Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse Reviews
The Serpent's Curse will no doubt provide a great nostalgia trip for those who grew up on Nico and George's adventures, and it's a well executed and entertaining enough 9 or 10 hours with all the over-the-top, Indiana Jones-esque exploits we've come to expect from the franchise.
Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse has some excellent voice acting, peerless artwork and some thoroughly enjoyable puzzles, that just about compensates for a story that occasionally feels rushed or unfocused.
For fans of the series, there's enough glittery nostalgia and polish in Broken Sword: The Serpent's Curse to gloss over the rough edges. The lighthearted banter, the brightly colored scenes, enticing mystery, and solid puzzles make this something that the original Kickstarter campaign promised: "fan service aimed directly at those aching to experience one more story involving one of adventure gaming's favorite teams."
Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse is the first of the two-part adventure, and its story cooks just right for players longing for more. The story suddenly ends just when you think there is enough evidence and theories for a possible conclusion.
Revolution is back in a big way, bringing together everything that made the original Broken Sword so joyous to play. Clever puzzles, intuitive controls, stacks of humour and an array of characters that excite and frustrate in equal measure. As for the story…well, when hitting that 50% completion mark to see in the conclusion of Chapter 1, there will be a definite hunger for more. Exhilarating, hilarious, brain teasing and providing a sensory overload, Broken Sword: The Serpent's Curse strikes all the right chords and is by far the adventure game of the year. The king is back!
Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse - Part 1 is thoughtfully constructed with low-pressure environments and the promise of a global thriller with a supernatural curse reaching back to Biblical times. It's strung me along this far, so I'm ready for part 2, but part 1 is doing very little to hint at any major payoff for this sleepy but good-natured point-and-click adventure.
Part one of Broken Sword: The Serpent's Curse sets a decent standard for the franchise. In a return to its roots it shows that a beautifully imagined 2D world can still be engaging and relevant. Its puzzles are varied without being over-strenuous, but the game's narrative makes them feel somewhat linear, which could put some gamers off. Overall though it's a worthwhile purchase, assuming the second half can maintain the same standard or even surpass it.
With the second part added, Broken Sword 5 could certainly reach beyond three stars – but, until then, it's wise to remain agnostic about Charles Cecil's latest offering.
George Stobbart and Nico Collard are sleuthing again, and it feels pretty good.
A solid return to form for a long-running series with a proud heritage -- though right now it's left frustratingly hanging and thus may provide a better experience once it's all wrapped up.
Broken Sword 5 will slowly worm itself into your affections if you expose yourself to its ever so gentle humour for long enough. Whatever the opposite of subversive is, this is it, and there's something bizarrely, stupidly funny about Stobbart's straight-delivery of an idea that his trap of putting a biscuit inside a matchbox is good enough that he might fall for it himself.
This first episode of Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse is a noble attempt at recapturing the spirit of a classic from a bygone era, that doesn't quite reach the same lofty standards as the original.