Broken Sword Reforged Impressions: Stunning 4K Nostalgia Trip

For many point and click adventure fans, Broken Sword The Shadow of the Templars is held in high regard as one of the best examples ever to grace the genre. With gripping story lines, worldwide adventure, fun puzzle solving and a delicious wit – the desire to relive those feelings we had back in the 90s right now in 2024 has been delivered in the Broken Sword Reforged edition.

The original Broken Sword The Shadow of the Templars released in 1996, and at least in my opinion, is the finest example of the currently 5 titles in the series, so it was with great delight that in 2023, a ‘Reforged’ edition with brand new 4K visuals and animations was announced for modern platforms and consoles.

Previously, a Director’s Cut released in 2009 that served a number of changes and improvements. Most notably the music, that instead of a heavily compressed low bit-rate audio was now an ear pleasing and lush CD quality finally allowing Barrington Pheloung’s soundtrack to really come alive. A changed introduction that saw Nico on a brand new mini adventure that although interesting and added a new exciting area to explore, broke the original epic showcase ‘blast’ we once remembered. Nintendo Wii owners were also served a number of new puzzles that utilised the motion controller that proved to be a very frustrating experience. New character profile windows appeared on-screen during dialogue, super handy for portable gamers, but for everyone else actually seemed to result in less attention to the character animation in the usual places where often the original movement suggesting they were currently talking didn’t function and instead they stood there like stone statues. Even some of the original content was lost as it was all based on the engine created for the Gameboy Advance version and well, it didn’t feel quite like the Broken Sword we remembered. All of the less favourable elements belonging to the Director’s Cut, dare I say are now ‘corrected’ in this Reforged edition…

Wowzers, it certainly hits you with an almighty thump within just seconds of the game booting the difference the new 4K visuals provide. Even if you haven’t played the original in a great number of years, even with your strongest rose tinted glasses on distorting your reality field, there is absolutely no ignoring the eye popping feast your retinas view from the very start of Broken Sword. The video cut-scenes, the background settings, the character detail and animation, the item interface – it is just so shockingly clear! I purchased the Xbox version specifically so I could sit back and enjoy the title on a 55″ OLED display and I certainly wasn’t disappointed by the result. Simply gorgeous!

AI was touted as part of the toolset utilised in bringing Broken Sword to this hugely increased resolution and saw a little backlash in the community. Thankfully, this has not turned out to be some dire rush job where laughably details become a squiggly mess and instead it is evident wherever you look that talented professional artists have been involved to bring us all of this utterly superb spectacle.

There will inevitably be locations and characters where the new highly detailed landscapes and people don’t quite click with what you remember if you have indeed played the original 1996 game. Back then, although Broken Sword was considered quite ‘high resolution’, our minds would have cunningly filled in many of the gaps creating our own version of how for example a character would truly look up close given the opportunity. In my own experience, the vast majority of the characters look absolutely fantastic and it is only here and there where I am a little puzzled with some of the design choices. The Countess de Vasconcellos is one of those characters that didn’t quite match the probably ridiculous creation I had when I first played the game, but it’s incredibly minor and of course each of you out there in point and click land will have invented something completely different no doubt so it’s very subjective.

In rare cases some of the background animation in the 4K landscapes, let’s take for example the light rays dancing down through the hole of a well have now become static, although ironically you only really notice any of these changed or forgotten smaller details by the very feature added to Reforged, the ability to switch between the original graphics and the new 4K remaster by the click of a button. I found myself switching far more than probably any sane adult should, however I was hooked at how everything has been recreated in this new superbly rich setting. It’s certainly not a like-for-like recreation and inevitably some of the lighting, colour, features, atmosphere and details have been changed. I would argue however, in the grand scheme of things for the better. In truth, the original artwork never looked this low quality back in 1996 as they have stretched the play area to a widescreen view. Everything still looks correct in scale, but some of the interface elements removed to allow this. Trust me our monitors and televisions were much smaller and lower resolution too, which were far more forgiving to the original content.

New dynamic shadows are also used, which is particularly noticeable during animations and walking around the scene. It’s a nice addition that really does help ground the characters in their new 4K locations.

The speech dialogue quality has also seen an improvement and although it appears the original studio recordings have been lost to time, the enhancements to the highly compressed 1996 versions are a welcome uptick in audibility.

I have completed the Reforged edition and have enjoyed it immensely. I did experience a few crashes on the Xbox version and although the auto-save feature made this fairly pain free, it did unfortunately also present a bug where a cliffside Templar doorway I had previously opened was now alas closed and the game believed I had already pulled the lever so I was stuck and had to go back and replay a 5 minute chunk of the game. Patches imminent I would imagine.

Final Thoughts

Broken Sword The Shadow of the Templars Reforged is a magnificent showcase for this original point and click adventure gem, taking full advantage of the 4K technology and bringing this 1996 classic visually bang up-to-date. It is the ‘Director’s Cut’ we really desired all those years ago and now we have something to really treasure in our collection. A true respectful re-incarnation that dazzles and delights from start to finish.

Hopefully this will introduce Broken Sword to a brand new set of fans, while also opening up the possibility of the sequel receiving the same treatment. Fingers crossed hey!