Episode 1 wasn't too bad, and a solid return to roots after the last entry in the series, but it's nothing remarkable either, and was largely a breeze to play through. Except the neon sign thing that had me puzzled for about ten minutes.
Also we are delighted that Apple have invited us to talk about the game at their London Regent Street flagship store at 7pm on 23rd April. The blurb on their website is:
Join Charles Cecil, the team from Revolution software, and those behind the production of Broken Sword 5: the Serpents Curse, and hear about the games incredible journey - from conception, through Kickstarter crowd funding, to completion. The games composer, Barrington Pheloung, will also speak about how he approached composition of the music. Arrive early as seating is limited. Register before arrival. Register at: http://www.apple.com/uk/retail/regentstreet/
Episode 2 is now available on GOG (Windows version at least, Mac version will follow tomorrow).
It looks like though you have to download the whole game again (7 GB). There is no "Episode-1-to-Episode-2" update available.
I'm surprised there wasn't a bigger marketing push upon release of part 2 (seems like they just dumped it out there- I know they don't have much of a marketing budget but I felt like they could've done more to promote part 2 coming out). I think they made a big mistake by not capitalizing on this as it doesn't even look like the game hit top 100 of games sold yesterday.
Has anyone completed part 2 yet? If so, how long is it?
I've just completed it. It certainly felt shorter than part one, but I have no idea if it actually was. There's essentially no repetition in locations, unlike in episode 1, so that probably had an affect on my perception of it.
Overall, it was alright but nothing special. It's such a shame they chose to split it into two parts as well, they would have been better off waiting if they had the option.
Played part two today.
It was shorter than the first part but all in all both parts took me 11 hours to complete which actually makes it one of the longer Point and Click games.
The story was fine but the best part is that they really stepped up the puzzles.There were lots of good logical multipart puzzles and also a couple of pure code breaking puzzles and I love that!
That type of puzzle is rare in new games. The only recent examples I can think of are The Secret World MMO and some of the Frogwares Sherlock Holmes games so I am a really happy kickstarter backer now :-D
As a backer and a fan since the beginning, having just finished this the only issue I feel is length (it's a short, tidy package with no padding) and a few strange silly puzzles.
This is up there as i think, the second best Broken Sword game. Absolutely loved it, so many nostalgic feels.
Hopefully it wont be another eight years for a return to George and Nico.
So, started playing ep 2 this afternoon. I've gotten to the chapel and somehow managed to break the game. Nostalgic memories of the torch in BS2! :/
For now all I'll say is keep regular saves and don't overwrite them, and when you get to the chapel it might be advisable to leave the sound puzzle till last after finishing the light/smell puzzles(I did it second). Dunno if that'll avoid it, but the way the sound puzzle works seems like it would have the most chance of going wrong, and the game let me redo it after completing all the puzzles. I also watched a walkthrough after I got the bug message and the walkthrough guy did the sound puzzle last.
Gonna send a bug report to rev.
-----------edit
although there are bugs here - and the error message certainly stopped me from being thinking on it more - this area is still passable, turns out I hadn't completed one of the puzzles as completely as I thought I had, so no MAJOR bug here.
When do the mobile versions come out? I'm debating if I should wait or just buy the PC version. I'm rarely at home in the summer, so IOS would be perfect.
No luck getting past the chapel after rolling back to a save outside it and doing the puzzles in a different order. :/
If anyone has a save just after (or just before, looks like the game logic fail occurs earlier then I'd thought) doing the smell/sound/lights puzzle, could they put it up on a web storage service like mediafire or something - t'would be appreciated. Otherwise looks like I'll have to wait for revolution to respond, which may be a while.
So, started playing ep 2 this afternoon. I've gotten to the chapel and somehow managed to break the game. Nostalgic memories of the torch in BS2! :/
For now all I'll say is keep regular saves and don't overwrite them, and when you get to the chapel it might be advisable to leave the sound puzzle till last after finishing the light/smell puzzles(I did it second). Dunno if that'll avoid it, but the way the sound puzzle works seems like it would have the most chance of going wrong, and the game let me redo it after completing all the puzzles. I also watched a walkthrough after I got the bug message and the walkthrough guy did the sound puzzle last.
speak to duane about pearl (which shouldn't be possible because I've completed all three challenges, but pearl noticing never triggers) I get the message "this should never have run. tell nina if it did because bug is really srs" (nina being the rev community manager I assume).
Because it's a missing trigger, I just can't progress, kinda like the end of BS2 outside the temple
speak to duane about pearl (which shouldn't be possible because I've completed all three challenges, but pearl noticing never triggers) I get the message "this should never have run. tell nina if it did because bug is really srs" (nina being the rev community manager I assume).
Because it's a missing trigger, I just can't progress, kinda like the end of BS2 outside the temple
Rev have already gotten back to me and I can now progress.
