Beyond Galaxyland Preview

 I got the chance to check out a new RPG coming out this year called Beyond Galaxyland, developed by Sam Enright and published by United Label. You might know Enright from The Greater Good released back in 2018. I’ve been trying to find a new RPG to play for ages, so let’s check out the demo and see what’s in store for this adventure.

Welcome to Galaxyland, a solar system where the DreamCore corporation has made it their location to house species around the universe to prevent their extinction… with humans being just one of them. The main character, Doug, is transported there thanks to a portal, told Earth is probably gone thanks to something called “The End”, and now wants nothing more than to get back home. Of course, nothing is ever that simple and DreamCore might not be as benevolent as they seem.

The game is a semi-open 2.5D game where you’ll be exploring space and the various planets throughout Galaxyland with various puzzles and platforming challenges to conquer on your adventure. However, Galaxyland isn’t a peaceful place and the journey will set the party against some of the galaxy’s most wanted, so let’s talk about the combat system.

The turn-based battles draw from Final Fantasy’s Active Time Battle system, with a little sprinkling of the Mario RPGs, and Pokémon. You’ll be waiting for your time gauge to fill before you can act and block attacks by timing your button presses. When it’s your turn, you can choose to attack, use an ability, execute a skill, or consume an item. There are some special features that I found interesting here. First off, abilities consume Ability Points, which is shared amongst every member and must be generated using your Turn Points either by attacking or skipping your turn.

But what about that SP meter under your party members’ HP gauge? Well, those are your Summon Points. You don’t learn spells here, this isn’t a fantasy setting after all. Instead, you’ll need to capture creatures and summon them to use their skills, with every enemy having an element they are strong or weak against. You also equip sunglasses when doing this, because why not? It’s a very involved system that rarely makes you wait for more than a few seconds and fights will require thinking to get through efficiently, which is pretty cool. For the demo, you only get one active party member: Boom Boom, Doug’s pet guinea pig who was made intelligent, as big as a large dog, and given a gun, but that was more than enough to see how much you need to strategise with every encounter.

The demo clocks in at around four hours, but that’s more than enough to excite me on what Beyond Galaxyland holds, ending on a really compelling cliffhanger that leaves me wanting… because I forgot I had side quests to turn in and I saved at a point of no return. The full release promises an epic, cinematic story, full of optional content, a huge soundtrack, minigames, New Game+, and zero random battles. So if that all sounds interesting to you, why not check it out when it’s fully out?

Beyond Galaxyland will be released sometime in 2024 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store.