewhat Asian.
• Amazing Technicolor Population: Yoa. The camera insists she's "Homo Sapiens," but most humans don't have bluish-white skin.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: Pulled with sidekicks instead of the main character, but it still fits.
• Anti-Frustration Feature: While dying in most places makes you lose any items you used after the checkpoint, the Looter's Caverns and final boss return items to you after you're sent back to a checkpoint.
• Arc Words: "Shauni"
• As Long as It Sounds Foreign: Several of the game's music tracks contain lyrics in nonsensical languages, with a few recognizable phrases sprinkled in. (The exception is "Fun and Mini-Games/Spanish Bar," which is, in fact, in Spanish.)

• Propaganda, misheard lyrics by Zetragild for a funny take on the lyrics.

• Attack Its Weak Point: The Alpha Sections have a brightly colored tank on the back of their armour that incapacitates them if hit with a disk, and sends them flying into the atmosphere if kicked.
• Badass Creed: The code of Carlson & Peeters, at least in theory. Double H seems to apply liberal amounts of Mundane Made Awesome to his interpretation of it, though...
• Bash Brothers: How Jade and her teammates fight. When she's fighting alongside her sidekick, they can even use a combo "Super Attack" to send enemies flying.
• Batman Gambit: The DomZ plan required Jade and the Hillyans to try to take out their lunar base.
• Beam Spam: Jade's "super attack" is somewhere between this and a Macross Missile Massacre.
• Beast Man: There are several non-human races that resemble Earth animals.
• Big Book of War: CARLSOOOOOON AAAAND PEEEEETERSSSSSS!
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: The flies, the Crochax, and the Arachnis are all pretty large, though there are normal-sized creepy-crawlies around.
• Big Friendly Dog: Woof, who is, sitting up, at least as tall as Jade herself.
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • At least one song in the game isn't all in Foreign Sounding Gibberish—the mini-game/competition song has some lyrics in Spanish, about pretty much what you'd expect a mini-game-song to be about (specifically, racing).
  • Bits and pieces of Secundo's dialogue are in Spanish. And Italian. And French.
• Black-and-White Morality: Unabashedly so - Jade and the IRIS Network are completely 100% good, the Alpha Sections and the DomZ are completely evil. Several reviews specifically criticized it for this, as its (publisher-mandated) title seemed to imply a greater degree of moral ambiguity. The title rather refers to the initial premise of hyllians fighting the evil Alpha Sections being a tip of an iceberg, which gets partially revealed in the end (what with Jade's true origin and all).
• Black Speech: The DomZ language. It certainly doesn't help that a lot of the time it's either being spoken with a deep, snarling voice in the recurring Dancing With DomZ theme or by the DomZ High Priest's Voice of the Legion.
• Blasé Boast: Pey'j, accidentally. When Double H relates to him about being trapped in a mind-wiping machine for 16 hours and barely got out intact, Pey'j casually mentions he was in there for three weeks.
• Boisterous Bruiser: Pey'j. His politeness runs from "informal" to "obnoxious", he's very capslock, he likes to hang around in bars, he's full of wise advice, his presence is bigger than his physical size, and he's the leader of his very own rebel organization. However, he's The Smart Guy rather than The Big Guy. But if he's not The Big Guy, he gets to be The Pig Guy.
• Bookends: The game begins and ends with a shot of Jade awakening from a meditative trance, accompanied by variants of the same song.
• Border Patrol: At the borders of the main map, you'll get the warning "you are now leaving territorial waters". If you continue, you'll get picked up and carried back.
• Bragging Rights Reward: Collecting all the pearls gets you a minigame that has no effect on the game proper, and taking pictures of every animal gets you an album containing all the pictures you took of said animals.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Both Pey'j and Double H have abilities beyond what their comical exteriors would suggest.
• Butt-Monkey: Bad things happen to Jade and Pey'j because it moves the story along. Bad things happen to Double H because it's funny. Even a pre-teen goat boy gets away with picking on him...
• Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit": The "Teratosaurus" shares its name with a real prehistoric reptile, but it looks like a cross between a dragon and a centipede.
• Calling Your Attacks: "Jet Boots Attack!"
• Camera Sniper: Used in the opening.
• Canis Latinicus: All the Beast Men have taxonomical names that end in Sapiens but are of different genus; for example, Jade's "uncle", Pey'j, is a "Sus Sapiens" or "Sentient Pig."
• Canned Orders over Loudspeaker: Alpha Sections leader General Kehck on the floating screens in the market.
  "Loyal Hillyans!"
