Review of Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror by Khan4
The weak one in the series
As a standalone title, it’s a mid-tear, not unenjoyable but kind of forgettable game as they were many back in the days, but it suffers badly from its comparison with the first one.
The story never feels as compelling, involving, well-researched and epic as in the first one, just a standard adventure story.
Puzzles are not that bad in themselves, but not hard enough and rarely feel like part of the story (like in the first one…), more like obstacles to its progression. Even the last scene is just a cut scene, when it could have been a puzzle to get you to provoke the end. There’s even a “find the hidden path” one, with no clues whatsoever that you must do so… the kind of annoyance that is not missed at all from old adventure games.
There’s some good jokes, some good inside references, but overall the humour feels forced. It’s omnipresent, especially through George who 90% of the time cannot open his mouth without having to joke about things, even during what should be serious moments. I falls flat too often and just becomes an annoyance and epicness killer.
There was obviously a lot of work put into this game, but still it’s the shortest of the series, about half as long as the others. With its flaws and the fact that you’d better play it if you want to play the whole series, it’s actually better this way.
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Time Played: 5-10 hours
Difficulty: Easy
