Broken Age

A good graphic adventure with some balancing issues and a disappointing second half in terms of narration.

Overall, Broken Age is a fine game.

Broken Age doesn’t quite reach the heights of Psychonauts or Grim Fandango, but it still manages to be a solid and fun old school adventure game. [June 2015]

Broken Age is a great adventure game with an amazing art style and funny characters.

Rather than relying on the same emotional tricks, Schafer and Double Fine opted to tell a different kind of story; like Shay and Vella, they learned from those that came before without feeling compelled to follow in their predecessors’ exact footsteps. As a result, Broken Age is a resounding success; a charming, quietly subversive, and ultimately uplifting parable about finding beauty in the broken.

Though there were plenty of puzzles with outlandish solutions that left me unimpressed by their logic, my grousing never caused me to lose sight of the fact that Broken Age’s esprit is charming enough that I could imagine returning to it again.

Taken as a whole, Broken Age is still a easy-to-recommend, extremely charming game with some lovely messages about growing up. But it isn't quite the landmark achievement in video game narrative I spent its year-long intermission hoping for.

There are two almost independent episodes living under one name. The first one is a beautiful, smart, exciting adventure game that is pure happiness, though it is short and without an ending. The second part is… Well, simply ignore it. Repeat after me: you do not need to play Part Two.

Solely thanks to its fantastic presentation and the sympathetic characters Broken Age can still warm my heart, but the great love is gone.

Broken Age: The Complete Adventure feels as a great adventure, thanks to its moving storyline, charming humor and high production value. This is a classic point-and-click- adventure with a great design and dito voice-overs. It is such a pity that halfway through the game a lot of content is re-used and puzzles make you walk a around for no reason.

Despite long stretches of anger-inducing logic in Act II, Broken Age as a whole is a poignant and clever adventure game that is worth playing through, even if it never lives up to the promise of its midpoint.

Act 2 may be longer and a little more tricky, but it is composed of mostly recycled areas and familiar characters, which is a bit of a letdown. In the end, the whole package may not be the new classic we were hoping for, but it is still a charming and highly original adventure game that is easy to recommend.

The disappointing second half lets it down, but even at best, Broken Age is far from the genre’s greats.

Sure, you’re left with the nagging sensation of unfulfilled promise, but away from the circus of its development and that (perhaps unreasonable) weight of expectation, Broken Age will, in time, be a game many players remember with genuine fondness.

As a whole, Broken Age pulls off its duality motif wonderfully. Not only are Shay and Vella's stories interesting reflections of themselves, but Part 1 and Part 2 as a whole are practically reflections of themselves, as well. They're two parts of a tale that should be experienced together as a whole, especially since the game only offers the briefest of recaps when starting Part 2.

For some reason, we believe that if Tim Schafer will launch another Kickstarter project, he’ll describe is as “from creators of Secret of Monkey Island, Full Throttle and Grim Fandango”, while Broken Age (if it’ll even get mentioned) will be placed somewhere at the end of the list. And it has nothing to do with chronological order. [June 2015, p.82]

I don’t regret contributing to this journey in the least, and frankly, I feel like the first half of Broken Age is very much worth experiencing. And that’s how I’ll rate it—as an excellent first half with a middling second half.