• Carnivore Confusion: Not only do we have an anthropomorphic cow bartender and a slaughtered cow corpse in a freezer, we also have several jokes about eating Pey'j. It's a little more understandable given that the anthropomorphic animals are shown to be separate species from their non-anthro counterparts, but it's still kind of weird to look at.
  • Interestingly, several of the cow-bartender's patrons are sharks (one of whom quips about eating families). Seems like it'd be hard to keep the peace.
• Cat Girl: Meï, the Voice with an Internet Connection.
• Chekhov's Gun: If you check Pey'j's inventory you'll spot an MDisk you can't do anything with. Later on, Pey'j gives Jade the MDisk just before he's captured by the Alpha Sections, and it turns out the it contains important information about Jade's past, as well as telling you about the Beluga.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Secundo is seen onscreen twice at the start of the game. You hear his voice every time you acquire certain items, and he comes in handy at the climax.
• City of Canals: The city area of Hillys, which makes sense for a planet that's mostly made up of water.
• Clothes Make the Superman: Alpha Sections and the Hillyan Army wear massive Powered Armor.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Double H, at least when you first meet him. To be fair, it isn't entirely his fault. He gets better, but still retains a few somewhat airheaded traits.
• Collection Sidequest:
  • The animal photographs. You only need to take two at the very least, enough to pay your bills and advance the plot. The first eight also give you the enhanced zoom, which is highly useful for both the rest of the photographs and missions. Its primary purpose after that is to earn money, which can be done other ways. It's the easiest way to make money, though, and will give you plenty of overhead, especially if you buy the animal tracker which marks targets on the map.
  • To a lesser extent, the Pearls. Yes, you need a certain amount to purchase the appropriate upgrades in the game, but getting them all nets you a mini-game.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The DomZ and Jade are both green.
• Comic-Book Time: Trying to keep track of how much time as passed in the main plot can be a little disorienting. When you bring Double-H back to headquarters to save him from the DomZ parasite, you're told it'll take a few weeks for him to recover, but as soon as you leave the room he's perfectly fine, and no matter how quickly you get to the Moon, Pey'j will have spent three weeks in a DomZ torture device. Either there's a lot of unseen Time Skips, or Jade is spending days, if not weeks, inside the Alpha Sections facilities.
• Context-Sensitive Button: There are two "action" buttons in the game: One for Jade, and one for whoever is following her. The gameplay is heavily based on this.
• Continuing is Painful: When continuing after dying Jade will only be at half of her maximum health, or just four hearts if you've collected enough health increases. This is painful in some moderately tricky stealth sections which feature instadeath traps. Some players don't bother healing up from there since another death is probably just around the corner.
• Curse of The Ancients: Pey'j both plays this one straight and subverts it. On one hand, he's prone to several "Consarnits!" and "Conflabbits!" On the other hand, his favorite epithet appears to be the decidedly less ancient "Sweet Jesus!"
• Cutscene: In-engine, and very well done.
• Cyborg: The DomZ robot is made out of metal factory parts and raw flesh, potentially making it this.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!
  • Controls for taking photographs switched camera control from one joystick to the other in the PS2 port. This is hell when trying to take a photo during combat.
  • And if you're playing on the GameCube, try going between this game and Star Fox Adventures. (Or better yet, don't—unless you like mad flailing.) Both have staff combat. Both have partner mechanics. Both have similar inventories. Both are Zeldalikes. Both have completely different controls. (Yet not different enough to stop you from getting confused.)
  • Controlling the (game) camera is a pain as the X and Y axis cannot be reversed separately and they operate halfway between most games standards. (Most games have tilt left to look left but tilt up to look down, this has left for left and up for up and you can only reverse both at once.)
  • The final boss inverts your movement controls, which happens between checkpoints so you have to use both the normal and inverted control in the same checkpoint if you fail.
• Death Course: In particular, this game loves the Laser Hallway.
  • Alpha Section HQ, an optional sidequest area, stretches your stealth skills to the limit. Avoid detection by the dozens of guards at all costs, or get instantly vaporized!
• Defeat Equals Explosion: All the enemies. Exploding on death must be a quirk of the DomZ's physiology.

• Detail-Hogging Cover: The "box art" for the HD rerelease really ramps up the detail, to slightly creepy extent. The HD game does look slightly nicer, but the cover suggests an almost complete graphical overhaul.
• Developer's Foresight: Since Jade picks up an upgrade that lets her shoot unlimited energy discs in the Factory, the switches opening the various Door to Before are usually located around the next corner and/or require a special key to use, preventing the player from shooting them from the "wrong" side.
