Broken Age: Act 2

Something more than just a homage to LucasArts classics. Broken Age built its own identity brick by brick, drawing inspiration from its ancestors, but not mindlessly. [06/2015, p.56]

With Broken Age’s release the Double Fine Adventure comes to an end, and the result is a standout game that delivers on its promises. Play it.

Act 1 was just an appetizer. Act 2 is the meaty main course that defines Broken Age — and not just because it finishes the story. It’s where Double Fine let loose and went crazy with the puzzles (and the complex train of thought you need to solve them).

Broken Age: Act 2 wraps up Shay and Vella’s story in great fashion. The jokes are punchy, the twists are rewarding, and most of the puzzles are satisfying in a special way.

A warm, big-hearted and hilarious adventure game custom-built for a passionate fanbase. [July 2015, p.67]

A staggering display of imagination, design and performance. [June 2015, p.116]

This is not Grim Fandango, not Full Throttle, not Monkey Island. This is Double Fine at its best, with a Point & Click adventure that achieves mixing the magic from those SCUMM masterpieces of the genre and the unique visuals of Tim Schafer's imagination and studio. It is a shame that the story slowly falls into its second part and the studio recycles too much the same scenarios, but Broken Age is what it is: A journey that evokes that magic we thought was lost.

The game formerly known as Double Fine Adventure is a fine adventure, but definitely one best taken as a whole rather than in two parts.

Even with such an imaginative and refreshing world, Schafer's conclusion to this story ends up being a mere repetition to its previous episode, leaving us wondering, where did that spirit go?

Broken Age: Act 1 was so perfect that perhaps my expectations were inflated when playing through the second half. However, despite the challenges Broken Age is still very much a beautiful game with a heartwarming story.

It retains huge amounts of personality and the charm of vintage point and click adventures, but it's not as groundbreaking as Broken Age Act 1 was. Also, the difficulty curve is a bit steep.

With its first act, Broken Age had made us fall in love again with the old fashioned adventure games, but Schafer and his team have not been able to ride the wave all the way and have fallen right in the end. The second half of this anticipated title is unable to maintain the level of its introductory phase, and goes to ruin a product that perhaps, with a little more courage, would have had the potential to be truly memorable.

Overall Broken Age is hugely fun game, but hardly the second coming of LucasArts as many backers probably hoped.

Broken Age sadly suffers from a case of too much. The watercolor art style, humorous dialogue, and clever writing are unfortunately buried under too much backtracking, too much obscurity, and therefore, too much frustration.

While the puzzles are challenging and a clear improvement on act 1, the humor as well as the storytelling are below Schafer standards.

As a whole, Broken Age is a must-play for any fan of point-and-click adventures. However it is pretty obvious that the game is forcibly split into two acts and if you have waited for a whole year to see the conclusion of the game’s story, you’re probably going to end up disappointed.

It’s anticlimactic, but perhaps intentionally so. After all, it’s the journey that counts, and both Vella and Shay have come a long way from where they started. Double Fine has proven its honed and tested skills in this genre again, but we can’t help but feel that there was more it could do.

Broken Age is a polished and charming addition to a forgotten genre. Even though the puzzles and story could have been a bit better, especially during the second part of the game, the stunning environments and delightful characters makes it a journey well worth taking. Just do not expect any revolutionary elements.

Broken Age Act 2 is like a rollercoaster: exhilarating during its best moments, but it doesn’t last enough and stops abruptly. Enjoyable, but not the classic we were hoping for.

Like Broken Sword 5, Broken Age will be a lot better for anyone who picks it up from now on, but that can’t save this episode from being heavily marked down.

At worst, it’s a cautionary tale about getting too much money and getting too ambitious with that money. At best, it’s a solid adventure title with wonderful visuals and great characters mixed in with a few bad puzzles and story issues.

After such a long wait, it’s a shame to see that Broken Age’s second act, while continually beautiful and charming and with much more challenging puzzles, doesn’t quite manage to live up to the promise from the end of the first.

Act two may not capitalize on the potential of act one, but there are still plenty of moments that can bring a smile to your face or cause you to laugh-out-loud.

Broken Age: Act 2 may stumble a bit trying to be something it isn’t, but what it is, is still gorgeous and enthralling, and I’ll put up with some frustrating puzzles and backtracking for that.

The second part of The Broken Age is broken. Everything is in its place, but the charm and meaningfulness of the story are lost.

The second act of Broken Age addresses the difficulty concerns of the first, but revisits too many familiar locations, and fails to up the ante or tie things up in a satisfying way.

This second part should've transported graphic adventures fans back in the days of old. Sadly, it practically wastes all the good premises of the prologue. Most of the puzzles don't make much sense, and you'll be mostly exploring areas that you already know. Also the narrative looses momentum, and seems to forget from where it all started.

The moments when a solution just makes you say "Really?" in a frustrated tone and when you wander seemingly without direction occur often enough to rob Broken Age of a sad amount of its magic.

Broken Age's first act was mediocre but had potential. Potential that its conclusion squanders.

Together, Broken Age Acts 1 and 2 make a solid game that players will look back on fondly. Unfortunately, the second act doesn't live up to the promise of the first. Themes are dropped, puzzles seem a bit more obtuse, and the environments feel like a retread of the first act.

This second act makes a tragic script twist, proves to be totally uninteresting and contains badly-designed and awfully implemented puzzles, thus turning every hour we spend with it into wasted time. A disastrous second part of a very ambitious but completely failed Kickstarter adventure game.

Broken Age tries to end on a heartwarming final scene, but its an ending that it doesn't feel like the game earned, with Act 2's stagnant characters never maturing or developing in any way that would give the scene the emotional weight it seems to think it evokes.