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Broken Age Part 1 Review for PC

Broken Age Part 1 Review for PC

Bursting With Personality

Here we have it—two years after it kicked off the crowdfunding trend with a massively unexpected level of success, the first part of Double Fine’s adventure game Broken Age is releasing to the public. Expectations for the game may be impossibly high, especially amongst some Kickstarter backers, but I aim to take it for what it is: a small, charming adventure game made on a shoestring budget for a commercial game of its quality.

Broken Age stars two young people on parallel coming-of-age journeys. Vella is slated to be sacrificed to a gigantic beast in a ceremonial Maiden’s Feast, and can’t understand why her village doesn’t fight the monster instead of appeasing it. Uninterested in becoming a monster’s meal, Vella sets out to find a way to put it down. Shay is a teenager who has been raised alone on a spaceship with an overprotective computer for a mother. He’s outgrown the ship’s childish amusements and seeks to escape its coddling so he can become an actual hero. Both characters are likeable and easy to relate to without having over-the-top personalities (that’s saved for the rest of the cast). The player can switch between their stories at any time, but must complete both to see the ending.

The unnamed world where the adventure takes place is beautifully imaginative, both visually and conceptually. While Vella visits fantastical villages full of colorful inhabitants, Shay’s spaceship employs a knitting-based technology to navigate and to create “friends” for the boy. It’s a joy to explore this world and revel in its small details, from the goofy gulls of Skyloft to spaceship teleporters who say, “Whee!”

Broken Age Part 1 Screenshot

There’s a darker underpinning to the story, however, as Vella and Shay both rebel against authority and do some not-so-nice things in the name of their quest. It may be a coming-of-age story, but it’s one that carries some implicit criticism of how we raise our kids, from the overly coddled Shay to Vella and her young female counterparts, taught to fall over each other in competition to give up autonomy over their bodies and futures. These themes aren’t presented in a preachy or moralizing way, but merely as a layer of complexity that gives real meat to the adventure story. That story has its own mysteries, and Part 1 ends with a delicious twist that raises as many questions as it answers.

Broken Age Part 1 Screenshot

As can be expected from an adventure game penned by Tim Schafer ( The Secret of Monkey Island, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango ), the characters in Broken Age are bursting with personality, even those who only get a few lines. Talented voice actors, including a few screen celebrities, all give fantastic turns at mic, and they’ve got a script worth voicing. The game isn’t as laugh-out-loud funny as Schafer fans might expect, but it has plenty of mischievous and silly moments. I personally like this slightly more dramatic turn, especially since the game never takes itself too seriously.

Although its presentation and story are fantastic, Broken Age lacks a bit when it comes to its puzzle-based gameplay. Interacting with the world is quite simplistic. On one hand, this makes the game easy to pick up, but on the other, it limits the ways in which the creators are able to challenge players. That lack of challenge is compounded by the simplified inventory system, which is set up so that the player only has a few items at a time, and items are discarded when they have been used for the necessary puzzle. Without a wealth of ways to interact with the world or combine objects, the answer to each character’s problems is usually too obvious.

Broken Age Part 1 Screenshot

It’s easy to understand why the game was set up this way—it’s meant to be a modernization of the genre that eliminates frustration, red herring items, and overly obtuse puzzles. Unfortunately, the part of the game we’re getting first goes too far in terms of streamlining the puzzles and environment. There are a few minor head-scratchers in Vella’s adventure, but in general, the puzzles can be solved near-instantly by anybody with a passing familiarity with adventure gaming. Part 2 is supposed to be more challenging, and I hope it also brings us more ways to play with the beautiful world beyond the game’s critical path.

Despite its lack of challenge, Broken Age is absolutely worth playing in order to explore its world, meet its wonderful characters and become hooked by the mystery presented by its story. I might even suggest playing Part 1 now and being forced to wait for the second half of the game to come out in the spring. It gives us time to ponder the mystery, come up with theories, discuss them with fellow fans, and get excited over the kind of mystery that’s rare in this day of Let’s Plays and Internet FAQs. It may not be the perfect game, but Broken Age is something special that any gamer with a taste for the fantastic won’t want to miss.

RATING OUT OF 5 RATING DESCRIPTION 4.5 Graphics
Vibrant and charming, the visuals present an imaginative world that begs to be explored. 3.5 Control
The controls are exceptionally simple to use—perhaps too simple for adventure game veterans. 4.5 Music / Sound FX / Voice Acting
The music and sound work well for the setting, and the voice acting is unsurprisingly superb. 3.5 Play Value
Worthy for its story and world, Broken Age could use more interactivity and more challenging puzzles in Part 2. 4.0 Overall Rating – Great
Not an average. See Rating legend below for a final score breakdown.

Review Rating Legend
0.1 – 1.9 = Avoid 2.5 – 2.9 = Average 3.5 – 3.9 = Good 4.5 – 4.9 = Must Buy
2.0 – 2.4 = Poor 3.0 – 3.4 = Fair 4.0 – 4.4 = Great 5.0 = The Best

Game Features:

  • Broken Age is a point-and-click adventure telling the stories of a young boy and girl leading parallel lives.
  • The girl has been chosen by her village to be sacrificed to a terrible monster–but she decides to fight back.
  • Meanwhile, a boy on a spaceship is living a solitary life under the care of a motherly computer, but he wants to break free to lead adventures and do good in the world.
  • Adventures ensue.

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