  • One console in the factory that needs a code is right behind a guard. Should Jade have sneaked behind that guard instead of defeating it (and most players will defeat it, as it's facing its back to Jade), the cutscene will play differently, with Jade being in a crouching position while the cutscene plays and double checking that the guard didn't notice anything.
• Dialog During Gameplay: Jade and her companions talk very frequently. Sometimes it's to explain things, but sometimes it's just for entertainment.
• Door to Before: See that laser fence? The button to deactivate it is on the other side. You know what to do...
• The Dragon: General Kehck, who is helping out the Priest.
• Easter Egg: If you talk to Yoa at various points in the game, she'll tell you some incredibly helpful things. The problem-she barely speaks a word of English, so what you understand amounts to a vague and unhelpful hint, and you probably won't figure out what she meant until it comes up in the course of the plot. The only indication that she's said anything important is her use of the phrase "batahn-batahn", which context suggests is roughly "tadah".
  • Just a little thing, and it's not exactly hidden, but Pey'j waves if you point the camera at him.
  • The PC version contains a Parody Commercial featuring Ed, the protagonist from Ancel's Tonic Trouble, on the giant screens above the racetrack.
  • One of the creatures you can photograph is the Aedes raymanis, a Rayman mosquito.
• Electric Jellyfish: "Sweet Jesus! Jellies!" Pey'j reacts with zeal to being zapped by one, though that's probably his Boisterous Bruiser side showing through.
• Electric Torture: Double H undergoes this until Jade thankfully rescues him.
• Empathy Doll Shot: If the destroyed lighthouse wasn't depressing enough...
• The End... Or Is It?: Pey'j grows a DomZ eye on his palm at the end.
• Enemy Within: Jade, who is revealed to be the human incarnation of Shauni, possible queen or goddess of the DomZ, who is important for their survival. Though it isn't really a split personality, but Jade herself actually being Shauni. Might add a bit of Fridge Horror to the story.
• Energy Weapon: The Alphas' hammers can sometimes shoot these.
• Erudite Stoner: The Mammago brothers. Despite being the best mechanics in the land, they're rather, uh, "mellow." Suspiciously mellow. The original concept art for their garage had a marijuana leaf on the door, but they cut that for some unfathomable reason. And while in English the three have the names Hal, Babukar and Issam, in the original French the first one is called Haile.
• Escape Sequence: Two of the Alpha Section bases Jade breaks into feature these at the end, forcing you to flee the Beam Spam of the soldiers chasing you.
• Establishing Character Moment: Jade's first act is to go Mama Bear on some child-stealing aliens.
  • Pey'j jumping into the pit to save her, while shouting at the top of his lungs. He immediately makes himself a distraction, buying Jade time and defeating the monster.
  • Double H, mangling Jade's name even as he's enthusiastically swears his loyalty to her. Right after that, he uses his head to get them out of there, and then falls down a pit because he forgot to stop in time.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Double H always goes by his codename, despite the fact that he never addresses anyone else by their codenames. There's one cutscene where he gets called "Hub," though.
• The Evil Army: The Alpha Sections, who are conspiring with the DomZ.
• Evil Is Hammy: General Kehck. His death scene is a marvel of thespian excess.
• Evil Sounds Deep: The DomZ priest sounds like he's slowly dying of some disease.
• Exploring the Evil Lair: Jade and Double H fly to the moon and infiltrate the DomZ main compound in the climax.
• Eye Scream: The DomZ Priest. RIGHT in the eye, hell yeah.
• Fartillery: Pey'j's Jet Boots run on, er, "home-made biocarburant" and "pressurized methane." If his battle cries are anything to go by, he does have a penchant for Mexican food...
• First-Name Basis: When Double H stops referring to Jade as "Miss," things have officially Gotten Serious.
• First-Person Snapshooter: One of the central mechanics. Justified since Jade is a photographer.
• Flunky Boss: The starting boss, first "real" boss, and the Final Boss. The enemies they summon range from relatively harmless Electric Jellyfish to guilt-tripping shapeshifters with BIG hammers.
• Flying Seafood Special: Some species on Hillys look like they should be underwater rather than in the air. The Vorax, the Teratosaurus, both Mantas, and the Nautilus are all major offenders.
• Foreshadowing:
  • The first combat track of the game is made up of an ethereal chorus and DomZ Black Speech, but one word is distinctly discernible: "Shauni". At the end of the game, Jade is revealed to not be human, but a being called Shauni that is very important for the DomZ.
  • When Jade first asks Pey'j if he's heard of the IRIS Network, he panics and quickly warns Jade that it might be a trap. Makes sense, since he's secretly the leader and doesn't want to get Jade wrapped up in the Alpha Section's conspiracy.
