Lucas Arts’ point and click adventures are undoubtedly some
of the finest game you will ever have the pleasure of playing. Unfortunately,
the adventure game has (or at least had) fallen out of favour for a long time.
There’s been a slight resurgence in the genre recently with output like the
Walking Dead and other episodic games. But
Broken Age is a return the classic point and click roots of 2D graphics and
logic puzzles to solve.
We played the first part of Broken Age some time ago and it’s
testament to it that starting from scratch in the now complete version didn’t
bother us one bit. You follow the story of a young boy named Shay who is
trapped on a space ship and a young girl named Vela who is set to be sacrificed
to a big monster. You need take control of each of them as their fates become
strangely intertwined.
The first thing to say is that the interface on both the PS4
and Vita works very well so moving from mouse to controller is certainly not
the issue it used to be with games like Discworld on the PS1. You can use the
analogue sticks to move the cursor or the touch pad/screen. Buttons are used as
shortcuts and it all works very well. There are a few puzzles that require good
timing but the windows are large enough for either controller to be perfectly
up to the job.
The graphics are beautifully drawn 2D art that have a
certain charm to them. Shay’s space ship and Vela’s island are wonderfully
brought to life in a sort of illustrated kid’s fantasy story kind of way that
looks gorgeous and sets the scene wonderfully. Environments are imaginative and
unique and it’ll certainly be a change from most of the lands you’ve been
adventuring through in video game form.
The dialogue and writing is also excellent throughout the
game. Even minor characters have interesting things to say and the script is
always sharp and often both touching and funny. There are a couple of puzzles
that could do with a bit more of a pointer towards their solutions but on the
whole the voicing and dialogue do a great job.
Adventure games live and die by their puzzles and Broken Age
is a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to this. The first part of the game is
quite straight forward with small logical leaps needed to get through. You also
don’t need to switch characters to solve anything and so it acts as two separate
adventures that become interlinked as you move into act 2. It should be noted
as well that unless you start with Shay there could be some serious spoilers
going on in Vela’s story.
Once you get into the second act it all ramps up a bit. The
puzzles become tougher but are for the most part still the right side of
lunacy. We also didn’t descend into trying every object we had on everything
more than about twice throughout the game. Some kind of sign posting about
needing to change characters for certain things would also have been greatly
appreciated.
There are, however, some insane puzzles that need solving
which could have done with a lot better explanation about how they are meant to
be beaten. There are a couple of occasions that require you to rewire things
which will have you throwing controllers across the room unless you stumble
upon how to do it. This is a throwback to the past we really could have done
without.
It’s difficult to talk about the story as almost any
information will spoil the experience for players but we can say that by the
end there are a series of serious payoffs that make the adventure well worth
undertaking. There are a few big twists and turns along the way and we really
enjoyed unravelling the mystery and seeing how it all fitted together once we
had the big picture.
Overall, Broken Age is a strong return for the classic 2D
point and click genre. It’s funny and heartfelt and the story is both original and
interesting. There weren’t many moments that we found we were completely stuck
and even then we were almost always enjoying it. It’s certainly getting up
there with some of the best in the genre. Ok, so the start might be a bit easy
and the end might be a bit hard but it’s just a big ball of invention with a
dash of lunacy and there isn’t enough of that around. It’s an original title
with imagination and fantastical story telling at its heart and any adventure
fan should thoroughly enjoy it.
Overall 8/10
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