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Looking for a retro point-and-click adventure? You’ll love this one, then – Broken Sword - Shadow of the Templars: Reforged is coming soon on GOG!

Relive the acclaimed and multi-award-winning journey of Broken Sword - the Shadow of the Templars, now in stunning 4K visuals and with remastered iconic audio. Follow the daring American George Stobbart and the courageous journalist Nico Collard as they embark on a thrilling expedition filled with danger, intrigue, and age-old mysteries.

Wishlist it now!
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Ice_Mage: I haven't had a chance to play any of the other games yet. I'll add this to my wishlist to revisit it later. It looks quite beautiful, but it sounds fuzzy to me. There was also an amusing lack of traffic noise as the protagonist was complaining about it.
Yeah it looks amazing, but sounds horrible!
Low quality voices, and absolutely no ambience or soundeffects, totally silent!
Was the original game really that way?
Sure, it is very old, but they could at least afford to add some proper sounds if they are going to sell this as a remaster, to get it up to date!
Post edited February 28, 2024 by Seb-gog
I love the Broken Sword series, but remaking a game that already had one remake? Pure cash grab if you ask me.

If they don't want to create another entry in the series, they might as well remake the third and fourth games as 2D.
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Ingsoc85: If they don't want to create another entry in the series, they might as well remake the third and fourth games as 2D.
They are already working on a brand new Broken Sword game.
Post edited February 28, 2024 by robaato.san
KICKSTARTER ----> Broken Sword: Reforged - Collector's Edition (physical or digital)

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/revolution-software/broken-sword-reforged-collectors-edition?ref=discovery_category_newest

"The Collector’s Edition Box will be released for PC, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch and Xbox One/Series X, with a choice of English, German and French. The game will offer voice acting in English, German, French, Spanish and Italian."
Post edited February 28, 2024 by RagenVadascovinich
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Ingsoc85: I love the Broken Sword series, but remaking a game that already had one remake? Pure cash grab if you ask me. If they don't want to create another entry in the series, they might as well remake the third and fourth games as 2D.
Exactly. The ones that need remastering the most are those that used flaky engines during the late 90's to mid 2000's era (eg, Adobe AIR is rough under W11) and those made during that awkward 2D -> 3D transition where they looked (ultra blocky polygons) and played (tank controls, jumpy / clippy cameras, etc) far worse than 10 year older pre-rendered 2D games. They're the ones that still have more "playability on modern system" issues than the ScummVM compatible ones. Endless remakes of already remade games when even the original non-remade version plays fine whilst BS4 still sits there with 3/5 rating due to universally hated bad 3D controls and technical issues just feels "cheap" though especially if a 28 year old game ends up priced the same as upcoming actually new ones from Wadjet Eye based purely on release date... :-/

Charles Cecil even said at the time "2D games are dead", then made the God-awful 3D-ified BS4 and it was so bad that for BS5 he went straight back to 2D... Read the most helpful GOG review on it : "My God, is this BAD. The inventory menu won't pop up when you need it, the scrolling is awkward, characters get stuck in objects, there is no way to skip dialogue lines whatsoever, George's character is badly re-designed and doesn't look anything like himself, the puzzles are obtuse, etc)". Remake that one as a 2D game, not the already "fixed" one (that wasn't even originally broken in the first place...)
Post edited February 28, 2024 by ListyG
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BrianSim: Sadly it already isn't the case for Broken Sword remasters, ie, the 2010 Shadow of the Templars: Director's Cut removed / censored some death scenes, and randomly cut out animations like waving flags, as well as ambient sounds and even certain dialogues and scenes then added a whole new scene that felt out of place (different writing style vs the main story) and messes up the pacing. I'm still playing the original for that reason. It "enhanced" it the same way VGA Loom "enhanced" EGA Loom - look beyond the surface gloss pretty graphics and there's bits missing...

So it'd be interesting to see if "Broken Sword: Yet Another Cash-In" version is based on the original 1996 game or the censored 2010 version. But even if the former, I see zero value in rebuying it if it works flawlessly in ScummVM. The old-school games I want to see remastered are those that have serious playability issues, eg, games like Dark Fall where ALT-TAB is broken and can't be fixed by ScummVM, or those with a plethora of unfixed game-breaking bugs (Divine Divinity), not all the ones that already work perfectly...
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mdqp: Charles Cecil already made some comments about wanting to make changes. Since he didn't go into specifics, it's hard to know exactly what he had in mind. I wasn't particularly happy about the Director's Cut removed content, so I tried asking around in the Steam forums if people knew more, but no info so far.

Anyway, in an interview with Polygon (https://www.polygon.com/23842925/broken-sword-6-bs1-remaster-charles-cecil), Charles Cecil said that he wanted to change things which "...culturally, have slightly worried him" (below is the relevant excerpt from the interview).