  • Jade passing out at the start of the game and Pey'j yelling about getting her some kind of serum in the distance is a fairly easily-forgotten scene. Then you find out at the end of the game that Jade isn't exactly human.
  • Jade can smack around armored soldiers and aliens with her wooden staff, which glows at the ends, and has an unexplained Super Attack she has to charge up. She also takes minimal damage from hammer strikes and point-blank mine explosions, and doesn't have the technology and bulk like Pey'j or Double H. Turns out it's not just Rule of Fun, or the game's Zelda inspirations; she actually has preternatural abilities.
• Forgot to Pay the Bill: In the opening cutscene, the shield protecting Jade's house from alien invasion gets shut off because of this trope.
• Friend to All Children: All three of the main characters. Jade and Pey'j most obviously, since they do run an Orphanage of Love, but Double H shows his kinder side off in the Photo Montage during the credits.
• Funny Animal: Many characters are non-human, animal-like humanoids. For bonus tidbits, they also have plausible taxonomic classifications, like Sus sapiens, which literally means "wise pig".
• Game-Breaking Bug:
  • On some playthroughs, the second triangle key doesn't become accessible, requiring a save state editor in order to continue.
  • Also, sometimes Double H will disappear in the Slaughterhouse and never reappear. Hope you have an earlier save!
• Gentle Giant: Double H is surprisingly playful when he's not pounding things into the dirt with his hammer.
• Global Currency Exception: Mammago Garage only accepts (illegal) pearls. There are, however, hints that pearls weren't always illegal currency.
• Go for the Eye: Many of the DomZ enemies.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars:
  • What's with that scar across Pey'j's eye, huh?
  • Fehn (the literal kid) also has one across his nose. Fehn could have gotten it when the DomZ took away his parents in an attack.
• Gotta Catch 'Em All:
  • Your first quest is to take photos of an example of every single living thing on the planet. It keeps you well funded so long as you keep up with it, and you get an album of all the photos you took if you manage to get all of them.
  • And then, to a certain extent, the pearls. You don't need all of them to progress, but you get a fun little reward for it.
• Groin Attack: Shoot a projectile at the crotch of a guard and watch them double-up in pain. It's fun!
• Guide Dang It!: The final boss. You have to hit him in a very specific order and you can't let him hit you or the entire sequence resets, potentially letting the fight drag on forever. The Interface Screw he throws at you doesn't help in the least.
• The Guards Must Be Crazy: Even if you mercilessly slaughter their buddies, you can run around a corner and they'll dismiss you as "nothing."

• Heart Container: The PA-1 devices hidden around Hillys are almost literal examples, with 13 of them in total. There are also 6 "Impulsers" to be found that increase the Hovercraft's health by one Wrench each.
• Heroic BSoD: "Who did you think you are? Did you think you'd actually be able to make a difference? Well, you were wrong. Completely and utterly wrong."
• Honorary Uncle: Pey'j. He's technically Jade's godfather, but if you dare suggest that they're anything less than real family, you're liable to get pounded.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Double H is about a head and half taller and three times as wide as Jade. Heck—most non-child male NPCs dwarf her. Of course, her and Pey'j invert this trope—she's a head and a half taller than him, although much skinnier...
• Human Resources: The DomZ use the Hillyans as a power source.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: A literal one, the S.A.C.(Synthetic-Atomic-Compressor) device on Jade's hip stores physical objects as energy patterns for later retrieval.
• Idle Animation: Jade places her hands on her lower back and thrusts her chest out, stretching. And that's pretty much the only bit of Fanservice you get. Jade's partners have them, as well; there are a couple different ones for each character.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: The Alpha Sections soldiers in both chase scenes. Even their leader isn't immune to it! It's an Acceptable Break from Reality, though; if they kept their usual accuracy, those sequences would be downright impossible to beat.
• Improvised Weapon: Although Pey'j's wrench is ostensibly intended to be used for fixing machinery and cutting wires, it makes a handy bludgeon.
• Inconveniently-Placed Conveyor Belt: One Alpha Section compound is full of them. With laser fences that serve no other purpose than to keep you off.
• Insurmountable Waist-High Fence: You can't climb or jump over a box that's waist high. But you can leap over the waist-high laser beams next to it.
• Interface Screw: The DomZ Priest.
• Intrepid Reporter: Jade, of course. She has her own agency and ends up right in the thick of the biggest conspiracy in Hyllian history.
• In-Universe Game Clock: Days do pass, but they're mostly atmospheric. A few animals for the Collection Sidequest do pop up only at certain times of day, though.
