Broken Age - Act 2

Ugh...

!SPOILER ALERT!


Broken Age - Act 2​

My word. After the several hours I put in trying to sit down, play through the entire game as it was apparently intended and then come to the end screen, I can't believe my overall emotions for this game were just:

"Oh...That's it? Surely I missed something. I mean, there's still, oh! No. Right..."

There is so much simply left out to tie up. And it's just left alone. Shay and Vella don't get a culminating moment that seems applicable to their characters. In fact, it seems like an entirely different game compared to what I just played.

Are we sure I didn't play some beta test version or something? This made it so that the Mom Computer, a genuinely fascinating aspect of Shay's life that both freaked me out and kept me thoroughly engaged, now was actually always a real person.

So...Then, doesn't she know he's being driven nuts? Can't she seriously not see that? She spends so long with him!

Vella? Eh...Her story was always the weaker of the two. It was good but it doesn't quite hold as much kick as Shay's. Even so, there was a delightfully twisted aspect in how the maidens were being fed to a massive monster.

And then there's an antagonist, who is clumsily added in. Some weirdos with messed up DNA? It's too late to care when they're hastily thrown in only a few hours before the end.

Oh! And they're apparently just left alone. They don't really get addressed or anything at all.

A fitting metaphor for trying to get through his story.​

Oh! And the sodding puzzles! So much Robot Rewiring, which happens to be clunky, fiddly and, for the first of these puzzles, idiotically set up.

OK, so there are these Hexagonal Robots that perform certain tasks. They're programmed by how they're wired up and certain combinations of the three wires you have at your disposal will make the robot perform an action. For one puzzle, Shay needs to wire up a robot to fix things. However, the solution isn't anywhere in Shay's part of the story, but Vella's. In the background of a small photograph.

Now, when I found this, I felt like a damn badass because now, I'd solved one of the puzzles. Especially considering, it had gotten pretty damn frustrating to do anything in that point in Shay's storyline. But solving one puzzle still didn't relieve the feeling of dread and irritation that I hadn't any other ideas on how to solve the other puzzles in the area.

I actually felt quite miserable playing through this as soon as the second half kicked in. I couldn't figure out half of what was expected of me. Nothing seemed to logically fit. I genuinely tried scanning high and low for any new items I might have missed along the way.

But nothing helped. Nothing salvaged this. The two main characters melt a couple of space ships, forming a bridge then the pair walk towards each other. Then smile.

End.

Fitting for how I felt at the end of this game...​

Well...Don't I feel ripped off. Not as much as it's Kickstarter Backers. I'm sure but what happened. There was a wonderful set up and this just doesn't deliver on anything. It's all ignored or swept away. In it's place, annoying puzzles...Super. Annoying. Mind-Bogglingly Tedious. Over-Long. Puzzles.

My advice, the First Half is great but only play that half. The rest is something of a betrayal that I'm still disappointed and baffled to see come to my screen. I adored the game initially and was confident in the second half, when it came. Can't we just go back to that? Let Double Fine take a mulligan on Act 2 so they can do it properly this time?

Yep! A short one. It is this uninspired.