Speaking of BS3, I've never understood why people liked that somehow, Neo-Templars returned. Susarro, Petra and Cult of the Dragon should have just been new villains without any reference to Neo-Templars.
Also, BS3 is one of the few AGs where QTE are inserted right where they should be. It's the automatically changing camera angles that make QTE in BS3 a nightmare.
I am not a fan of stealth sections but have to admit that sneaking to the Susarro's castle and St. Stefan chapter of the Knights Templar is justified by the plot.
Otherwise, yes, there is too much Sokoban and the dragon fighting sequence at the end is flimsy.
Also, BS3 is one of the few AGs where QTE are inserted right where they should be. It's the automatically changing camera angles that make QTE in BS3 a nightmare.
I am not a fan of stealth sections but have to admit that sneaking to the Susarro's castle and St. Stefan chapter of the Knights Templar is justified by the plot.
Otherwise, yes, there is too much Sokoban and the dragon fighting sequence at the end is flimsy.
I love this game. It's clearly geared towards consoles, meaning that you can play it comfortably in your couch with a simple controller. The 3D graphics are well made for the time, and the somewhat cheesy story works really well for this series. The puzzles are mostly practical in nature, you don't need a monkey to wrench some arbitrary pump, or rather, you don't really get stuck at all and can enjoy your little adventure with minimal frustration.
Sure, there is a strange amount of "push boxes" puzzles, but they are all fairly simple and very enjoyable. These are not a problem unless you really want to find faults with the game for whatever reason.
Sure, there is a strange amount of "push boxes" puzzles, but they are all fairly simple and very enjoyable. These are not a problem unless you really want to find faults with the game for whatever reason.
I must say, I agree with most of the things with Boxblue, I didnt liked this game too. I have wrote a text review in my mother tongue, but I think with using translator it can be understandable:
After the great success of the first two Broken Sword games, it was no surprise that the third installment began development. However, the spiritual father of the series, Charles Cecil, fell in love with the then-fashionable trend of — everything in 3D. He was so blindly fascinated by this phenomenon that he completely forgot the fundamental pillars that make adventures adventures and created something entirely different, diametrically opposed to the poetic style of the first two games. Instead of a classic adventure game, we get an action mix of Indiana Jones, Sokoban and Thief, which doesn’t suit the characters George Stobbart or Nicole Collard at all. Fortunately, the traditionally interesting story saves the game.
Gone is the charming hand-drawn art and detailed animations that looked like a cartoon and still hold up well even after twenty-five years. In their place are polygons, often quite blurry textures, and large, unimpressive environments. The graphic quality in 3D environments is at least passable and at the time of release was among the better examples, but over the years the visuals have aged significantly. The fascination with 3D and its possibilities is evident at every turn. So while individual locations appear quite large with a fair degree of freedom of movement, they are in reality very empty with minimal opportunities for interaction.
The 3D also unfortunately affected the core gameplay, as classic adventure puzzles have disappeared and been replaced with all kinds of climbing, shimmying, jumping, and other annoying actions — later parts of the game even include stealth elements and hints of QTE (Quick Time Events), where during an animation you unexpectedly need to press a key at the right moment or the whole situation repeats. The peak of this is a variation of the old game Sokoban, where you need to push boxes from one place to another to progress. This incredibly annoying element appears far too often and brings frustration rather than satisfaction or joy from solving logical problems.
This is further worsened by another flaw tied to 3D and the push for more console-like design — the game cannot be controlled with a mouse at all. Everything is done entirely with the keyboard, where the arrow keys move the character and WASD are used for actions with interactive objects or items. The controls are very imprecise, and navigating the space is made worse by often poorly placed static cameras. To top it all off, you cannot skip animated sequences, conversations, or any spoken lines, which is annoying not only during passages you need to replay after the main character’s death but also whenever you accidentally click and the character repeats dialogue about an item you’ve already heard.
The only thing saving this title is the chosen theme and a very well-written story. After the last adventure, George and Nicole have more or less parted ways, each living a normal life in their homeland. George works as a patent clerk in America and flies on business to the Congo to see a mad professor who claims to have created a perpetual motion machine. His plane crashes in a storm, but he still manages to find the scientist at a large mysterious device. The scientist soon dies, managing to say only one name. It soon becomes clear that a mysterious figure named Susarro is behind his murder and is after something truly big and terrifying. At the same time, Nicole, working as a Parisian journalist, goes to the apartment of a crazy programmer who wants to share a mysterious discovery — only for him to be murdered right before her arrival, and Nicole becomes a prime suspect.
