Review: Broken Sword 2.5
Goutham Jayaraman
Ravencrow Game Review
#22
Broken Sword 2.5
Baphomets Fluch 2.5
– Broken Sword 2.5 (brokensword25.com)
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Genre |
Point and Click |
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Platform |
ScummVM |
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Developer |
mindFactory |
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Publisher |
mindFactory |
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Playtime |
6 hours (Estimate) |
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Date Completed |
6/6/2021 |
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Date Reviewed |
8/6/2021 |
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Overall Grade |
A- |
The broken
sword series is one of the more popular and better known point and click
adventure franchises, being made as early as 1996 and receiving multiple
remasters over the years.
Broken
Sword 2.5 on the other hand, is actually a fanmade game that is intended to
fill the gap between the 2nd and 3rd games. Painstakingly
and lovingly created by the mindFactory team and released in 2008, this little
jewel of a title manages to about perfectly capture the essence and feel of the
main series games.
And with
that generic intro paragraph out of the way,
First of
all, I was quite excited to learn of this game after just finishing Broken
Sword 2. Can’t say I was expecting all that much given that 2.5 is fanmade and
free, but honestly, the game came pretty close to feeling like part of the
series. Oh, and by the way, most likely, I’ll just post one review for the
entire series once I’m done with all of them since it doesn’t make sense to
review each game individually (they are too similar). I am doing a separate
review for this simply because its not officially part of the series and
because it is a tad weaker in design compared to the main series.
What I liked
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The
beautiful and diverse environments in this game, which did a good job of
replicating the look of the main series games
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The
fact that this is a fanmade game but still contained pretty decent full
coverage voice acting.
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The
sneaky humor of the main series games was faithfully recreated to great effect.
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Honestly,
just the fact that this game exists
What I disliked
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Story
was a bit hard to grasp at first (because of some weird turns) but made sense
in the end
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Some
puzzles are a bit unintuitive and difficult to figure out
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Gameplay 13/20 |
= Very basic point and click gameplay, with limited inventory and
confined puzzles + Felt
quite comfortable to play through though despite the fact that there was no
hint system. I guess swapping between locations was a nice change of pace from the
usual point and click design (similar to the 2nd game), even if it
did make for restricted problem solving - The interactivity was a bit chafed. George frequently says random
stuff like “Wow, what am I supposed to say” when looking at an object. |
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Game Design 12/20 |
So, in general, the entire series is quite linear in its puzzle design
in the sense that there is really a fixed set of actions you need to perform
in order to advance the plot. The issue with this is that it becomes very
easy to get stuck, and you won’t have an outlet to release any frustration
from getting stuck. Compared to the first and second game, 2.5 follows the same linear
puzzle design, providing the player with small scenes containing confined
puzzles. 2.5 also takes a cue from 2 and jumps between George and Nicole
frequently whilst 1 stuck with George throughout and kept the player at
locations for much longer. The good thing about 1 was that you at least had some sense of
nonlinearity given that you could wander between scenes most of the time even
if you didn’t have multiple problems to work on at once. The good thing about 2.5 is that the inventory remains very small
throughout the game and puzzles are never too hard to figure out….. except
the instances when they become unintuitive. One key example I can quote is
when you had to find something from a cart. Left clicking the cart (which
showed a magnifying glass icon i.e. “look”) made George comment that it was
empty. Now, because the icon was a look icon AND because of what George says,
nobody would infer that the correct action was to right click in order to
examine it further and actually find the needed object. Other than these problems, which do exist at several parts throughout
the game, the puzzle design here is mostly simple and easy enough to work
through. |
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Graphics 21/20 |
+
Honestly, the graphics were good enough to mirror the main series games. Well
done. + Not to
mention that several worldly locations are available for play, although there
isn’t much room when it comes to freeroam. |
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Audio 20/20 |
+ Good
voice acting, which is commendable for a free project. Actually matches the
intended voices fairly well. = Similarly to the main series games, the music is never really
significant. It’s not particularly needed though. |
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Story 12/20 |
So, the story is set several years after the events of the 2nd
game, and starts out with a random ominous letter provoking George to return
to Paris. Honestly, the story at first did not make much sense to me. What
with random character appearances and frequent country hopping, it was a
struggle for me to build a cohesive narrative from the information provided. However, as the game progressed, things started to become clearer. By
the last scene of the game, everything seemingly made sense and I was satisfied
enough. Although yeah, the story could have been stronger and currently, I don’t
know what link it exactly has to the 2nd game. Perhaps I’ll
understand better once I play the 3rd. |
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Lore 10/20 |
The characters in the game have been faithfully recreated and do
resemble the same lovable characters in the main series. However, with the
lack of close up portraits and clear facial expressions, they feel much less
lively than they ought to. There were several characters in the game who made little sense as
well and didn’t really do much either. It is probably because they just didn’t
get enough screen time, mentions or involvement. I’m guessing they included all
the characters as a form of fanservice, although sadly it seems to have had
an underwhelming result. |
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Value 5/0 |
+ It is
free and absolutely worth playing through, especially as it adds additional
value to an already great series and serves as a nice buffer between 2 and 3.
(although whether it actually connects the story is something I’ll have to
find out later). |
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Overall Grade 14/20 |
A- |
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Score |
76 |
Needless to
say, I do recommend playing this game. Your main reasons here are the game being
free and the game being a labor of love that deserves attention. With a bit of
polishing, the game can honestly just seamlessly camouflage itself with the
rest of the series and be a member of the club. The scenes were pretty, the
overall experience was quite relaxed and the story, while nothing too great,
was still decent enough to enjoy.
So yeah, go
ahead and download ScummVM and add this game to your library!
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