Broken Age NottaReview

“You ever wish you were born earlier, when the adventures were real?“

“Like, the 90s?”

“No. Earlier. Like…the early 90s.“

(If you read this earlier and are looking for the second half of this NottaReview, then click here to jump straight to the update.)

Broken Age is a beautiful, funny and surprisingly touching game. But in a good way. No bad touching. As a parent, it reaches one hand through your eye holes and the other through your ear tunnels and they meet in the middle of your chest, where your feelings live. And then they squeeze.

I’ve only played through Shay’s (the boy) part of the story so far, but as a stepdad to the most awesome 7-year-old that has ever trod upon this earthen rock, I can say without hesitation that, somewhere between playing with the squeaky toy control panel and visiting the Hall Of Heroes for the first time, the game hits you right in the feels. Hard.

Turns out, it’s a game about letting go as much as it’s about growing up, which is something I didn’t expect. You see, Shay was put onto a spaceship when he was very young, as a sort of lifeboat to keep him safe when something horrible (I assume) happened to his parents’ homeworld. Don’t expect any superpowers though; this isn’t that kind of baby-in-a-basket story. It’s about a boy who had parents who loved him and wanted him to have everything he could ever want or need, but who didn’t count on him ever actually growing up. So the “Mom” of the spaceship is overprotective and over-proud and everything a doting mother could be, while supplying Shay with all of the fun and excitement a boy could ever want. As long as he never hits puberty and all he ever wants is train rides, yarn friends and ice cream avalanches, that is. The father is there, too…but not in the same way. He’s not exactly distant, but he’s not exactly present, either. I expect we’ll hear more from him in Part Two. Oh, and there’s also a wolf that isn’t a wolf, a navigational crochetier that makes scarves to traverse the galaxy with, and…well, it’s Tim Schafer. It’s crazy, but in all the best ways. Trust me on this.

I’m just starting Vella’s (the girl) story, so I can’t comment much on it, yet. I’ll update this post after I finish her half of Part One, but I wanted to get my thoughts down about the game so far, while they were still fresh in my mind. As a review, this isn’t much of a review. But as an endorsement, consider this one to be of the ringing variety. So far, it’s everything I’d hoped the game would be when I backed it on Kickstarter, and perhaps a little more.

As an adventure game, it’s on the easy side, which is not at all a bad thing. Nobody plays adventure games for the inventory puzzles, or at least I never have. Not the best games, anyway. I’ve always played them for the stories and the characters and, in the case of a Tim Schafer (or Ron Gilbert) game, I play them for the writing. Double Fine wisely chose to eschew the goofy puzzle logic that plagues the point and click genre, instead opting for simple puzzles that might make you think for a minute or two, but aren’t likely to send anyone running off to the Internet for a walkthrough. You won’t get stuck playing Broken Age, at least not for very long. Instead, you’ll get to progress smoothly through the story while still getting to interact with it on just the right level. Nothing is ever tedious or overplayed. It’s just…smooth.

I confess, I had to warm up to the art style. Well, not the style so much as the animation. I’m not normally a big fan of the jointed-paper-doll approach to animation (which I’m sure has some sort of actual artsy sounding name, probably French), but the animations are impressively detailed and yet somehow still minimalist at the same time. It’s a sort of magic, I guess. And it works.

The voice cast is great, obviously. The always talented Khris Brown turns in another stellar performance as the game’s voice director (and, folks, if you don’t think a game’s voice director is giving a performance when he or she guides the voice talent, then you’re just not paying attention), and her direction of Elijah Wood as Shay is spot on. For his part, Elijah (we’re on a first name basis, apparently) gives a solid performance, with just enough pitch in his voice to sound younger than he is without it coming off as trying too hard. Every line is delivered in the way in should be delivered in the context of the situation, which is something that eludes most voice talent in adventure games. But Khris (also with the first name, apparently) has a long track record of showing that she fully understands the medium, and manages to get perfect performances out of her cast every time. Jennifer Hale does a marvelous job as the computer Mom on the spaceship, never coming across as being too nagging, even when the character is clearly nagging too much. It’s just…great. Like everything else.

