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Act 2 of Broken Age is finally available, a year and a half after the release of the first chapter published in December 2015. The wait was all the longer since we left Shay and Vella to face their problems at the end from the first episode, but luckily they return to solve them once and for all. This time, there's no more question for Vella to kill Mog Chothra, she's inside the monster to put an end to his actions once and for all. For his part, Shay, until now pampered by his "mother", has meanwhile left his ship adrift and is confronted for the first time with the reality of the world around him. In a way, they have exchanged places, and are now each looking for a way to return home. With this narrative framework, Tim Schafer is in the continuity of the subject treated in act 1, that is to say the passage from childhood to adulthood. But this time, after failing their parents, the two young birds want to find their beloved nest. Crossed destinies that always offer the player to embody one of the two players at any time. Unfortunately, this functionality is still useless, the selection of one or the other of the characters at a very specific moment bringing nothing to the game. This is the main criticism to be made to Broken Age as a whole. The possibility of making a story in all its length, without having to cut into the parallel adventure, is the best solution, the player risking getting lost by mixing up the stories too much.
TO OUR MISSTEPS
Fortunately, the beauty of the game encourages us to stay focused on one tale at a time. Graphically simple, Broken Age has an almost unique animated style. Each decor looks again and again like a 2D awakening painting, colorful and captivating. Added to this is the presence of humorous and extravagant characters, with perfectly orchestrated and successful dubbing. Until then, Double Fine managed to transcribe what had been the strength of episode 1, without too much difficulty. The developers have even managed to do better, since they have erased one of the main flaws of the game: the lack of difficulty. But they wanted so much to hear no more about this problem that Act 2 offers a large number of puzzles, sometimes forgetting the story and locking the player in his quest for the necessary object. In addition, the puzzles arrive like a hair in the soup, without necessarily having any particular logic. We then find ourselves with a narrative story interspersed with puzzles, which come to weigh down the soap opera rather than complete it. The scenario is therefore not helped by all these cuts. If the plot of Act 1 was exciting, it is difficult to say the same regarding the following episode. The theme treated of the return to the family cocoon being interesting, however, it does not manage to fully emerge from the imposing number of puzzles. Fortunately, Shay's naivety in a world unfamiliar to him allowed some freedom in the dialogues, making most of them likable and funny.
