Broken Age: Act 1 Reviews

Broken Age: Act 1 is ranked in the 89th percentile of games scored on OpenCritic.
7 / 10.0
Jan 21, 2014

Beautiful art style, well rounded characters, familiar humour, and heart. At first glance, Broken Age is a visually stunning, polished homage to the adventure games of the past. But it's over all too quickly, without enough challenges to satisfy, or enough innovations to drive the genre forward.

Read full review

7 / 10.0
Jan 21, 2014

Broken Age does a fine job of creating an outlandish world populated by interesting characters, but is let-down somewhat by its core gameplay. The style and story are both very strong and will draw you into the game; sadly however, adventure games are generally concerned with puzzle solving, and the puzzles found in Broken Age just don't test your little grey cells as much as one would like. They are logical and integrated into the game very well, but there is very little challenge to them. Hopefully, this is down to the game looking to get progressively harder as it goes on and Act 2 will be more challenging. As it is, Act 1 feels a little light.

Read full review

7 / 10
Jan 14, 2014

The opening act for Broken Age establishes a wonderfully vibrant world with a surprisingly somber tone. Hopefully, it will all pay off in the second act.

Read full review

7 / 10
Jan 23, 2014

Clever, funny, and thought-provoking, but even without the weight of expectations this is a surprisingly insubstantial and ephemeral experience.

Read full review

7 / 10
Jan 15, 2014

Disappointment? Underwhelming? Those criticisms are far too harsh for a game that is undeniably delightful to play, but they carry a sting of truth. Pleasant but undemanding, gorgeous but lacking in depth - fans will be forgiven for expecting something a little more chewy, a little more experimental, from a developer who made his name by turning adventure games upside down. Here's hoping Act 2 builds some gameplay muscle to go with the supermodel looks.

Read full review

7.5 / 10.0
Jan 27, 2014

A fun game with an endearing art-style, flawless voice cast and great story. Suffers from a severe lack of choices, and currently no replay value at all.

Read full review

77 / 100
Jan 21, 2014

Broken Age succeeds, however, in being exactly what it sets out to be: a tightly woven, succinct, pleasantly told fairy tale, full of enough brain prodding to begin it all over again. A huge endgame twist both satisfies and questions the full extent of the story, accomplishing the challenging task of leaving the player both fulfilled and wanting more. If this is what the Kickstarter revolution will yield—tightly authored works with immaculate aesthetics—then we're ready for much more.

Read full review

Adam Riley
Top Critic
8 / 10
Jan 31, 2014

Act 2 simply cannot come soon enough! Oh wait, that should be the final line, right? Broken Age has two parts to it, one moderately intriguing and short-lived, and another that really harks back to the classic days of point-and-click adventuring and goes on just long enough to draw players deep into the tale, leaving the action at a very impressive conclusion. Can it be said now? Yes, Act 2 simply cannot come soon enough! In the meantime, though, do not miss out on the highly polished adventure!

Read full review

Feb 25, 2014

The scenes you explore and characters you discover will keep you delighted. 'Broken Age' is charismatic, colorful and, above all, decidedly unique. Double Fine is unafraid to break with the current trends that lean away from this kind of tale and this kind of game. I can't say anybody who hates point-and-click adventures will suddenly find joy in the kind of puzzles requiring your attention, but that's really not the point anyway. Vella and Shay are well-designed characters looking for their own answers in well-written worlds. It's their answers, and not the puzzles', which propel the player forward.

Read full review

4 / 5.0
Jan 28, 2014

Despite its lack of challenge, Broken Age is absolutely worth playing in order to explore its world, meet its wonderful characters and become hooked by the mystery presented by its story. I might even suggest playing Part 1 now and being forced to wait for the second half of the game to come out in the spring. It gives us time to ponder the mystery, come up with theories, discuss them with fellow fans, and get excited over the kind of mystery that's rare in this day of Let's Plays and Internet FAQs. It may not be the perfect game, but Broken Age is something special that any gamer with a taste for the fantastic won't want to miss.

Read full review

8 / 10.0
Jan 17, 2014

Broken Age can't quite overcome the problem that's plagued the adventure genre for decades: obscure puzzle solutions that force players to use every item in their inventory in as many ways as they can think of.

Read full review

8 / 10.0
Jan 21, 2014

Apart from the ending of course, which I'm thinking about a lot. Broken Age: Act 1 is a wonderful piece of work, well worth the time and money put into it, an excellent piece of videogame fiction, but it just needs some work being an actual videogame. Let's hope Act 2 maintains the quality but ups the difficulty.

Read full review

Jan 21, 2014

Still, a big part of me wishes I'd waited for Act II and played Broken Age in its uninterrupted entirety. It's smart to always leave the audience wanting more, but when a book is snapped shut in the middle of a story, there's a danger of the reader getting his fingers pinched. And mine, frankly, feel a little bit sore.

Read full review

Jan 17, 2014

Broken Age: Act 1 may be overly traditional, but it possesses plenty of artistry and charm that players will love.

Read full review

8 / 10
Jan 30, 2014

Broken Age is a unique game. It's made directly for and on the demand of a very specific audience, rather than for any publisher. In some ways it's surprising that - despite being traditional - it doesn't feel like a Lucasarts game. That's likely what backers wanted, and whilst those elements are there, this is a Double Fine game to the final letter. It's gentle, loving, and fun; not a Grim Fandango rehash, but the gaming equivalent of a petting a kitten. If your eyes are not welling up with sheer joy at such a thought, then perhaps Broken Age is not for you. For everyone else, it's probably already in your Steam library anyway.

Read full review

Twinfinite
Twinfinite Staff
Top Critic
4 / 5.0
Jan 15, 2014

If you originally donated to the Kickstarter to fund it, feel safe in knowing that your money went towards making a beautiful game that is truly a product of love.

Read full review

Jan 16, 2014

If the first act truly is half of the game, there is some reasonable concern that Act 2 might need to be considerably longer to resolve everything without resorting to an overly-expository info dump.

Read full review

8 / 10
Jan 16, 2014

Whimsical, witty, and beautiful: this is a sumptuous adventure with all of Double Fine's usual care and attention lovingly lavished throughout.

Read full review

Jan 14, 2014

Broken Age: Act 1 is all about the slow build. Slow isn't boring, however, and a wonderful job is done of carefully constructing the pace while keeping the audience amused. It's a strong start that concludes in a way that makes me desperate for more.

Read full review

Jan 27, 2014

There will be some who perceive the game's specific design decisions as flaws, and they aren't necessarily wrong, but they were likely never going to enjoy Broken Age anyways. Broken Age falls into a very specific genre, one that rarely gets much attention anymore, and makes a strong case for why it should.

Read full review