Broken Sword – Shadows of the Templar: Reforged Nintendo Switch Review
Summary: Broken Sword - Shadows of the Templar: Reforged is a great introduction to a classic point and adventure, or a lovingly recreated remaster for hardcore fans
3.8
Reforged and Rejuvenated
As American tourist George Stobbart sits outside of a picturesque Parisian cafe, all is right with the world. That is until he notices a man dressed as a clown playing an accordion march into the cafe. The clown drops his accordion on a barstool, swipes a fellow patrons briefcase and absconds into the streets. Moments later there is an explosion in the cafe, and George’s holiday turns into a globetrotting adventure to uncover a conspiracy involving the Knights Templars.
Few games have an iconic opening as this.
Broken Sword – Shadows of the Templar is rightly regarded as one of the best games of the 90s, and one of the best point and click adventures ever made. But as the millennium rolled around and 3D graphics became all the rage, the humble point and click slid into obscurity. But as the nostalgia machine marches on, everything old is new again. Point and click adventures have seen a resurgence in the indie game sphere, and even classic series like Monkey Island have returned recently to critical acclaim. When a Kickstarter launched looking to fund a remastered version of Broken Sword it received 10 times its initial funding goal. Broken Sword – Shadows of the Templar: Reforged aims to treat diehard fans and entice new ones who may not be familiar with the genre.
Revolution have done a bang up job bringing the game up to date. Environments have been repainted and character sprites have been redrawn. The result looks like a classic Disney animation from their heyday. The backgrounds in particular, are full of life and added details. Reforged also lets you toggle between the updated graphics and the original, so with a press of a button you can see just how much work has gone into remastering the game.
Barrington Pheloung’s soundtrack also gets its just rewards. Technically impressive in its day, it has now been re-recorded at a much greater fidelity. This lends the whole experience a much more matinee movie feel and enriches the whole experience. The only area the remaster falls down slightly is the voice acting. The original voice actors remain, but the remastering of these often feels like the recordings have been made from far away. It’s slightly distracting, but it at least retains the charm of the original performers instead of recasting the main roles.
There are several quality of life features added in Reforged that will make it much more accessible to those who are unfamiliar with point and click adventures. This genre can be fairly obtuse, and many who loved them back in the day may recall printing off reams of black and white paper from early online walkthroughs in order to progress. While Broken Sword doesn’t approach the levels of say, Discworld in its puzzle logic, it certainly isn’t a walk in the park. Added to this was the fact that in Broken Sword you can occasionally die, which punishes the player for experimenting with the wrong items or choices. Reforged streamlines this in many ways.
The first of these is to add a whole new ‘Story Mode’. Story mode takes a lot of the frustrating trial and error aspect out of adventure games. Objects that can be interacted with that are no longer relevant will be grayed out and no longer clickable. This removes the maddening aspect of getting stuck and being sure a miscellaneous item is the source of all your woes. Story Mode also gently nudges players in the right direction. If stuck at any point, a subtle blue sparkle will point to where you should go or what you should do next. It doesn’t walk you through the door, but it shows you where it is.
A hint system has also been added that can point you to solutions to puzzles if you are still completely stumped. But Story Mode does a good job of leading you to things and then getting you to figure out puzzles without spelling it out.
Die hard fans can play ‘Classic Mode’, which retains the challenge and frustration of the original game for those who like a more authentic point and click experience. Crucially, Reforged also gives you the option to customize the level of your help. You may not want the game telling you where to go next, but you do want to know that useless items do not need experimenting with further? Simply toggle the options and Reforged has a solution for you. This system makes the game much more approachable and enjoyable as a result.
Of course it doesn’t hurt that the base game is an excellent experience. George and his traveling companion Nico are well written and have a charming chemistry. The supporting cast is also filled with quirky oddballs that keep the main storyline from becoming too self serious. Not as outwardly hilarious as the Lucasarts games of yore, Broken Sword nevertheless has great writing and multiple laughter-inducing moments. In particular, the increasingly befuddle reactions from people when George keeps showing them items from his inventory that they do not care about.
The updated UI works great on modern consoles. Players new to the genre might take a minute getting used to not being able to directly control George, but after a while you hardly notice. The interface is clean and simple to use. Dialogue prompts are taken care of with little images of the subject you wish to talk about, and scrolling over objects reveals whether you can look at them (and often make a sardonic comment) or interact with them. The gameplay experience seems to have been designed with modern gamers in mind, and it is all the more successful for it.
Broken Sword – Shadows of the Templar: Reforged expertly sets out at what it intended to do. Take a beloved gem from a long dormant genre, splash it with a glorious new coat of paint, and update the gameplay mechanics while retaining all the charm and fun of the original game. Reforged deserves to be played and to give a whole new audience a look at the point and click adventure.
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