Let's be clear , Broken Sword 5 is one of the best point and click adventure games in recent years . After the last two games being 3D , Revolution Software decided to return to their roots with 2D adventure game that fans always wanted . Was it worth it .? Find out below .
Story : George and Nico , one of the most romantic and beautiful couple of gaming world are back . They meet in Paris in painting exhibition insured by George Stobbart's company . Soon after start of the game a man disguised as Pizza delivery guy comes in and Steals a painting and shoots owner of gallery in the process before running away . At first this looks like simple robbery but it's part of something bigger that involve different religious believes and factions that are present in our real world . This is something that Broken Sword games had always focused on and fans of the series who are looking for a good complex story will not be disappointed .
With the release of 2nd episode , the game finally gets the ending it deserved .
Design : Broken Sword is Single Player , 2D Point and Click adventure games that vanished after the arrival of consoles . At least that's what BAFTA winner and Director of all Broken Sword games "Charles Cecil" seems to think . The game offers series of different challenges and puzzles that are fun to solve and it feels very satisfying solving each difficult puzzle . Backgrounds are beautifully drawn , Revolution Software have achieved this goal by taking help from other big studios like Disney . Atmosphere of the game is beautiful and it is pleasure just to look at the game .
This is the closest thing we got that feels so similar to original Broken Sword , which was the best adventure game ever . Charles Cecil hoped this one to be best in the series and in many ways they succeeded . Not only that but both episodes felt like 6+ hours long . So entire game lasts over 12-15 hours .
Gameplay : Broken Sword 5 is adventure game that can be played with only mouse without any help from keyboard . Even players can jump from game to main menu by just taking their pointer to upper left corner and access their inventory by taking it lower left corner . The game is not like modern adventure games that are good but at the same time feel like interactive movie , The Walking Dead etc . The game doesn't hold your hand and gives you series of different challenges , even if you don't know what to do , the game will not let you bored because everything on screen looks so beautiful . The gameplay involves solving puzzles , finding items , using items those items or combining two different items and make a new gadget to use in different conditions .
The game also have hint system like remastered versions of first two games . There are 3-4 hints in every situation . The one of them is already opened that gives you idea about your current objective with small hint sometimes . Clicking on next hints will give you more and more directions and final hint will tell you exactly what to do . So players that want challenge and want to do entirely on their own should avoid them . As you progress the puzzles become extremely difficult , specially after 50% of the game .
Presentation : Broken Sword 5 is best looking 2D adventure game to date . Character models are beautiful and their animations were created using 3D models and then saving those animations in 2D frames , these characters fit perfectly with beautiful hand drawn backgrounds . Sound Quality , Voice Acting , Music Score are all top notch . Since it is 2D game , it will run on lowest end PC . The game have few glitches and very few bugs that will be resolved with update but only those are the reason that are holding me back from giving the game 10 on launch . You may also suffer some random crashes after half of the game is completed . I fixed one of them by loading previous save and making a different choice (Lie or tell the truth) and other crash in final chapter was automatically resolved when I launched the game again .
Verdict : Broken Sword 5 is one the best games of this year , do not listen to so called critics because they also come from Call of Duty generation and expect every game to have shooting and explosions for no good reason . Broken Sword 5 is the game that we've always wanted since Broken Sword 2 back in late 90s .
Pros :
+ Gameplay
+ Voice Acting
+ Soundtrack
+ Audio Quality
+ Performance
+ Graphics
+ Story
+ Return of George and Nico
+ Ending
Cons :
- Few Bugs and Glitches in first half of the game
- Few Random crashes in 2nd half of the game
Episode One = 9/10
Episode Two = 9/10
Overall = SOLID 9/10 !