• Invisible Wall: Justified. The field of play is bounded by sentinel spires that shoot oddly harmless bursts of energy to turn Jade back if she attempts to "leave territorial waters." It fits well with the general theme of a government that doesn't trust and can't be trusted.
• I Owe You My Life: Double H is extremely grateful to Jade for saving his life.
• Ironic Nickname: "Peepers," the blind man who fronts for IRIS. (Well, ambiguously blind, anyway. He always wears dark glasses, his gaze is unfocused, and he identifies Jade by smell, but he somehow knows when she approaches, doesn't have a cane, and somehow manages to "see" a picture put up on a screen.)
• It's Quiet… Too Quiet: Double H says "It's too quiet around here. Somebody's watching us," when he and Jade first enter the external corridor to the Cloister on the moon.
• James Bondage: Both Pey'j and Double H get their time in the, uh, cage.
• Justified Criminal: One of the pearls (which is hardly necessary to complete the game) is located inside an apartment. Covertly stealing the room code and the pearl within causes Jade to comment that she has more need of it than its previous owner.
• Kent Brockman News: Fehn Digler's news program at the beginning of the game.
  • Final broadcast from "The Hillyan Word", mouthpiece for the Alpha Section. "The truth has finally been revealed by our trustworthy colleagues from the IRIS Network. The Hilllyan People have joined forces to drive the Alpha Sections out of Hillys. Once again, the honorable journalistic profession was able to show that it had a preponderant role in history."
• Lantern Jaw of Justice: Double H has one. A briefly visible, Dummied Out early character model for him actually suggests that it used to be bigger, and Hahn had one as well.
• La Résistance: The IRIS Network is dedicated to stopping the Alpha Sections and taking back control of the planet.
• Large Ham: Pey'j (no pun intended) and Double H. Plus the announcer at the races. And General Kehck in his public announcements.
• Leitmotif: Guttural chants for the DomZ.
• Life Energy: The DomZ suck you dry of this stuff.
• Light and Mirrors Puzzle: Near the end of the game.
• Lighthouse Point: Where the orphans are taken care of. It's a non-creepy variant.
• Lions and Tigers and Humans... Oh, My!: On Hillys, humans and anthropomorphic animals like pigs, cats, sharks, and rhinos live alongside regular animals like dogs. While Hillys has its own animal life, none of them have anthro counterparts. It's revealed in the prequel that these anthros are actually called "hybrids" and were genetically engineered by humans from Old Earth to colonize the stars.
• Literary Allusion Title: Sort of a Literary Allusion Non-Indicative Name, though. Executive Meddling caused the title; it was originally Between Good and Evil.
• Living MacGuffin: Also, possibly, Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can, but it's unclear.
• Lonely Piano Piece: The piece "Enfantes Disparus," that plays when you return to the destroyed lighthouse.
• A Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far, Far Away...: While Hillys has anthropomorphic beings based off of Earth animals along with humans and is part of a larger solar system, there's no mention of Earth anywhere.... but then, the prequel game confirms that Earth exists, or rather did.
• Mama Bear: Just because they're not Jade's biological children doesn't mean you should mess with them. You will get your alien behind handed to you in a plastic bag.
• Martial Arts Staff: Jade's choice, as a martial arts master.
• Meaningful Echo: Double H has a tendency to rattle off Carlson & Peeters-isms at random, so none of them seem incredibly important, at first. However, when he saves Jade from plummeting to her doom, he turns one of them from a generic "fauxtivational statement of team solidarity" to a genuine admission of his care and trust for her.
  • "D! B! U! T! T! Don't break up the team!"
• Meaningful Name:
  • Jade (the stone) symbolizes immortality and resurrection. Jade (the girl) can bring people back to life.
  • Jade's alias "Shauni" is an in-universe example. It's the name with which the DomZ refer to their deity.
• Mega-Microbes: A good number of animals that can be photographed are gigantic one-celled organisms, especially in the Ancient Mine.
• Mini-Game:
  • Francis' Pallet Game in the Akuda Bar.
  • Issam's Pearl Game, which is your reward for finding all the pearls in Hillys.
• Mission Briefing: The IRIS network is fond of these before missions.
• Mission Control: The IRIS network.
• Mood Whiplash: Silly setting plus serious plot—and Tear Jerker scenes combined with outright slapstick—equals one very confused, but at least entertained, audience.
• Mook Chivalry: Crochax will always attack one at a time, even when they outnumber you five to one. Averted with many other enemies, though, such as the Alpha Sections soldiers.
• Mook Maker: Several areas include devices that continuously vend robot enemies on demand. This is meant to help you disable certain barriers by turning them into projectiles.
• Mr. Exposition: Hahn.