"But Cecil is not above making a few changes to “some of the things, which, culturally, have always slightly worried me” about the 1996 game to make it “a little bit more culturally appropriate for 2023.” He cites the examples of a Syrian carpet seller character, changed to be less “stereotypically mean, he’s slightly more jovial,” and an awkward moment between the game’s pair of heroes, American patent lawyer George Stobbart and French journalist Nico Collard. “There’s another point where Nico is tied up, and George can kiss her when she’s tied up. And you know, that’s just a little bit strange. [...] It’s just three or four very, very minor things. But, you know, the example of that character, I’d been embarrassed about it pretty much from the beginning. So it’s just wonderful to be able just to tweak it [...] but without losing the core charm that existed."

On the plus side, In their christmas video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QC6_rrIIg7I) they mention doing something with lines they had recorded in the past, but never used (which I assume means adding/restoring some cut content).

I am a big fan of the original games, so I don't know how to feel about yet another return to the first. Admittedly, the new graphics do look good, from what little they have shown.
If they really will add in additional PC into the next remaster I will have to pass. Was hoping that they would correct the Director's Cut mistakes ... not making new ones.
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ListyG: Remake that one as a 2D game, not the already "fixed" one (that wasn't even originally broken in the first place...)
That would be great, but I remember reading that Cecil said that it would be too expensive to remake a game in a way that cannot do the heavy lifting with AI.
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MarkoH01: If they really will add in additional PC into the next remaster I will have to pass. Was hoping that they would correct the Director's Cut mistakes ... not making new ones.
I don't remember reading or hearing anything about a new playable character, was there something in the interview I missed? He does say he is going to change the personality of one of the secondary old characters, and presumably the option to kiss Nico when she is tied will be removed, but those are all the examples I remember.
high rated
BS 1 and 2 are among my favourite adventures of all times. When I read that Cecil wants to alter his masterpiece to "adjust it to modern sensibilities" or some crap like that I suddenly stopped being interested in this remaster. I'll stay with the originals.
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MarkoH01: If they really will add in additional PC into the next remaster I will have to pass. Was hoping that they would correct the Director's Cut mistakes ... not making new ones.
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mdqp: I don't remember reading or hearing anything about a new playable character, was there something in the interview I missed? He does say he is going to change the personality of one of the secondary old characters, and presumably the option to kiss Nico when she is tied will be removed, but those are all the examples I remember.
I may be mistaken, but I think he means "political correctness"
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mdqp: Charles Cecil already made some comments about wanting to make changes. Since he didn't go into specifics, it's hard to know exactly what he had in mind. I wasn't particularly happy about the Director's Cut removed content, so I tried asking around in the Steam forums if people knew more, but no info so far.

Anyway, in an interview with Polygon (https://www.polygon.com/23842925/broken-sword-6-bs1-remaster-charles-cecil), Charles Cecil said that he wanted to change things which "...culturally, have slightly worried him" (below is the relevant excerpt from the interview).

"But Cecil is not above making a few changes to “some of the things, which, culturally, have always slightly worried me” about the 1996 game to make it “a little bit more culturally appropriate for 2023.” He cites the examples of a Syrian carpet seller character, changed to be less “stereotypically mean, he’s slightly more jovial,” and an awkward moment between the game’s pair of heroes, American patent lawyer George Stobbart and French journalist Nico Collard. “There’s another point where Nico is tied up, and George can kiss her when she’s tied up. And you know, that’s just a little bit strange. [...] It’s just three or four very, very minor things. But, you know, the example of that character, I’d been embarrassed about it pretty much from the beginning. So it’s just wonderful to be able just to tweak it [...] but without losing the core charm that existed."

On the plus side, In their christmas video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QC6_rrIIg7I) they mention doing something with lines they had recorded in the past, but never used (which I assume means adding/restoring some cut content).

I am a big fan of the original games, so I don't know how to feel about yet another return to the first. Admittedly, the new graphics do look good, from what little they have shown.
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MarkoH01: If they really will add in additional PC into the next remaster I will have to pass. Was hoping that they would correct the Director's Cut mistakes ... not making new ones.
Dang, I really hope they won´t. I already read they learned from the DC mistake and won´t include those changes in the Reforged version, but reading this!?

That´s like one step forward, two steps back.
I am so glad Aspyr remastering Tomb Raider did not go down this road, and rather opted for the message at the beginning of the video (I don´t understand people complaining about that).
Post edited February 28, 2024 by Tarhiel
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Tarhiel: I am so glad Aspyr remastering Tomb Raider did not go down this road, (...)
Except they did........
Well, this is pretty ridiculous, a remake of a remake. And this style of graphics doesn't age, and the limited resolution and palette are really part of the charm. As someone else already said, early 3D games look crappy, those may need a graphical remake, but this? Definitely not.
About voices, on the other hand, yeah, they were low quality in the original. Especially in the first part of the game, oddly enough.
I really don't see the point in refurbishing an already great adventure game for the 10.000th time, just to make more money out of it. Like they have done with Myst. Why can't classics just be classics that stand for themselves? Maybe that has some justification for shooters etc., where all seems to depend on the graphics quality (I don't think so though), but with adventure games - no.
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Tarhiel: I am so glad Aspyr remastering Tomb Raider did not go down this road, (...)
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robaato.san: Except they did........
You talking about that one texture they change, that even the fans of the original never knew existed?