Broken Age Review by Kinglink

I like puzzle games. Monkey's island is one of my favorite games, I still will boot up old adventure games all the time.

You know what I won't boot up again? Broken Age. In Monkey's island there's a lot of fun and silly stuff the player does, In most games it's an enjoyable story, and Broken Age has a moment or two of that.

But it's a one or two note game, that tries to make a whole symphony.

The beginning of the game you get the choice between two characters, that seem unrelated. There's the girl who... seems to be immediately thrown into peril without ANY backstory, so much so that I thought I skipped a cutscene. Nope, just "hey you're going to be imperiled to start the story!" She has a mediocre world to explore.

Then there's the boy, and honestly I like the world the boy is in far more. Only thing is, that world goes on entirely too long, and the good parts of the world wanes fast. If the game stopped after the first act, it'd be a good recommendable game

But then in the second act, the game changes, and... it's not for the better in my opinion. It's got an interesting story arc there, but does nothing with it, and it seems that you have to go.... listen I try not to do this, but I need to talk about spoilers. It's a rather major spoiler, but if you want to know about the second act, it's below.



Then again the quality of a puzzle game is based on the quality of the puzzles, and the good news is most of the puzzles are simple and easy to solve. But that's also the bad news. They're too simple. Put round battery in the round battery sized hole. "Talking" usually makes things almost blatantly obvious and you have to talk to everyone at least once to get all your objects anyways.

Then there are the puzzles you don't get. If you miss a slightly puzzle, the game won't hint or help you along. You're stuck. Hopefully you know what to do (because the game won't help you if you get lost, or return to it after a couple months) but even if you know where you want to go, you better hope you know to do X and Y, because if not, you're going to stand around and have to just stare and hope it comes to you. Or go use a guide.

And yeah that will happen, 90 percent of the puzzles are "go elsewhere, get something and return to me" Where 10 percent are "you have an item that will work but we won't even hint at it." I know I'm annoyed at the easiness of the puzzles, but the esoteric puzzles don't even give you a hint if you're stuck. You just either get it or you don't.

Finally the story should be mentioned. While it's a story, it feels like it's a story written for the modern generation. Gone is the long exposition or talking. There's beautiful moments in games like Monkey Island, where Guybrush and Elaine will talk for almost 2 minutes without player interaction. In Broken Age there appears to be a rush. The game almost never spends more than 2-3 lines without expecting the player to hit a button to say something. You constantly have to choose something to say, so there's no elongated exposition.

Everything is rushed along, and quite a few parts of the game could use a little more talking such as the beginning of the game. The story never fully develops and now in hindsight I barely remember anything that was truly unique or I'd want to see again. I compare this to Monkey's Island again, where Elaine and Guybrush meeting, the three pirates, Stan the boat seller, and even the insult fighting are all amazing moments I could enjoy again and again. To me that was a better story, this well, this isn't what I was expecting when I funded the kickstarter.

It's a shame because while act one is acceptable, I can't in good conscious recommend this game to anyone. I'd recommend Monkey's Island, Grim Fandago, maybe the King's quest games, or the most games from Telltale game instead of this game. But Broken Age, it was an interesting Kickstarter, but not a very good game, sadly.

(Note I backed the game on kickstarter, I played the game on Ps4, as part of Playstation Plus. I did pay for this copy)