Last year, Broken Age act one burst into the scene, captured our attention, and then stopped. It left us with a big twist, a harsh cliffhanger, and promises of the second part being released a few months later. After a few months year of waiting, the second part of Broken Age has finally been released. Here at Enemy Slime we approach episodic content by waiting until the final episode is released, and reserving judgement until we can experience the entire work as one complete piece. This why it is likely that you will not see a review of Kentucky Route Zero on the site any time soon. And so our intention is to judge Broken Age in the same fashion, not as act one or two, but as a whole work. I played Act 1 last year, but to make sure that I could get the complete picture I played the game once more from the beginning when Act 2 was released. Don’t worry, it wasn’t a sacrifice, it is a pretty good game.
Broken Age tells the story of two teenagers: Shay and Vella. Shay is trapped in a space ship, cared for by an overbearing motherly AI that cannot understand he is no longer the baby that he was a few years ago. He is stuck in an unfulfilling routine, and does not know what to do to escape the cyclical childish lifestyle. Vella, on the other hand, has been chosen to be sacrificed to a Lovecraftian nightmare known as Mog Chothra, one in a long line of Mogs, monsters that appear every 14 years to demand sacrifice. Each village offers up their finest maidens to be devoured as tribute, and in exchange they are not destroyed by Mog Chothra. Vella does not agree with this policy, and despite being given the dubious honor of being chosen a sacrifice, she feels they should fight Mog Chothtra instead of feeding him virgins.
The plot is initially about changing routine and defying conventions, but it slowly becomes about something much bigger. It is a progression rather than a departure, and I felt it works well, though I can see how some may be upset in the direction the game takes after the halfway point. The story is the most important part of adventure games. If it doesn’t grab you and make you wonder what will happen next, then the best designed puzzles won’t get you to finish the game. Broken Age’s plot kept me engaged through the entire experience. It has hilarious characters, interesting locations, and like most Tim Schafer games, a world that feels unique and fantastic but also familiar and mundane.
The game’s excellent pacing and character development makes the transition between Act 1 and Act 2 almost seamless. Players picking the game up for the first time likely wouldn’t even notice the halfway mark were it not for the game’s somewhat incongruous difficulty. It is not really a difficulty spike so much as it feels like a cliff that leads to a new plateau. The difficulty for the back half of the game remains much higher than the first, but it is at least consistent, that is until the last area, which is a gigantic puzzle that took me three hours to figure out.
In game design difficulty is not usually a problem, challenge in games can be the spice that brings the whole meal together. Having said that, there are some puzzles in Broken Age that bother me. The last puzzles require you to switch back and forth and remember combinations that you will have to use later with no indication what-so-ever that these things will need to be remembered. I eventually resorted to using Steam’s screenshot functionality to solve it. I am not sure if that was by design, but otherwise it’d be a bit tedious. It also doesn’t make much sense in terms of the narrative. Shay and Vella don’t know each other. They only met once for a few seconds at that point. How would the know how to solve each other issues from information the other one is seeing? It is a small nitpick, but one that did bother me.
The presentation of the game is fantastic all throughout. The hand painted backgrounds and assets are simply gorgeous. It is a testament to how good the game looks, that after starting the game up I thought the visuals had been upgraded from last year’s version despite the fact that they have not. Looking at pictures from last year the graphics and art direction have always been fantastic. The voice acting is also a treat. When I reviewed Grim Fandango earlier this year, I praised the voice acting and realized just how much of a role it played in making that game a classic. Broken Age’s voice acting is easily the best I have heard outside of a TellTale game. The excellent quality of the voice acting holds up through the entire production.
There has been a lot of noise around this title, and I can’t help but feel a lot of it related more to the Kickstarter that lead to its creation and the other actions that Double Fine has taken that have caused the backlash, rather than the quality of the game itself. It would be a shame to deprive oneself of a great game due to those unrelated issues. It is not perfect, but it is one of the best games I have played this year. Broken Age is a great adventure game with a wonderful story that holds up through multiple playthroughs. It is not the instant classic that Grim Fandango or Day of the Tentacle were, but I feel it will find its place among Full Throttle and Psychonauts in the library of acclaimed work by Tim Schafer. I heartily recommend it to anyone that likes old school point and click adventure games, or anyone who is looking for a gorgeous game with a unique narrative. You will not find anything quite like it.
