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These sorts of first-person adventure games don't normally impress me, but I feel the need to spread the good word of Broken Reality. It's a delightfully weird homage to ye olde internet during the 2000s and early 2010s, and you can feel in particular areas that the small dev team do legitimately miss it. I realise it's just nostalgia informing me, but I do too. As well as that melancholic undercurrent in some areas that I always love, the art style was pretty tremendous. It can be way too much sometimes and can hurt your eyes, but I think that's part of this game's charm. I thought most of the puzzling was very straightforward and easy, dialogue writing was mediocre and the overarching plot was obtuse and didn't have much development, so Broken Reality is just for people who want to see the weirdness on display.
This review contains spoilers
Game where you have to identify the path forward using maps? Great! But sadly, this was more like: Game where you have to identify the path forward using maps-- oh no you missed a map so now you have to backtrack and there are characters apparently but you haven't actually run into more than one and he wasn't useful in the slightest and you swear that you've climbed this cave before and, yep, you have, you're going round in circles and the protagonist is now berating herself because there's a soft time limit on navigating this terrain and you're taking too long and you just fell to the bottom of the climb again and the day is over and there's nowhere to sleep so you're just going to lose health tonight before you climb your way through this cave for the third time. Time for a jaunty tune that you've heard three times while you jump across this plain again since you're not sure if you need to go to the left or right side of it and you keep running into dead ends! Oh and while you want to interact with this signpost that'll let you cross to another path, the protagonist just launched into an anecdote so you'll have to wait until she finishes.
Sorry for the vent, a small title like this doesn't deserve it - especially one that's so earnest and inspired and doubly so when I may have just been an idiot and missed something obvious. But the pitch of open-ended navigation by identifying the path forward on maps sounded like something right up my alley. I love that shit! And with a great visual style, great music and some fun writing in Scottish accents? Everything sounded perfect to me, so I can't help but feel incredibly frustrated with my experience of it. I feel like I'd have more patience if it wasn't for the soft time limit. Initially I was taking my time, exploring the world, but then the protagonist started talking about how I was taking too long and wouldn't make it to the lighthouse in time so I started rushing and getting stressed out by how few relevant maps I was finding. Maybe I'll give this a few years and come back to it with a fresh perspective and love it.
Sorry for the vent, a small title like this doesn't deserve it - especially one that's so earnest and inspired and doubly so when I may have just been an idiot and missed something obvious. But the pitch of open-ended navigation by identifying the path forward on maps sounded like something right up my alley. I love that shit! And with a great visual style, great music and some fun writing in Scottish accents? Everything sounded perfect to me, so I can't help but feel incredibly frustrated with my experience of it. I feel like I'd have more patience if it wasn't for the soft time limit. Initially I was taking my time, exploring the world, but then the protagonist started talking about how I was taking too long and wouldn't make it to the lighthouse in time so I started rushing and getting stressed out by how few relevant maps I was finding. Maybe I'll give this a few years and come back to it with a fresh perspective and love it.
On launch, I've had an absolute blast playing queuing with friends. I've been told the solo queue experience hasn't been great (which isn't hard to believe with how frantic things get), but this game is a tense, action-packed experience that I've enjoyed every minute of. Map knowledge is clearly going to be one of the biggest parts of the early difficulty curve, especially when you aren't playing heavy with the ability to break down walls, since you don't really know where doorways and windows are yet. I also suspect there are some balance issues that'll need to get ironed out, but as it stands this game is in a very nice spot on launch. I'm looking forward to making the most of it before its inevitable, sad decline into live service oblivion.
edit: I have since become aware that the voices are AI generated which makes a lot of sense as they never sounded very natural to me. Knocking it down from a 4 to a 3 because yeah, knowing that does impact my enjoyment a fair bit.
edit: I have since become aware that the voices are AI generated which makes a lot of sense as they never sounded very natural to me. Knocking it down from a 4 to a 3 because yeah, knowing that does impact my enjoyment a fair bit.