Broken Pieces Review (PlayStation 5)
For our Broken Pieces Review we meet Elise and her fiancé who decided to leave the city life and settle near the French coast, Elise couldn’t have imagined that she would end up stuck in a time loop, alone. As strange phenomena occur in a dim post-cold war climate, Elise will have to unravel the mysteries surrounding Saint Exil and put all the pieces back together.”
Broken Pieces Review Pros:
- Beautiful graphics.
- 3.25GB download size.
- Platinum trophy.
- Game settings – outline objects, text size, text background, subtitles, and Hud on or off.
- Controller settings – Invert axis and sensitivity slider for the camera.
- 3 save slots.
- Two game experience choices – combat reduced and original.
- Action adventure gameplay.
- In-game cutscenes.
- 3rd person perspective.
- Three choices to change your camera angle – zoom in, first person, and far away.
- Tutorial pop-ups as you play.
- Cinematic camera angles as you enter a new space.
- A classic Walkman is used to play the game and music tapes you find, you have full control over the functions like fast forward and rewind.
- Your notepad is where all your objectives and information of interest are listed.
- A very dark moody atmosphere.
- Familiar controls for combat with bumpers used for aiming and shooting uses a strong lock on.
- Traveling to New areas costs game time.
- Cool Crab watch.
- It’s a fascinating world to explore.
- Decent job at animations.
- Seamless integration of in-game cutscene transitions.
- Benches are used to save and advance time.
- All the items you put into your inventory can be examined and interacted with.
- Beautiful vistas.
- Paranormal events can trigger at any point.
- You have these powers that repel enemies or even start storms on command.
- A lot of puzzles and exploration-based scenarios.
- Sticks to the script by having French text.
- A really good engaging story.
- Feels and plays a lot like Alone in the dark meets The Darkness.
Broken Pieces Review Cons:
- Cannot rebind controls.
- The text options are only in relation to subtitles and not menus.
- The music just stops dead when you interact with things, it’s jarring and sudden.
- If you miss a tutorial pop up it’s just gone.
- No way to check the controls.
- A lot of flashing lights with no way to turn them off and you get little warning.
- Ugly textures in places.
- Weird balancing flaw – using the outline feature makes it a case of walking around until you see it whereas turning it off turns the game into a pixel hunt click-on-everything type of experience.
- Never sure when it loads.
- Interacting with points of interest is underwhelming as you don’t see your character using the tools instead it’s a menu click.
Related Post: Paper Cut Mansion Review (Xbox Series S)
Broken Pieces:
Developer: Elsewhere Experiences
Publisher: Freedom Games
Store Links –
- Graphics - 8/108/10
- Sound - 7/107/10
- Accessibility - 7/107/10
- Length - 7/107/10
- Fun Factor - 8/108/10
Summary
This game was a surprise for me, mainly due to the fact that the first hour or so was very slow and didn’t really do a great job of welcoming me in. Somehow at some point, it all just clicked together and man, I couldn’t stop as the story went at a pace that was intense in places but gave enough downtime that I could get some exploration in and I wanted to do that due to the fantastic world they have created. The combat is a bit clunky and the performance of the game was a bit jank at times but the core gameplay was not only solid, but it was also fun to play. Like a blockbuster Sci-fi game, it set up a story and character that is one that you are rooting for, one you want to see the conclusion of. Like I say though the first hour or so was a real slog and I really didn’t think I could go through but I’m just glad I stick at it, the mixture of the supernatural and natural blend to the point that it’s riveting. Don’t sleep on this, it’s a fantastic little game that deserves all the applause for its unique storytelling and world creation.
