Before I Go Review (PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Switch, & PC)

It’s easy enough for indie games to slip under your radar, which is unfortunate given how special some of them are. While solo developers initially have a humble start, they might go on to impact the gaming industry in remarkable ways. Before I Go is among the games that will be striking right from the start. 

Only a few minutes in, and you’re pulled into a fantasy universe that delicately balances life and death. All of it without saying anything at all. It shows, rather than tells. And marries that with a most smooth, responsive, and such a joy of a precision platformer you’d want to speedrun through. 

Do tag along, while I break down all that’s in store in our Before I Go review.

At Death’s Door

Even though Before I Go technically has no story, it lacks any dialogue or cutscenes, the environment does a fantastic job of setting the scene. It pulls you into a world of despair and death, where only one survivor lives to tell the tale of what happened here. The survivor is a young alien boy whose body illuminates the aura around him in bright light. It’s representative of his innocence that makes him immune to the crumbling darkness around him.

Throughout your journey across this dark world, you come across a parasitic plague. These are the enemies you try to evade and fight. From the smaller foes to the bigger bosses, they take on a parasitic form that’s as damning as it is alluring. The entire design of Before I Go, in fact, is impressive, whether it’s the creatures you run into, attached to surfaces and crawling about, or the world itself. There’s a fantastic stark difference between the light in your character and the darkness around him that feels almost like it’s enshrouding and suffocating you. 

A contrast between life illuminating from inside you and the death that surrounds you and feels almost inevitable. Yet, you keep pushing through the plague, eliminating threats to your life both literally and figuratively. As the only survivor of this world, your death carries a heavier impact on the future that feels paramount to sustain. A lot of the heavy themes in Before I Go’s experience and journey feel imaginative. It lets you come up with your own understanding of this world, experiencing it from your own unique point of view, and that, to me, is absolutely remarkable.

Way Forward

So, how then do you carve a path forward? Well, you’re lucky enough to enjoy the smoothest, most responsive controls for an indie game. The performance, too, is pitch perfect, with excellent polish and no frame rate drops at all. It’s a joy to control the alien body, moving fluidly without any floatiness. He does exactly what you want him to, smoothly and speedily. Your jumps are precise, as they need to be, given the demanding precision platforms you’ll be navigating. It’s an exercise in patience to learn the patterns of obstacles in your path, and how best to navigate your way around them. 

Here’s where Before I Go shows its true strength, where its platforming proves to be a competent masterpiece. You plan your steps. Rather than react, you take time to solve the puzzle of how long to wait, how far to move, and where exactly to land so you avoid the damaging lasers and other obstacles on your path. You’ll face a steep learning curve, even for veterans, thanks to the strict and precise platforming sections, some of which will surely take multiple tries. 

Movement also syncs with combat, where you move to evade attacks and fire to take down foes. You have to constantly be on the move, whether it’s jumping up or down, and shooting nonstop shots that take down foes. Ammo is pretty generous, so no need to worry about running out. Not to mention the lack of any cooldown. So, you can fire away without any worry about slowing down. Bosses, of course, take more patience to learn their attack patterns, dodge their attacks, and fire at the perfect times. Some have quite a beefy health bar and will take everything to finally take down. 

Satisfaction Guaranteed

But when you finally do, man, does it feel damn satisfying. Even the bosses that start to feel frustrating to fight, you still find yourself pushing. Even when it takes multiple tries, the movement and combat are so fluid that it falls solely on learning the attack patterns, and precisely and timely making your move. That’s the joy of precision platformers, in the end. No matter how frustrating it gets to repeat certain sections, the motivation to want to finally get it right sticks with you, and it feels all the more worthwhile to have persisted.

It’s important to stress that Before I Go doesn’t at all feel unfair. Sure, it can have a steep difficulty curve, needing to sync your movement and combat to the beat of Before I Go’s drum. It takes a minute to click. And even then, you still need to pay attention to the obstacles and attack patterns on your path. You can’t just jump without thought or strategy, adding depth to an already competent, precise platformer.  

You do backtrack your way to previously visited areas due to the Metroidvania aspect of Before I Go. Unlocking new abilities allows you to discover secrets and alternate paths previously hidden. In the end, you enjoy a non-linear exploration of interconnected areas that give you relatively generous save and fast=travel points. You also get map markers and can easily find your way around. The contrast between the bright and dark colors makes it easy to identify collectibles and pinpoint objects of interest.

Lo-Fi Feel

Both the visuals and music have a Lo-Fi feel. It’s all deeply atmospheric and aesthetically intriguing. Given that most areas take place in an underground sort-of cave, it’s perfectly fitting that the music and aesthetic take after moody tunes. You’ll enjoy the music and maybe even want to listen to the tracks after your playthrough.

Speaking of playthrough, Before I Go is a bit on the shorter end. It’s a concise, cohesive package that should take less than ten hours to beat. You fight six bosses, but can always backtrack to explore its otherworldly design and atmosphere to the most thorough extent. For the introductory offer of $17.99, you get value for money, enjoying a Super Metroid-like experience that still stands on its own two feet. 

Super Metroid is the game that Before I Go’s solo French developer Jérôme Coppens drew inspiration from. You might find similarities to Metroidvanias like Hollow Knight and the Ori series. But ultimately deserving of praise based on its own merits of challenging precision action-platforming and otherworldly, unique atmosphere and design. 

Is it a game for you? Certainly, if you have any slight interest in a satisfying precision platforming run, and supporting an up-and-coming solo developer in the industry. Jérôme Coppens does have 20 years of experience making games, but this is his first go at developing his own game. And I must say it, very much, is a great, solid first attempt at potentially many more masterpieces to come. 

Verdict

Took five whole years for solo dev Jérôme Coppens to finally launch Before I Go. And playing through it, you can tell the passion that went into bringing the concept and ideas in the game to life. It’s inspired by games like Super Metroid, adopting a challenging action-platforming satisfying run, you’ll feel like speedrunning through just to test how quick you are to dodge attacks and survive. 

The story is interesting in its heavy themes of life versus death. Even when you know the inevitable parasitic plague will consume you, the alien boy protagonist keeps pushing. And that resilience translates to the gameplay itself, with its fair share of difficulty and a steep learning curve. 

Every move has to be considered and deliberate, with even a slight mistake costing you heavily. There’s a slight kick-back when you take damage. And that can be damning when you take consecutive hits from another nearby enemy. Before I Go pushes you to your limits, not in how fast you react to obstacles and attacks, but in how you’re able to map out the patterns. 

The window of opportunity for escape is often small and quick, culminating in a satisfying experience. And coupled with a smooth and responsive control system that thrives on excellent performance, you have yourself an indie game worth trying out.