If I had one complaint, it would be that it’s taken this damn long for Tim (hey, first names again, whaddyaknow?) to get off his butt and jump back into the point and click ocean. It’s been almost 20 years since Full Throttle, Tim. (And yes, Grim Fandango is sublime, but it isn’t point and click, so it doesn’t count. Except that it does, I guess. Because it’s Grim Freakin’ Fandango.) But however long it’s been, it’s been too long. Psychonauts was great, Brütal Legend was epic, Costume Quest and Stacking and The Cave and Everything Else have all been terrific games, but YOU (and Ron. Hey, Ron!) are the point and click adventure. You define it. It needs you. It’s needed you for 20 years. We’ve needed you for 20 years. So thanks for coming back, but damn you if you think you’re going to make us wait another 20 years for the next one. So don’t get any ideas.

UPDATE: I’ve now finished Vella’s part of the story, and therefore the entirety of Part One. Vella’s half of the game makes up slightly more than half of the game, and feels a lot more fleshed out than Shay’s bit. That’s not to discount Shay’s contribution, but Vella just has more characters to interact with, a greater variety of locations to explore, more puzzles, that sort of thing. It feels more like an old school adventure game too, with a couple of oddball puzzle solutions, but nothing too crazy.

Vella’s story is as less about growing up and more about empowering yourself and taking charge of your situation, even when (almost) everyone else is telling you what a bad idea that is. (Which is a message I deeply support, and about which I’ve babbled before.) It also contains 100% more Wil Wheaton and Jack Black, with the former playing the role of a hipster lumberjack and the latter delivering an uncharacteristically subtle performance. Wheaton is great, as expected with all of his previous experience , and there’s even a hint of self-parody in some of his lines. Black, on the other hand, reins in his Jack Blackness ever so slightly, giving an understated performance that is still somehow every bit as filled with his usual bravado, but it’s not in your face. You can still tell it’s there, of course, lurking just beneath the surface. Probably leering, too. With a smile on its face, a twinkle in its eye…and a knife behind its back. But hey, he’s playing a cult leader who sits in a nest and poops out the sort of thing that would make Veruca Salt very happy around Easter. So it works.

Story-wise, I don’t want to give too much away with Vella, other than to say that maidens in villages across the land enjoy being selected for The Maiden’s Feast, which involves dressing up in ridiculous costumes and vying for the attention of the great Mog Chothra. And by attention, I mean “being chosen as food by an antediluvian elder god from the deep”. Yet, Vella is somehow alone in thinking this is a Bad Idea, so she sets off to do something about it. And that’s all you’re getting out of me.

The two stories come together quite nicely, in the end, and make a perfect joint for the second act. You might see it coming, and you might not. Or, more likely, you’ll mostly see it coming, but get thrown off a bit just before everything comes together. However it goes down for you, it’ll be satisfying. Vella is a sharp girl, perfectly voiced by Masasa Moyo. Every now and then, I could’ve sworn she was played by Jane Jacobs (who performed the role of Laverne in 1993’s Day of the Tentacle), but alas, it wasn’t her. Still, she delivers a strong, confident performance with just a nuanced underpinning of self-doubt that fits the character well.

TL;DR: Go buy Broken Age! It’ll make you smile, make you laugh, and touch your heart in the same way that Pixar enjoys ripping it out in the Toy Story movies. It’s a game about children growing up and parents letting go. It’s sweet and it’s sad, and it’s everything that a game should be. It could be longer. There could be more puzzles. There could be more dialog and interactions and animations and…ok, there could just be more. Always more, because no matter how much there is…when something is this good, there’s just never enough of it.

I’ll be back later with an update for Valla’s side of the story. Probably. If I don’t end up crying in the shower and biting a washcloth to muffle the sound of my tears.

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