Adventure Gamers - Forums

I reviewed the game for AG. I didn’t have have a problem with revisiting old locations—in fact, in my first draft I didn’t even think to mention it, it just wasn’t an issue for me. I think that’s the kind of thing where if it bothers you, your opinion of the entire game is going to be totally different than if it doesn’t.

In evaluating it and coming up with a score I tried not to let the long wait impact my assessment of the game in general. Years from now, when we look back at this game (like we do Grim Fandango now), the fact that it was released in two parts with a wait in between will be irrelevant. Of course that is going to color some people’s opinions of the game, but again I think whether the reviewer makes that part of the criteria for judging it is going to have a pretty big impact on their review overall.

Personally, I enjoyed Broken Age more than I did Full Throttle or Grim Fandango. I’m interested to hear what AG’s community thinks of the gameplay.

I replayed act 1 first (it’s just a few hours if you know what you’re doing) and I’ve now played a little bit of act 2. I really, really recommend that people do that; the two acts seem very strongly connected (contrary to, say, Broken Sword 5—and even there I was glad I had replayed part 1 before moving on to part 2), and I’m glad I don’t have to spend half the time racking my brain trying to remember who that person was or what that place was all about.

And it’s difficult! I thought I would have managed to complete it all in one day but I keep getting stuck there’s definitely a lot of puzzles where you think you’ve found the solution and then… you haven’t, and there’s another step to the puzzle.

Overall thoughts are pretty good. My only gripe… why did act two take a year and a half to complete? The majority of the game is old locations? lol

Karlok - 27 April 2015 09:59 PM

I also think it makes a difference whether you start with Shay or Vella. I didn’t like those empty hallways on the spaceship in the first episode and one of the first puzzles in part two has you travel them again and again. I found that boring, in spite of the new additions. For me the game got better when I switched to Shay. Same locations too, but there’s a lot of dialogue and the entire game world from part one is open from the start. 

I agree. I started as Shay, but remembering how I accidentally played his whole section in one sitting for Act 1, I made a point of switching between them a lot. I can see how starting with Vella would feel a lot quieter. I did like though that because the characters are in new surroundings, you have a reason to reacquaint yourself with those areas.

aaroncarney - 27 April 2015 07:35 PM

And it’s difficult! I thought I would have managed to complete it all in one day but I keep getting stuck there’s definitely a lot of puzzles where you think you’ve found the solution and then… you haven’t, and there’s another step to the puzzle.

I really liked this. Made me feel smart when I finally got to the end of a puzzle.

Advie - 27 April 2015 10:28 PM

Seriously I had seen better reviews, something struck me as strange that one. Sorry Fov but the whole review seemed rather like a posted gamer experience through one AG more than a real review.

I’m not sure what you mean, but let’s not derail the thread by getting into a discussion about it here. Comments about the review specifically can go in the comments section there.

Its a mixed bag for me. The problem i have it could have been so much more… I loved the art style so i really hate the fact locations are being reused, there’s no excitement to see new locations, because everything is available from the start.

While the story is ok (not great if you ask me), the way its presented and how its paced is way off. It was fine in Act 1, but here they feed you a lot of information, usually by dialogue in a very small time frame and it all comes off as a bit inconsequential. There’s this fleshed out world the game is supposed to take place in and a decent story going on around you, yet you don’t experience it, because you’re stuck in a rather confined space and you’re getting told what you’re doing is important. You don’t feel it, because there’s just too much story crammed into a rather short game, which makes it hard to sympathize with the rather charming characters. The story itself is rather bleak to be honest, not helped by the very abrupt and short ending.
Act 2 is short. Too short if you ask me. Because you’re stuck in the same locations it feels even more painfully short, getting its length from puzzle difficulty (which has been ramped up from Act 1, thankfully), but some of them had a logic behind them i couldn’t understand.

All in all i liked the game, because it has a certain charm its really hard to describe. It has a great mix of style, humor and wonder that makes it impossible for me to really dislike the game, but its painfully obvious the game needed another Act to make the story work and to break up the sometimes monotonous surroundings (especially Shay’s ship). Maybe because its Tim i expected a larger adventure game, but compared to BS5, which had tons of locations on a smaller budget, it makes it feel a bit weird.