• Mysterious Waif: Yoa. She has no plot significance that we know of—yet—but she's so strange it's hard not to wonder. Plus, she is either a spy or prophetic.
  • Yoa has a strong physical resemblance to Yorda in ICO, and even has speaks an unknown language like Yorda. Possibly a Shout-Out.
• Narrative Filigree: One of the things the game was initially praised for was for the way its setting actually felt like a world, with little details like advertisements, Jade's friendship with seemingly random NPCs, and all the animals.
• No Hero Discount: In addition to the normal "making you pay for things even as the world is ending" deal, the game starts off with the energy field that protects you from the aliens failing—because you forgot to pay your power bill.
• No Indoor Voice: Pey'j. Being on a stealth mission won't stop him from yelling "I'M COMIN', JAAAADDDEEEE!"
• Non Sequitur, *Thud*: "They...shoes...the..." *whump*
• No One Gets Left Behind: As dictated by "Carlson and Peeters!"
• Oh, Crap!: Probably how Jade and Pey'j feel when they realize how huge and terrifying the Pterolimax is.
• Older Sidekick: And two of them, to boot: Pey'j and Double H.
• Ominous Latin Chanting: The song "Dancing With DomZ", the final boss theme, "Sins of the Fathers," and many other themes involving the DomZ.
• One-Steve Limit: A rare aversion: Both the orphan Fehn and the reporter Fehn Digler have the same name.
• Orphanage of Love: Jade's Lighthouse Shelter.
• The Password Is Always "Swordfish": Averted hard, as the passcodes for various locks in the game are randomly generated for each playthrough, and while they always follow the pattern "Letter-Digit-Letter-Digit", this leaves 67,600 possible combinations (26 x 10 x 26 x 10).
• Permanently Missable Content:
  • Averted with the DomZ serpent Recurring Boss. Even if you beat all of them without ever taking a photograph, you can find the skeletal remains of one in a cave that you can photograph instead. Likewise, the Pterolimax doesn't die after being defeated, and it is possible to go back into the mine and photograph it bouncing around at any later point. The DomZ sarcophagus is a different matter; don't get a picture while fighting them in the Slaughterhouse? Well, you'll have to wait till the final battle to get one, and by then you'll have more pressing concerns.
  • One animal that does count as permanently missable is the Space Whale that's found on route to the final area of the game. Its in a block of ice and you need to shoot at it to free it. Since its a one way trip, you won't get the chance to photograph it again.
• Perma-Stubble: Double H has a case of this that doesn't get any better or worse after you rescue him.
• Photo Montage: The ending credits.
• Pickup Hierarchy:
  • Primary: Pearls
  • Secondary: PA-1's/the vehicle equivalent, Animal Photos
  • Tertiary: Materia Crystals (money)
• Planetville: Almost the entire story takes place in what is essentially one population center. Possibly justified, as there doesn't appear to be anything but water outside of town and the Governor of the planet lives there herself.
• Planet Looters: The DomZ, who take away a very valuable resource: the life force of living beings.

• Plot Coupon:
  • The pearls, used to purchase equipment for your vehicles in order to gain access to other areas of the world.
  • Also the photographs during missions and the first few animal photos get you a new zoom for your camera that you'd be pretty helpless without.
• Plucky Comic Relief: Pey'j is comic relief and he knows it; he supplies plenty of jokes, is the butt of a few, and always keeps his chin up. He's even a bit of a Boisterous Bruiser at times. Double H comes off as comic relief due to his weird mannerisms, though it's suggested that he's actually quite self-aware.
• Plucky Girl: Jade isn't afraid to get into danger to discover the truth and is rarely discourage.
• Poirot Speak: Secundo, again. What's weird is that it's never established whether the thing is supposed to be French, Spanish, or Italian. It actually uses idioms from all three languages. (And his grammar is terrible.)
• Powered Armor: The Alpha Sections wear massive suits of powered armor. The regular Hillyan army does too—while it doesn't look special, it is laser-proof, and it does provide some kind of strength augmentation.
• Projected Man: Secundo, the Artificial Intelligence assistant in Jade's PAC, is mainly shown via hologram.
• Propaganda Machine: These are found everywhere in town, delivering the word of the Alpha Sections and denouncing the IRIS network.
• Punctuation Shaker: Obviously with Pey'j; more subtly with a minor character named Yoa who speaks in apostrophe-laden babble. The game's original story also featured a Last Episode, New Character named Toy'l.
• The Quisling: Fehn Digler. The instant you defeat The Dragon, he even puts out a news report sucking up to the IRIS Network!