That's some good customer service
Although there are bugs here, this area is passable, turns out I hadn't completed one of the puzzles as completely as I thought I had, so no MAJOR bug here. The error message just stopped me from thinking about what else I could do since I figured it was the games fault
Oh yeah, a word about languages: The game will be available with speech in English, German and French and additionally subtitles in Italian and Spanish.
Speech in Italian and Spanish as well as subtitles in Russian and Polish will follow once the second Episode is released
I finished this a bit ago and really, really enjoyed it overall. So much more than three or four but I'm not sure where I'd rank it with the first two games. Anyway, I'm thinking of starting a new playthrough soon to get the rest of the achievements and to experience the story and world again.
Completed it. Second part was far better then the first part, although the tabula puzzle was a bit out there.
Overall it was easily better then 3 & 4, though not as good as 1 or 2. Villains entirely lacked the sense of menace you got from khan or karzack(sp?).
Also, there are very few npc's compared to BS1. Not sure if this is a budget thing though. Did rev ever go on record with BS1's budget?
In the end I'm not sure whether it was a good idea to split up part one and part two. The puzzles are a lot better in part 2, so maybe that was a response to the feedback of part one?
Roughly 45% through the game according to the progress indicator. Really enjoying myself so far.
While puzzles are not too challenging, I think they are stimulating enough to keep people engaged. The pacing of the game is pretty good. Solid production value. I'm a fan of the models and art style. No complaints with animation.
My only nitpick would be the pauses between lines of dialogue. Doesn't seem to be an issue with my PC - usage and temps are low. Not a big deal, but it does stretch out conversations a bit.
Overall, BS5 feels like modern version of BS1 or BS2 in terms of mechanics, visuals, etc. Good stuff.
Be wary, there's a game breaking bug in the second episode, when you're leaving the chapel
in Santa Cova
- the next scene doesn't load and the game crashes. Apparently, after leaving the cave you have to do things in special order to avoid it
tell truth during the confrontation with Langham; then, when you're locked in in the chapel as George try to talk with the guard three times; then send Nico so she can try and seduce the guard; only then you can continue with solving the puzzle and continue the game without the bug
I haven't tried that solution yet (thankfully I found a save near that scene so I will try it today) but people on both GOG and Steam forums say it works. Looking at Revolution Software forums they already acknowledged the bug and are working on a patch. An update was released today on Steam (but not on GOG yet) so maybe it's already fixed.
This patch was already released a few days ago, but unfortunately no change log so far.
I haven't finished Episode 2 yet and from revealing your first spoiler tag I think I haven't reached this particular scene yet. Thanks for the heads up, I'll make sure to make a savegame before the problematic scene.
I'll report back once I'm past that scene, maybe Revolution has fixed this bug with the latest Steam update.
Speaking of Episode 2, so far I love it. I think it's way better than Episode 1. Better pacing, better characters, better dialogs and thankfully way better and harder puzzles.
Phew, that puzzle with the Tabula Veritatis was way too hard. Even harder than the neon sign puzzle in Paris in Episode 1. I've spent the whole evening now to solve it. But eventually I found the right solution without any hints. Good feeling.
Be wary, there's a game breaking bug in the second episode, when you're leaving the chapel
in Santa Cova
- the next scene doesn't load and the game crashes. Apparently, after leaving the cave you have to do things in special order to avoid it
tell truth during the confrontation with Langham; then, when you're locked in in the chapel as George try to talk with the guard three times; then send Nico so she can try and seduce the guard; only then you can continue with solving the puzzle and continue the game without the bug
I think I'm past that point now and my game didn't crash with the latest patch from Steam. This is how I played it:
I lied to Langham two times, then talked to the guard three times, went out onto the balcony, climbed down the drain pipe and put the radio down there, went back into the chapel and talked to Nico, who tried to seduce the guard and immediately after that she said she would try the radio once George is back again on the balcony, then I dropped the hammer on the guard and left the chapel.
Now I'm on the cable car and the game didn't crash.
EDIT: Spoiler about Shears:
Huh, why does Shears have a bandage on his head? Did I miss something?
Eh, as much as I love my DRM-free games, I wish I went with Steam version. In moments like this you realize how useful things like automatic updates are - when you don't have to check a separate site every now and then to see if a patch has been released.
Just finished - solid game! It seemed like Revolution may have run out of time and money at the end, as the climax falls a tiny bit flat, but it doesn't hurt the experience. I thought
Langham
was a bit underdeveloped as
the villain
. Maybe I didn't pay enough attention, but
there wasn't much depth to his motivations
.
Really fun game. Loved the
Tabula
puzzle - I felt like I had enough information but had to really think critically and extrapolate a bit. Difficulty in "part 2" was generally higher, but again the ending was a little undercooked.
