When I first started Broken Sword 1, I immediately got a huge amount of nostalgia, the animation being inspired by old cartoons' style, while being years ahead of it's time too. Soon as we hit start, we jump straight into a crime scene with one of our main protagonists Nicole Collard, who is a journalist being invited by a wealthy politician for an interview, known as Pierre Carchon (the French accent strong with this one), but as soon as Nico arrives, Pierre gets murdered by someone dressed as a mime, and our job is to find out why, at first to make a great article for the money, then because Nico finds out that this case might be related to her long dead father.
On the other side, we meet George Stobbart, a bail bondsman on vacation, who sits at a café just before it explodes, killing a man, the device was planted by a guy dressed as a clown, supposedly the same one who killed Pierre too. The explosion not only brings him to the ground, but also brings her Nico, who is on the case to investigate, from that point and onwards Broken Sword becomes a George Stobbart game, rather than a Nico and George game, which I kinda disliked, since I think Nico is a far better character than George is, which I know I'm speaking for the minority here, but his witty humour isn't really funny, I don't get why did the developers try to make his personality the quote-unquote "funny guy", when it really doesn't work, him being in the lead.
Broken Sword as a point and click game is by no means easy, but it's more so a patient game, with literal puzzle pieces to solve, through not so obvious solutions, and sometimes you even require basic knowledge of history which people with a C- (me) wouldn't really complete without pressing at least once on the "Hint" button. Oh, yeah, there's a hint button, which is a nice touch, especially for a game this challenging, and at times frustrating with its puzzles, even me, who loves this genre through and through, would put a "hint" button in every point and click game, cause when you get stuck, you have to browse through guides anyways, so I'm happy they didn't resort to that, and instead implemented it into the game.
Broken Sword's story didn't really move me, it was alright. Wasn't great, wasn't good, the puzzles, the animations got me further into the game, while I lost more and more interest in the mystery surrounding what Broken Sword is. Not to mention, there were times when the audio wasn't really clear either, which could be because the Director's cut is sort of a remastered version of the old technology, running the original game, but they really could've recast/redub the game, especially if the game is accent heavy.
Overall, Broken Sword 1 is probably one of the longest point and click games I've ever played with, while also having amazing animations, but if I were to look past them, I would find a point and click game that wouldn't age that well despite the Director's Cut revamping it. The best way to describe it is if someone were to play Tomb Raider 1 for the story, which isn't too bad, but isn't revolutionary either, making the animation seem like overkill for a plot so uninteresting and dry for the later half, that also just ends soon after the crime concludes, without any worthy epilogue.
AUTHOR INFORMATION
The animation reminds me of old Hungarian cartoons, I used to watch on DVD, really pretty even after all these years
They are hard and frustrating, but the good kind of frustrating. It makes you think, cry, laugh... in that order.
The story of Broken sword is whatever... but by no means bad, it starts out strong, has some parts where you think the story is going to reach a turning-point, but that turning point even if it happens, it only turns the enjoyment for the worse.
PROS / CONS
- The animation style
- Beautiful scenery and music
- The hint button
- Nicole Colard
- The story isn't interesting enough
- The puzzles were often not obvious
- George's humour and being a one-dimensional character
- Unseriously serious tone