• Recurring Riff: Two of them. The first, "Redemption," is the game's theme and appears in various places—most notably, as part of the basic lighthouse music and finally in full in the last cutscene. It's the "high point" riff. The second is the music that appears in numerous battle scenes, and even in the Lonely Piano Piece. It's the "low point" riff.
• Ring Menu: S.A.C, which combines Hyperspace Arsenal and the pause menu, arranges items in a circular pattern with the cursor rotating through them. The keypads for unlocking doors is also arranged in a spiral.
• Rodents of Unusual Size: Rattus giganteus and their relatives, Rattus albus.
• Roof Hopping: The very, very cool rooftop chase scene, where the leader of the Alpha Sections, General Kehck, chases Jade himself before she makes her getaway.
• Save Point: Any of the various MDisk Decoders is this.
• Scenery Porn: The various settings of Hillys give way to this. The lively city, all of the boats in the water, a sky with individual constellations, the various nature settings, all beautifully rendered. And it continues when you get into space!
• Schizo Tech: The game's setting is... eclectic, to say the least, with elements from past, present, and future. There's a still-functioning lighthouse, most buildings are made from stone, pictures are stored on film, travel is commonly done by boat or hovercraft, the lighthouse doubles as a shield projector, and the flying cars resemble modern-day cars without wheels.
• Screaming Warrior:
  • Double. H. "ATTTAAAAAAAAACK!"
  • And Pey'j. "CHILI CON CARNEEEEEEEEEEEE!!"
• Shapeshifter Guilt Trip: Pulled in the Final Boss in order to convince Jade to give in.
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: Gender-flipped, but otherwise played straight:
  Fehn: [overlooking Double H] So, I see you're bringing home canned food now?
  Jade: I swear, he's not like the others!
• Shockwave Stomp: This is the first part of the team attack—your partner creates a shockwave, sending all ground-bound enemies into the air. (The second half involves you attacking them, which allows you to throw them into the wall/an arc of electricity/another enemy/a bridge that needs knocked down/materia crystals.)
• Shorter Means Smarter: Pey'j is about three and a half feet tall. He's also the smartest person on the planet, probably.
• Shout-Out: There's a pretty obscure reference to the creator's most well known creation, Rayman.^note In a fairly out of the way hidden area in the Factory dungeon, you can find a cow skeleton. If you examine the skeleton, you can find a small bug sticking on to it. The bug is Aedes Raymanis, or Rayman mosquito. Fittingly enough, the mosquito is Bzzit, the first boss from the original Rayman and one of Rayman's friends. There's even a fairly well-hidden reference to Tonic Trouble, an even more obscure game by the same creator.^note The lead character of that game, Ed, advertises K-Starkos, a health item.
  • The official name for the two-legged factory boss appears to be Metal Gear DomZ, if the soundtrack is anything to go by. This is quite fitting considering you fight it after a long stealth section.
  • According to Michel Ancel, the long black car that appears in the first mission is a reference to Full Throttle.
• Smooch of Victory: Double H tries this on Jade when you beat the final race. Jade's reaction is mixed, at best. Since we don't get to see the actual thing itself, interpret the reaction however you will.
• So Long, and Thanks for All the Gear: Averted when Pey'j gets captured; any PA1s you've given him will be dropped nearby for you to retrieve.
• Soprano and Gravel: Dancing With DomZ, the DomZ Leitmotif. One half is sung in a mostly monotone female voice (though some parts get downright operatic,) the other half is chanted in a deep, snarling Voice of the Legion.
• Space Base: The location of the Alpha sections' primary base is on the moon.
• Space Marine: Double H, by-the-book member of the Hillyan Army.
  • The Alpha Sections count, as an evil counterpart.
• Space Whale: Megaptera Anaerobia, or "whale that doesn't need oxygen."
• Stealth-Based Game: Any area with Alpha Section soldiers will lock down automatically if they spot you. Only by killing them all or sneaking past can you progress. Combat against the Alpha Sections is possible most of the time, but difficult because their shields block your attacks and only drop when they swing their hammer, which has a fair bit of reach. Some areas render it difficult or outright impossible by adding insta-kill floating laser cannons that zap you if the guards see you in their field of fire and guards which cannot be covertly killed. One saving grace is that a guard with a ruptured air tank can't see you, which can be exploited to covertly assassinate them if they're isolated.
• Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: Although not actually a ghost, Yoa has the appearance of such, and apparently the ability to predict the future.
• Super Window Jump: Pey'j is introduced diving from one of the lighthouse windows and onto the eye creature that has grabbed Jade.
• Surrogate Soliloquy: Jade, to Woof after the raid on the lighthouse, sadly ranting about how Woof, and by extension herself, couldn't help save the kids.