As it later turns out, the programmer was working on a secret project and uncovered something truly dreadful. This triggers a series of mysterious events involving weather fluctuations, frequent earthquakes, energy currents, ancient cultures, and occult elements. As expected, both plot lines are connected and George eventually meets Nicole again. They also encounter several familiar characters from previous games. Charles Cecil once again came up with an interesting idea and expanded it into a gripping story with engaging dialogue and plot twists. Although it’s a bit of a shame that the Voynich Manuscript theme — a real historical document that the game’s theme revolves around — isn’t developed more and only appears briefly in the game.
We again visit Paris, although we don’t return to many of the familiar locations. The few exceptions that do appear in 3D look worse than in the original 2D version. We also travel to various destinations in Europe and beyond. Spoiler: one of the locations is Prague. In reality, however, it’s only a name — there is virtually nothing resembling the real Czech capital. All of Prague is reduced to a single large anonymous stronghold (referred to as a castle) full of boxes, ledges, and soldiers (for the sake of stealth sections). The only Eastern European reality reference, aside from the characters’ Russian accents, is the car the characters arrive in — a Trabant 601.
Overall, Broken Sword 3 is a very divisive game. The transition to 3D definitely didn’t succeed. Much more than the third dimension itself, the game is ruined by its gameplay — specifically the tasks and challenges the developers prepared for players. Whenever the story starts to pick up and you begin to look forward to what happens next, one of the horrible action mini-games appears and successfully freezes the mood solid. Moreover, the game does not at all build on the atmosphere and spirit of the series created by the previous titles. Instead, we get a completely different genre with characters behaving very differently than we are used to. No — this really wasn’t Cecil’s success. According to him at the time, adventure games were dead and needed more action. He tried to do that in Broken Sword 3 — and failed.
6/10
After the great success of the first two Broken Sword games, it was no surprise that the third installment began development. However, the spiritual father of the series, Charles Cecil, fell in love with the then-fashionable trend of — everything in 3D. He was so blindly fascinated by this phenomenon that he completely forgot the fundamental pillars that make adventures adventures and created something entirely different, diametrically opposed to the poetic style of the first two games. Instead of a classic adventure game, we get an action mix of Indiana Jones, Sokoban and Thief, which doesn’t suit the characters George Stobbart or Nicole Collard at all. Fortunately, the traditionally interesting story saves the game.
Gone is the charming hand-drawn art and detailed animations that looked like a cartoon and still hold up well even after twenty-five years. In their place are polygons, often quite blurry textures, and large, unimpressive environments. The graphic quality in 3D environments is at least passable and at the time of release was among the better examples, but over the years the visuals have aged significantly. The fascination with 3D and its possibilities is evident at every turn. So while individual locations appear quite large with a fair degree of freedom of movement, they are in reality very empty with minimal opportunities for interaction.
The 3D also unfortunately affected the core gameplay, as classic adventure puzzles have disappeared and been replaced with all kinds of climbing, shimmying, jumping, and other annoying actions — later parts of the game even include stealth elements and hints of QTE (Quick Time Events), where during an animation you unexpectedly need to press a key at the right moment or the whole situation repeats. The peak of this is a variation of the old game Sokoban, where you need to push boxes from one place to another to progress. This incredibly annoying element appears far too often and brings frustration rather than satisfaction or joy from solving logical problems.
This is further worsened by another flaw tied to 3D and the push for more console-like design — the game cannot be controlled with a mouse at all. Everything is done entirely with the keyboard, where the arrow keys move the character and WASD are used for actions with interactive objects or items. The controls are very imprecise, and navigating the space is made worse by often poorly placed static cameras. To top it all off, you cannot skip animated sequences, conversations, or any spoken lines, which is annoying not only during passages you need to replay after the main character’s death but also whenever you accidentally click and the character repeats dialogue about an item you’ve already heard.
The only thing saving this title is the chosen theme and a very well-written story. After the last adventure, George and Nicole have more or less parted ways, each living a normal life in their homeland. George works as a patent clerk in America and flies on business to the Congo to see a mad professor who claims to have created a perpetual motion machine. His plane crashes in a storm, but he still manages to find the scientist at a large mysterious device. The scientist soon dies, managing to say only one name. It soon becomes clear that a mysterious figure named Susarro is behind his murder and is after something truly big and terrifying. At the same time, Nicole, working as a Parisian journalist, goes to the apartment of a crazy programmer who wants to share a mysterious discovery — only for him to be murdered right before her arrival, and Nicole becomes a prime suspect.
