I must have beaten this game 2 or 3 times as a kid, and so it struck me as odd that i could only remember a few select scenes, such as the warehouse in the beginning, the central-american town square and running around in the jungle somewhere.
[b][i]"How come this game was so forgettable?"[/i][/b] i wondered, before replaying it just now
[h2]The sad reason behind this is that unlike Broken Sword 1, this game virtually has [b][u]zero[/u][/b] gigantic locations where you move between half a dozen or so different screens - everything is extremely compartmentalized.[/h2]
Some locations might seem grand at first, such as the Quaramonte town square (with lots of pointless identical NPCs), but there is never a lot to do and they are always set up in a way where solving a certain puzzle gets you locked back into a single screen again. This might seem like a technicality, but in my opinion it is [b][u]this design choice[/u][/b] that leads to this games' story never really developing a large "scope", never feeling as grand and impressive as Broken Sword 1.
Broken Sword 1 had a sort-of "rhythm" to it, where you would first arrive at a major location, find yourself locked out of important places, learn more about the story/history and at some point break those barriers down (even more inter-connected screens) and reveal some type of mystery, often with its fantastic soundtrack swelling.
This exact rhythm has been lost with part 2. [b][u]Locations are constantly small[/u][/b] and change [b]much[/b] too quickly.
(Apart from the jungle where moving between screens itself is the "puzzle") [b][u]I think the maximum number of directly connected screens in the entire game must be 3 or so[/u][/b] - contrast this with Broken Sword 1 opening up to cafe interior <> cafe square <> street w/ worker <> alley <> sewers <> courtyard and this then becoming only one location you may switch from/to.
The game never gives itself the chance to actually build up a large, fascinating mystery or a dense atmosphere. What is especially missing are those "romantic"/atmospheric moments of not much happening story-wise, but the game telling you [i]"[/i][b][i]you're about to find out something important in these old ruins"[/i][/b] [i]-[/i] The game essentially just breathing and letting you take in beautiful scenery and music. These moments just don't exist anymore.
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They did re-use a lot of the wonderful soundtrack, and i honestly believe that the direct COPYING of a lot of the music is the reason behind most of the upvotes this game still receives - because what this does is (subconsciously) linking this much inferior game directly to a kind of magic that it simply does not possess itself.
[h2]You hear that iconic Broken Sword 1 fanfare and think to yourself "OF COURSE THIS MUST ALSO BE A GOOD GAME."[/h2]
Except that when you look at whart part 2 actually offers, it really really falls flat.
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Writing and dialogs are way worse, with the story just being uninspired, generic maya-sacrifice-bla-bla and potentially interesting characters (André Lobineau, Oubier) being sparse and not having much to do. There is a painful amount of cringy humor, such as George carrying around womans lingerie the entire game and showing it to almost every character.
[h3][b]The weirdest aspect about the writing of this game in my opinion is how they reversed the maya mystery stuff: You only actually get to discover a lost Maya temple 5 minutes before the game ends[/b], instead of turning this into a gigantic place to explore in the central part of the game in order to build up a mystery. [/h3]
And when they do finally add a Mayan temple, there is nothing to do or find in it, just a bunch of empty corridors.
And so the story never takes off and remains at [b][i]"something vague about evil Maya God, now go to random location X"[/i][/b]. (single screen) [b][i]"Well done, now off to random location Y. And take your womans panties with you so you can show them around 10x more, that joke never gets old"[/i][/b] (single screen) [b][i]"Awesome! Here is the exterior of a place that looks similar to a huge location from the first game where you would attentively listen to deep lore and solve puzzles for 2 hours. This right here is only a shallow exterior, though, because we didn't actually come up with a huge mystery to unravel. Don't forget your womans panties, wouldn't want to listen to actual story/dialog!"[/i][/b] (larger location, actually. 2 (Two) screens this time)
[h3][b]"Ahh, the game is over! Quick, here is a mayan temple with a single forgettable puzzle in it '*** (see below), so we can claim on the cover it had some type of historical lore/story"[/b][/h3]
[h3][b]'***[/b][/h3]
[spoiler][b]said "puzzle" is literally just the monkey island 1 copy-protection, which BY DEFINITION is not even a puzzle[/b][/spoiler]
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Characters' motivations always remain vague or even nonsensical. The main bad guy wants to raise up an old Mayan deathgod because .... HE JUST WANTS TO, OK? Oubier's wife got murdered, which at one point seems to become a major plot point. Then that subplot suddenly gets "solved" (dumped) without your involvement (???) via a single sentence and it turns out it had no impact on the story. WHY WAS IT IN THE GAME, THEN? Imagine adding a murder mystery to an adventure game and not having the characters solve it!? Chekov's gun, anyone?
If this level of writing turned up anywhere else, the same people giving Broken Sword 2 a thumbs up would slam it - but Broken Sword 1's directly copied fanfare plays a few times and it's the same voice actors, so i guess any flaw you come across is automatically forgivable.
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Puzzles often don't make a lot of sense.
There are many many obvious solutions to problems at hand that the characters are unwilling to even try for seemingly arbitrary reasons, which leads to frustration.
Let's illustrate this with the games' writers' favorite item, woman's lingerie/panties:
[spoiler]You first use them to touch something that was near a fire and would be too hot to touch with your bare hands. Okie-Dokie, this item can be used on things that are too hot. Good to know.
Only MINUTES (!!!!) later, you arrive at the docks, where the first thing you can click on is something that would be too hot to touch with your bare hands. Combine panties with "thing too hot to touch" => nope, that is OBVIOUSLY wrong and he won't even try.[/spoiler]
Second example:
[spoiler]The door of a metallic fuse-box needs to be opened. You have (among other stuff) the following things in your inventory:
1.) Sharp blade. You literally just used it SECONDS (!!!!!) ago to open the door that can be seen DIRECTLY NEXT TO THAT FUSEBOX ==> Nope, obviously wouldn't work
2.) Hair-Pin, previously even used to pick a different lock => Nope, wrong, you are dumb
3.) Piece of paper ==> BINGO! How else would you pick a lock!?![/spoiler]
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Even more shocking: Not only is the game full of filler dialog instead of an actual historic mystery and full of filler puzzles (i.e. having to exhaust smalltalk options w/ everyone before sth. unlocks), but it is also shockingly short.
I had this game open in the background a few times while busy, so my net runtime was probably more like ~5 hours.
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[h2]Overall i would say this game feels like it was a leaked unfinished draft from a cancelled project that got finished by die-hard-fans years later. And so almost all places are just empty facades, the tone of the game is off (hurrr look at this lingerie!!!) and there is no gripping story to be found.[/h2]