• The Stinger: After the credits roll, it looks like things might have gotten back to normal...but there's something REALLY wrong with Pey'j's hand....
• Take My Hand!: Jade is saved from a nasty fall by Double H reaching out for her hand.

• Timed Mission: Saving Double H from the DomZ disease and getting out of the exploding moon base.
• The World Is Just Awesome: After leaving the atmosphere in the Beluga for the first time, Jade momentarily forgets the solemnity of her mission in order to have a moment of pure Squee:
  Jade: Algenib? The Omega Dipper? We—we're surrounded by stars, Double H...
• Tomato in the Mirror: Jade, who turns out to have been Shauni this whole time.
• Throw the Mook at Them: Early on in the Final Boss Battle, you can launch the mooks that are disguised as Pey'j at the boss to damage him.
• Top-Heavy Guy: Double H.
• Treasure Is Bigger in Fiction: There are eighty-eight pearls in the game, each of which is roughly the size of Jade's head.
• True Companions: Just before the meeting the final boss, Jade invokes this near literally with Double H and Pey'j (the music helps).
  Jade: Thanks for everything...My companions.
• 24-Hour Armor: Double H never goes anywhere without his armor. This is apparently Hand Waved somewhere in the Manual, saying that wearing armor makes him feel manly and empowered.
• Unexplained Recovery: Pey'j. He does have a reason for coming back, though.
• Uniformity Exception: Double H was a member of the Hylian Army, and still wears his armour despite his fellows being subservient to the villains.
• Used Future: Hillys isn't exactly opulent or shiny. The general aesthetic wouldn't look out of place from Star Wars, especially the original trilogy.
• Use Your Head: Double H, though he uses a forcefield when doing so.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: Ready to face the final boss, well, time for a 3D battle in space!
• Unintentionally Unwinnable: This game is notoriously prone to game-breaking bugs that will end your progress if you save after encountering them.
  • The most common is the dreaded "lost partner" glitch, where Jade's NPC ally will either fail to spawn where they need to, or become incapable of doing a certain action that's required for you to continue. In particular, during The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, if you attempt to backtrack right after releasing Pey'j from his crystalline prison but before spying on the Big Bad's meeting with his Dragon and taking a picture of them, you are guaranteed to get stuck. Definitely make a note of backing up your save data before you fly the Beluga to the moon.
  • One area has an enemy that drops a necessary key when defeated. However, a bug occasionally causes the key to spawn in the wrong place, making it unreachable. Worse is that the spot where this happens is right next to a save spot. A player unaware that they're supposed to be picking up a key might save after the fight and find themselves stuck.
  • If you don't take Pey'j's Boots from a Locker, then you can't go back and get them later when you need the randomly generated code to get the spaceship you need to finish the game.
• Video Game Flight: The Beluga lets you take to the skies—though you'll still need the dinky Hovercraft to actually get into places.
• Virtual Sidekick: Secundo, an AI who runs Jade's online accounts and digitizes items for later use. He also hacks Alpha Section's comm satellite in the climax.
• Voice Clip Song: In an interview, the game's composer, Christophe Heral, said that a significant portion of fan favorite track "Propaganda" was created by remixing portions of a telephone conversation between himself and a Bulgarian woman. In the original version, dialogue from the game production team was included, but got cut. (The Bulgarian phone conversation remix is still there.)
• Voice of the Legion: The DomZ Priest speaks like this.
• Voice with an Internet Connection: Meï
• We Need to Get Proof: Jade's a professional photographer, what did you expect?
• Whack-a-Monster: The first boss, which bears more than a passing resemblance to the Volvagia fight from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
• What a Piece of Junk: Mr. Hovercraft's more resilient than it looks.
• What the Hell, Player?:
  • Pey'j and Double H get quite irritated if you hit them. "RESPECT THE HOME TEAM!"
  • If you keep all the health-increasing PA-1's to yourself, your ally will complain.
    Pey'j: You overestimate me, Jade. If you don't give me some of those PA-1's, I'll be a burden to ya.
• You Are Too Late:
  • No matter how fast Jade goes through the Factory, she will be too late to rescue Pey'j from being loaded onto a shuttle and flown to the Slaughterhouses.
  • And once Jade reaches the Slaughterhouses, Pey'j has already been loaded onto a freight cruiser and taken to the moon.
• You Have Failed Me: When you reach the end of the Factory area, you overhear the Alpha Sections chief telling his DomZ boss that the intruders have been captured. As they both notice Jade, the Alpha offers to take care of her himself, but the DomZ kills him.

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