Review for Broken Sword – Shadow of the Templars: Reforged
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Broken Sword – Shadow of the Templars: Reforged begins and ends with an explosion. The first of these explosions introduces us to the murderous plot within which our hero, George Stobbart, is to become so embroiled that it will change the course of his life. Innocently holidaying in Europe, George encounters a clown outside a Parisian café but, unbeknownst to George, the clown is carrying a bomb that he is about to detonate. This begins a deep and entertaining adventure story about conspiracies and ancient organisations, which is arguably one of the best and most fluid examples of a point-and-click game from the golden days of adventuring.
The production values and atmosphere of the original game have rarely been surpassed in the genre, with puzzles that are still fiendish yet reward careful thought and exploration, memorable characters who draw you into the story naturally, with engaging voice acting (in spite of the awful put-on French accents in the English version). There’s an evocative orchestral musical score that actually responds to the player’s actions too. And the graphics? Let’s just say that even before the facelift that this Reforged version offers us, they were already very impressive.
Actually, anyone who has not played the original game before can probably stop reading this review now and just get themselves a copy of Shadow of the Templars: Reforged. This is a wonderful looking game which is still – give or take a few anachronisms – up there with the best point-and-click adventures on offer today in terms of fun factor.
For everyone else though… maybe hold on a second. If you already own the original game, is it really going to be worth forking out once again for what is – as it turns out – essentially the same game? If you don’t own the original but have played it at some point since its first release in 1996, are you going to be left feeling as if you have missed out if you don’t try this one too? In fact, can we get those ‘not-played-it-before’ people back in here also, please? I think we need to have a short discussion about it all first.
You see, Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars (alias Broken Sword: Circle of Blood if you live in North America) was already remastered back in the early 2010s as Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars – The Director’s Cut. That version of the game also featured remastered graphics, some new dialogue and even whole new scenes in which you can play as Nico, the intrepid reporter whom George befriends early on in the game. These new scenes are not to be found in Reforged, however, and the consensus is that although interesting, they did not bring that much more to the story of the original anyway.
So what exactly is new in the Reforged version, then? From what I can work out there are three major differences compared to the other versions.
Firstly, the graphics which, although having already been brought very much into the 21st Century with the Director’s Cut, have been totally overhauled here. I still had memories of just what a great looking game the very first version was from the last time I played it (back in October 2021, he said consulting his adventure game diary!) but the clarity, resolution and sheer beauty of Reforged has somehow improved on the other versions by a factor of about a thousand. Most of the backdrops seem to have been completely redrawn and they look beautiful. The cut scenes are flawless and the characters look like a million dollars. What’s more, you can instantly flick between the new and old graphics by pressing the tab key. After playing the new version for a few minutes it is actually quite hard to go back to the original. Everything is just so much cleaner and clearer, more colourful and easier to get along with – if a little darker at times – with a better game map and larger icons too.
Secondly, the hint system and settings. At least as far as the original game was concerned, there was no hint system; the Director’s Cut, on the other hand, did have a hint system although as I have not played it, I can’t be sure of the extent of it. The hint system in the Reforged version is very nice indeed, however – it allows you to gradually reveal solutions in stages as you play, and there is a time limit imposed until you can reveal the next stage of a solution. There are now also myriad settings for almost every aspect of the game and you can spend quite a bit of time tweaking the graphics, sound and gameplay details according to your preferences. And if you’re still finding the puzzles too hard, you can opt for the easier ‘story mode’ instead.
Thirdly, although I suspect it is really something that most players won’t notice much, the game now aids the player by removing items which are not required for certain puzzles, once you have tried to use them. It’s a small thing, but the difficulty level – particularly in the Irish pub setting – can already be very high so it’s nice to be able to discard certain items rather than be left, Sierra-style, wondering whether or not you’re going to need to use that drain cover lifter twice, for example!
So what has been left the same? Well, just about everything else.
The voice acting has been lifted straight from the original. Even if it has been cleaned up a little, it still sounds as if the characters are speaking through one of those security barriers with microphones that bank tellers use. Although it would have been very difficult to re-record the voices in a way sympathetic to the original, the overall effect of the low-quality voice recordings against the overhauled graphics is definitely odd. The music, although unchanged, sounds full and richly orchestral, and the remastering seems to have brought the excellent score into harmony with the visuals (with the possible exception of the echoey violin in the pub). The sound effects remain oddly sporadic, with car horns parping randomly at odd times and long intervals where there are no sounds to be heard at all.
George still strolls around lethargically as if he’s browsing the food aisles in a supermarket rather than trying to save the world from a mysterious group of killers. Thankfully though, a related new feature means that if you click on an exit to walk through a room, the screen will fade out and put you straight into the next room. You can of course turn this feature off in the settings, if you prefer to watch George shopping for a meal...I mean looking for an ancient manuscript in the museum!
And the story. All of it is pretty much exactly as you’ll remember if you’ve played the game before – and let’s be honest, like just about any other game from the golden era, Broken Sword had its fair share of head-scratching moments of ludicrousness. For example, why on earth does the road worker continue to remorselessly dig his silly hole after the café to which he is literally next door has just been blown to smithereens? Despite having probably had a coffee and a croissant there that morning, he shows not a flicker of concern for the waitress or George, who is staggering around in full view.
On a less defensible note, George can still be persuaded to unnecessarily manhandle the unconscious body of the waitress into a seated position in the café, before going on to tell her she should not move. And the ending to the game remains almost completely stultified by Nico – who throughout has been a career-driven journalist of high moral and intellectual fibre – being reduced to a simpering wreck as she announces that actually she doesn’t care about reporting the truth after all; she’s just happy to be with George. (*Sigh*) These illogical quirks in the story don’t detract from the great puzzles and atmosphere but they will most certainly be very apparent to the modern player.
So back to that final explosion. It is visually and sonically exactly the same as the explosion that happens at the very beginning of the game, despite the completely different settings and conditions. That’s how it was in the original game, of course, so that’s how it appears here. The remastering has just put a very nice sheen on everything. Do not buy this game expecting to see extra content or major improvements to the strange little idiosyncrasies of the original. If you didn’t enjoy the original game for some reason, you are unlikely to be swayed by Reforged.
However, I still think that if you have never played the first Broken Sword game before, then Reforged is probably the best way to experience it. Just remember that it is, in most meaningful ways, exactly the same adventure game that was released in 1996 – and you could opt to buy the original version for considerably less money (it is still available at the time of writing). You wouldn’t get the new graphical sparkle but you probably wouldn’t love the story and puzzles any less, and your memories of it would not be any better or worse than mine are of the original. The original game remains a worthy classic of the genre, and the remastered graphics here may be worth the investment, but new games are more important than remasters. Yes, we are due to see another game in the series soon but that will be for another review, and I would find it hard to recommend Broken Sword – Shadow of the Templars: Reforged as anything more than a ‘nice to have’.
Our Verdict:
Whilst Broken Sword – Shadow of the Templars: Reforged is a great visual improvement on the original, an unequivocal recommendation for what is essentially a graphical update doesn’t really fit our rating system – especially not when certain other areas of the game could have been improved upon.
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