Broken Pieces

Definitely a hidden gem with Syberia and Dreamfall vibes, made by a small and dedicated team of developers. Pro + Great atmosphere and beautiful graphics + Interesting story + Nice soundtrack + Excellent voice acting + Short, but not too short (4 to 5 hours), maybe even longer with optional sidequests + Combat is quite easy Contra - Sometimes the gameplay mechanics are not properly introduced - Some backtracking - It takes some time at the beginning for the story to get going I would love to see a sequel or another project by Elseware Experience! A clear recommendation for players who like mysteries or adventure games with puzzle elements.

This is a hard game to review. It's one of those game with obvious weaknesses and the same time you can't help but falling in love with it. I played in the FPS view, added later because the game was first meant to be played in TPS view like a resident evil (first one) or a syberia game. The FPS view works except for the gun fight. Indeed you can either aim or move, therefore you can not see enemies walking toward you from behind, like you would in TPS view. In fact the FPS view isn't available for bosses mainly because it would have mean to re-design fights entirely. Beside that, wow. I am totally blown away by the voice acting (french one), one of the best and most touching i've ever heard. This is clearly the strong point of this game. You care about Elise, you feel her sadness, joy and her misunderstanding of the situation. The other strong point is the story, full of mystery and intriguing when you start to apprehend what's going on. In terms of mechanics, this a metroid vania in 3D but you can only explore during the day. You want to be home before the dark because it's getting quite dangerous. Therefore you have to plan your pathing in advance. There is also a weather mechanic wich blocks/unlocks path. The riddles aren't complicated which is a good thing. Anyway, a buggy game sometimes but with a real soul, a unique story and a touching main protagonist. A must play.

I loved the game. The graphics are excellent, the story decent, the atmosphere memorable, the puzzles/quests not too difficult to solve, and the length with all the side quests is about 15+ hours ! So when the game is on sale it should not be missed. What I also liked is the possibility to choose fewer combats and mainly focus on and enjoy the game's story, investigation, puzzles and quests in which case some sporadic combats did not become bothersome or boring as they usually became to me if too many). The only thing that I did not like as much is the ending which somehow came as a mild disappointment (I expected a more positive one). However, such an open unresolving ending opened the possibility for a sequel which I would look forward to if it ever comes about. All in all I highly recommend this game, especially when on sale.

It feels like a "piece" of a bigger game. As others have said, real "Dreamfall" vibes, but with less story depth. In Broken Pieces, you're kinda dropped into the middle of a story you never quite get the full picture of, and the ending feels rather sudden. What this really feels like, to me, is a tech demo where the developers tried out various mechanics, storyline ideas, game play methodologies, but then released it as-is rather than continued developing the plot and maps and turned it into something more complete. It's certainly worth a play if you like exploration games with some mild puzzle mechanics thrown in. None of them are too hard, but they still force you to think. The combat is more of an annoyance than a challenge (every time I ran into enemies my reaction was "ugh, not this again."). I'd recommend picking it up when it's on sale. Hopefully, the next game from this studio will be larger in scope.