'Sins of the Fathers' was almost perfect. 'The Beast Within' reaches perfection.
However, few games 'rise to the challenge'. Few are the expansions better than the first games, few are the sequels that actually add anything to the original title. 'The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery' is one of those rare exceptions: a sequel that feels part of the first game. The same characters are there, the brilliant storyline is there, the downright amazing attention to details is there. If you have the winning formula, named Jane Jensen, you'd have to be really incompetent to let a game flunk.
The first game asked for more... You see yourself as Schattenjägger, you know the immensely charismatic Gabriel Knight will fight against darkness all across the globe, you get the idea there's something more to come to the Gabe-Grace equation. The game asked, Jensen complied.
The colorful feeling of New Orleans has been replaced by the cold ruthlessness of the Bavarian woodlands. Rittersberg - a small part in the first game - is the new scenario, along with Munich, and a handful of German castles and churches. The 'move to europe' helps the game's atmosphere. Ancient evils lurk in the woods, and while you had voodoo cultists to deal with in the first game, werewolfs now prey on the local villagers, the latest victim being the child of a nearby peasant.
Do not, for a moment, think that the introduction of such villain is done without care and elaborate background. The murdered child's parents seek the famous Schattenjägger to find and 'cleanse' the girl's killer, a huge wolf. Gabriel, reluctantly, agrees to help, leading him to a fantastic tale involving a local hunting club, Ludwig II - King of Bavaria - and a lost Richard Wagner opera, all done with all the care in the world, so that each puzzle, each dialogue, feels like a line within a huge tapestry.
The graphics are done in 'Full Motion Video', which can help or hurt you at times of finding items. It's harder to find an item (hint> duck tape, chap 6)when it ALWAYS seems part of the background. Still, the rich environments more than make up for this small glitch, the trip through the many castles in the game being almost as detailed as a real life tour. The Wagner museum, the Rittersberg castle, the town's cathedral... All so richly designed that at times you can just lay back and tour the scenery.
The characters and their real life actors are beautifully designed, this being one of the few games that no dialogue feels untrue or badly rehearsed. The casting director deserves huge applauses for this. The characters' voices are either awkwardly speaking English through thick German accents, or speaking German smoothly (as much as I can identify, not speaking German myself). The overall sound effects are just brilliant. The classical music fitting well with the 'ancient evil' storyline, complete with a beautiful opera interlude near the end of the game.
The point and click interface was simplified, the take\look\operate\open\etc mouse cursor present on the first game was replaced with a dagger-shaped one, something that helps on the few 'life-threatening' scenes (can't tell you how much I hated dying again and again for taking too long to switch to walk after the using the snake rod in the first game).
You can truly find few enough flaws within 'The Beast Within'. So little, in fact, that you can't possibly take them into consideration, weighting up all the positives. It's a remarkably pleasing gaming experience, so much that to this day it remains unchallenged.
The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery is quite simply the best Adventure game out there.