As it later turns out, the programmer was working on a secret project and uncovered something truly dreadful. This triggers a series of mysterious events involving weather fluctuations, frequent earthquakes, energy currents, ancient cultures, and occult elements. As expected, both plot lines are connected and George eventually meets Nicole again. They also encounter several familiar characters from previous games. Charles Cecil once again came up with an interesting idea and expanded it into a gripping story with engaging dialogue and plot twists. Although it’s a bit of a shame that the Voynich Manuscript theme — a real historical document that the game’s theme revolves around — isn’t developed more and only appears briefly in the game.
We again visit Paris, although we don’t return to many of the familiar locations. The few exceptions that do appear in 3D look worse than in the original 2D version. We also travel to various destinations in Europe and beyond. Spoiler: one of the locations is Prague. In reality, however, it’s only a name — there is virtually nothing resembling the real Czech capital. All of Prague is reduced to a single large anonymous stronghold (referred to as a castle) full of boxes, ledges, and soldiers (for the sake of stealth sections). The only Eastern European reality reference, aside from the characters’ Russian accents, is the car the characters arrive in — a Trabant 601.
Overall, Broken Sword 3 is a very divisive game. The transition to 3D definitely didn’t succeed. Much more than the third dimension itself, the game is ruined by its gameplay — specifically the tasks and challenges the developers prepared for players. Whenever the story starts to pick up and you begin to look forward to what happens next, one of the horrible action mini-games appears and successfully freezes the mood solid. Moreover, the game does not at all build on the atmosphere and spirit of the series created by the previous titles. Instead, we get a completely different genre with characters behaving very differently than we are used to. No — this really wasn’t Cecil’s success. According to him at the time, adventure games were dead and needed more action. He tried to do that in Broken Sword 3 — and failed.
6/10
I love this game ! It's clearly not the best obviously, but for it's time, it's really not the worst looking 3D game. It actually made a good transition when you compare to others franchises. I haven't played it at launch but way later so no nostalgia for me !
I may be very forgiving for a lot of things, but I found BS3 better looking than BS4. The colors are making all the difference and even if the models are more blocky or animated a little weirdly (Petra and Nico are coming to mind), it's just nice to look at things and wander around. In BS4 (even if I like it too) everything is grayish and some places have no one to talk too, which make the environment bigger than it is. I like some places because of story points, but I found them less interesting visually.
The GoG version does still have controller support ! It's way easier to play with a controller, even if I did a playthrough with the keyboard. Perfectly playable, even if a little clunky.
I do have a little gripe with the abundance of boxes to push, but those are never difficult so it's mostly okayish. The game overall is never hard, outside of some QTEs, where the danger comes from changing camera angles (the Petra chase for exemple) and the time it takes to correct your trajectory. Or the stealth section where you don't really know the range of the guards vision.
I found the end a little quick however. Maybe it's because of time or budget, but I found myself saying 'Uh ??' because of some abrupt transitions (you fall into a pit and then VOILA, Excalibur ??).
I stop my rambling here, I love this game even with it's flaws
I may be very forgiving for a lot of things, but I found BS3 better looking than BS4. The colors are making all the difference and even if the models are more blocky or animated a little weirdly (Petra and Nico are coming to mind), it's just nice to look at things and wander around. In BS4 (even if I like it too) everything is grayish and some places have no one to talk too, which make the environment bigger than it is. I like some places because of story points, but I found them less interesting visually.
The GoG version does still have controller support ! It's way easier to play with a controller, even if I did a playthrough with the keyboard. Perfectly playable, even if a little clunky.
I do have a little gripe with the abundance of boxes to push, but those are never difficult so it's mostly okayish. The game overall is never hard, outside of some QTEs, where the danger comes from changing camera angles (the Petra chase for exemple) and the time it takes to correct your trajectory. Or the stealth section where you don't really know the range of the guards vision.
I found the end a little quick however. Maybe it's because of time or budget, but I found myself saying 'Uh ??' because of some abrupt transitions (you fall into a pit and then VOILA, Excalibur ??).
I stop my rambling here, I love this game even with it's flaws