The 5th entry in the Broken Sword series is finally on consoles, but has the wait been worth it?
This is my first time playing a Broken Sword game, so I went in knowing pretty much nothing about the series. The good news is that it doesn’t rely heavily on knowing what happened in previous titles other than a few cameos from characters and even then, it’s brief. So it’s easily accessible to veterans and newcomers alike, which is a relief…I thought I’d be completely lost in the story, but it’s fairly straightforward stuff.
The game starts out with a flashback to a Spanish villa back in the 30s as it comes under siege and a man is shot dead trying to conceal a painting, while the man’s child manages to escape. Fast forward to today and we visit Paris at an art gallery where said painting is being displayed, a theft and murder occur in front of our characters George and Nico, who have to solve the mystery of who killed the gallery owner and why the painting was so important. It leads to a conspiracy which George and Nico have no choice but to see through to the end.
Broken Sword 5 is a point and click adventure, you will need to move the cursor to where you want to move as well as use/combine items to use to progress forward. Some of these combinations aren’t exactly straightforward, I personally rushed through using a guide and even then I was thinking “I’d never have figured that out without a guide”, most of them are simple but a few are trickier and require much thought, unless you do what I did of course.
Using a guide I managed to finish the game in roughly 8 hours, of course it will take longer if you decide to go it without any assistance. The achievements are fairly simple, some are missable if you aren’t careful…so I’d recommend saving often and in different save slots to be sure. Once done however, you’ll have no real reason to go through it again, the story itself is decent but hardly one that you’d want to go through again.
Voice-acting is a mixed bag and the dialogue is too, it does enough to push the story forward…but there are a few cringy moments including a joke about a goat called “Donna”, yup you can see where that’s headed…The cel-shaded style of the game is pretty good though and fits the game well.
The Verdict
Broken Sword 5: The Serpent’s Curse is a decent point and click adventure, but it does little to differ from the others out there, it’s story is good enough…but the voice-acting is hit and miss. The controls are a bit clunky at times, but overall it’s a nice outing for the series and one I hope to see more of.