Broken Age: Act 1 Reviews
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.
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.
Broken Age reminds me why I fell in love with adventure games in the first place.
A great start for an adventure proud to have graduated from one of gaming's finest old schools.
Act One of Broken Age starts off strong, with an incredibly well-written storyline that props up some occasionally weak puzzle work. Let's hope Double Fine can follow through with Act Two when it arrives later this year.
With imaginative puzzles and wondrous settings, Broken Age is a delightful game for fans of adventure
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.
Adjust your Grim Fandango-fueled expectations and you'll delight in Broken Age: Act One's brief glimmers of story and puzzle genius.
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.
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.
You'll find a lot to like in Broken Age. It has a beautiful world populated by a colorful cast of characters and an alluring mystery that doesn't unfold in the way you expect it to. This is Double Fine Productions at its finest, and it's on track to finish strong with Act 2.
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.
Not the revival of the classic Lucasarts form some would hope, but a great first instalment all the same.
The Broken Age will win you over in minutes, and what it lacks in length or difficulty it makes up for in pure personality. From talking Spoons to a guru who makes people remove vowels from their names in order to attain true lighten-ness, it's a weird world, and you'll feel part of it in way we haven't seen since the lost age of adventure games.
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.
Clever, funny, and thought-provoking, but even without the weight of expectations this is a surprisingly insubstantial and ephemeral experience.
Broken Age: Act I is a two-pronged success: it's a vintage Schafer adventure with a meta layer that comments on the game's crowdfunded roots.
Indie studio's massive crowd-funding campaign results in a very enjoyable – if perhaps overly easy – point-and-click adventure game
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.
Broken Age is silky smooth, deliciously humorous, visually stunning and completely delightful.