Broken Age: Act 1 Reviews
Joking aside, there's a valuable comparison to be made between Broken Age and Broken Sword: The Serpent's Curse. Both are throwbacks to the golden age of point and click adventures made by creators who helped define that era.
The point and click renascence has arrived
I haven't felt this surge of nostalgia and excitement about a game in a long time, and I truly think Broken Age will be looked back fondly as one of the greats. That being said, the first Act is only a few short hours and ended on a nail-biting cliffhanger with no word on how long we'll be waiting for the rest of the game. In some ways I feel cheated, but in the end it's the heart of the game that matters - and that certainly isn't broken.
Broken Age reminds me why I fell in love with adventure games in the first place.
Adjust your Grim Fandango-fueled expectations and you'll delight in Broken Age: Act One's brief glimmers of story and puzzle genius.
Broken Age's first act does just about enough to stand alone, though it really wasn't supposed to be this way, and that's clearly evident in a game that's slow to start and ends just as it hits its stride. However, gorgeous visuals, cracking performances, and a wonderfully-written script that manages to perfectly blend the serious and the surreal make Broken Age worth a look at this early stage. But we won't be putting a score on it until the whole thing is in our hands.
In terms of making people want to play because it looks beautiful and strange, rather than because it's an adventure game. Unfortunately the latter creates huge expectations, an albatross they hung around their own neck.
The completed Broken Age could well be an excellent game, and I'll be back when it's finished to review it in its entirety. But the better the game turns out to be, the more of a disservice it is to play the first act now. To play it now is to be a part of a process. To play it later is to, well, play it.
This is only Act 1, of course, as an agonising cliffhanger reminds us, and as such this can only be regarded as a very promising start. Whether or not the concluding part offers the increased breadth and complexity many will be clamouring for as the credits roll is unclear. But it's hard to see anyone reaching the middle point of Vella and Shay's story and not wanting to stay tuned to see where they end up.
