Broken Age Reviews
The usual point-and-click caveats are present here: some puzzles are so obvious as to feel like filler material, one or two so esoteric as to drive the player to frustration. The division of Shay and Vella's worlds can sometimes make what is actually a sizeable game feel artificially constricted, particularly in the first act. But these are minor quibbles compared to the mix of delight and unease that a playthrough of Broken Age evokes.
A beautiful, charming and often funny adventure with lovable and believable characters. The gameplay, however, can be a little repetitive, but as a whole, Broken Age is a love letter to point and click fans and an artistic triumph.
Broken Age is a shining example of the point-and click adventure genre, and is thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish. The gameplay delivers on a tried and tested recipe and while it doesn't take any risks, the rewards are in the story, visuals and voice-acting. The pastel-style imagery and playful characters are truly memorable, and the stellar voice-cast deliver a script full of laugh-out-loud moments. Another Tim Schafer classic.
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.
Broken Age is a faithful callback to the Golden Age of point-and-click adventures. While this holds in back in some respects, the game was a joy to play with fun puzzles and a captivating story.
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.
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.
Tim Schafer's warm, humanist adventure is a game of two halves, but its triumphs outweigh the flaws.
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 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.
In the end, while Broken Age does provide a lot of polish and quality, the lack of actual content makes it a huge disappointment, even more so coming from someone that has been in the industry longer than I’ve lived.
But a really, really pride-inducing 5/10
Everything about Broken Age should have been fantastic but the lack of puzzles and a lame plot that edges too heavy on the exposition turns this into a decent, but extremely disappointing package.
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.
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.
I said at the end of my act one write-up that I could see Broken Age being the game that defines Double Fine. I still think that to be true, but unfortunately, it isn't as glamorous an image as I had first imagined it to be.