Broken Age Reviews
The disappointing second half lets it down, but even at best, Broken Age is far from the genre's greats.
Clever, funny, and beautiful to look at, but this is a game of two halves and the second one is such a peculiar tonal shift in terms of gameplay that even the story suffers as a result.
Taken as a whole, Broken Age is still a easy-to-recommend, extremely charming game with some lovely messages about growing up. But it isn't quite the landmark achievement in video game narrative I spent its year-long intermission hoping for.
I don't regret contributing to this journey in the least, and frankly, I feel like the first half of Broken Age is very much worth experiencing. And that's how I'll rate it—as an excellent first half with a middling second half. What a shame.
Broken Age was a long time coming, but it's a story that was worth the wait for all players and not just the game's Kickstarter backers.
Broken Age doesn't do a very good job of standing on its own. It very well could end up being regarded as a classic upon its completion, it just doesn't hold much more than promise, right now.
Incredibly polished, with gorgeous visuals and terrific voice acting, only some difficult late-game puzzles stop Broken Age from being the absolute pinnacle of the genre.
It's a dreamy, gentle, melancholic game, created with tangible passion. It's utterly beautiful, and while not nearly challenging enough, it's entertaining to play.
Do you like stories? Play 'Broken Age.' Do you like solid humor, beautiful graphics, interesting characters, or old school adventure games? Play 'Broken Age.'
Despite long stretches of anger-inducing logic in Act II, Broken Age as a whole is a poignant and clever adventure game that is worth playing through, even if it never lives up to the promise of its midpoint.
Tim Schafer's warm, humanist adventure is a game of two halves, but its triumphs outweigh the flaws.
When all's said and done, Broken Age makes an excellent case for why the adventure game genre deserves to exist in this medium. Indeed, it's a wonderfully charming title that really feels like a celebration of the point-and-click format. Sure, it doesn't necessarily do anything ground breaking, but it doesn't really need to. If you're a fan of Tim Schafer's previous work, then this is unmissable.
Puzzle solutions are always a few short minutes away and long gone are the genre's nonsensical conundrums that have plagued gamers for years.
While Broken Age doesn't break much new ground in the genre, it does deliver a wonderfully enriching adventure that's buoyed by sharp writing and likeable characters.
Broken Age is a wonderful experience that I can't recommend enough. As someone who grew up on the LucasArts-style adventure games of old Double Fine has pulled through with just enough nostalgia and modern aesthetic, offering up a fresh and funny classic in an age where blockbuster games rule the roost.
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Though there were plenty of puzzles with outlandish solutions that left me unimpressed by their logic, my grousing never caused me to lose sight of the fact that "Broken Age's" esprit is charming enough that I could imagine returning to it again.
In its finished form, Broken Age is every bit the modern point-and-click classic its strong first act implied it would be. With an entertaining story and clever puzzles wrapped in a modern sensibility and impressive production values, Tim Schafer's return to the genre that made him lives up to the high standard of his earlier work.
There's not much to dislike, especially for die-hard fans of the genre. Double Fine promised a classic point-and-click title when it launched its crowd-funding campaign three long years ago, but the developer didn't just rely on nostalgia. Instead, it made a game that captures the humor of the games Tim Schafer worked on at LucasArts while creating a modern aesthetic that totally suits the story.