Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars

"''Il 'a'kl kalb'!"

Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars. That sounds alot like an RPG now does it? Well get this: This isn't an RPG at all. This is a GBA point and click adventure game, with graphics that make this look like a cartoon movie. This is a very overlooked Game boy Advance game, probably the most overlooked so far! (Others that are overlooked are overlooked for a reason, like who would want to play a video game based on a TV show when they can play a kick-butt game like Metroid Fusion?)

Graphics: 8/10
The background graphics look very realistic, almost 3D. Graphics in a cutscene make this look like an animated movie, like your Rugrats movies. One thing about the cutscene graphics, though, is that they lack animation. It looks like several pictures of an animated movie have been taken and shown, like how in one picture, it shows a clown, and another picture shows the clown walking into the resturant, and the next shows an explosion. The other graphics are pretty good, This is probably the first game on the Gameboy advance that had Life-size Figures, and it looks like a scene taken from a video camera, the camera doesn't follow you all the time, you walk around and sometimes you get really small, because you're walking away from the camera. They're quite good really.

Sound: 2/10
There are very few sounds in the game, and the sounds that appear are very realistic, like a purse hitting someone's face, a gun going off, and even a piece of parchment hitting the floor. The background music is quite good, except that it's very quiet and hard to hear. It's not the best point of the game.

Controls: 10/10
I feared that the controls would be very hard to move around on the Game boy Advance, I feared that you'd be a cursor (Not someone who puts curses on people, silly) but instead, you move with the D-pad and do stuff with the A and B buttons, this isn't anything like ''WALK TO'', ''OPEN'', ''CLOSE'' ''PICK UP'' or ''USE''.

Difficulty: 8/10
Some think that games like these have no game overs, well that's where you're wrong. There are game-overs in this game, because you can die at certain points, like if you try to leave the Hotel with the parchment, or if you don't grab the torch on time. The graphics also have a thing with the difficulty. You might accidentially miss a key item in a room if because it's hard to see, thank god for the Magnifying glass icon!

Replay value: 5/10
You might probably wanna replay the game after you beat it. So you can do all of the fun stuff like asking everyone what ''Il 'a'kl kalb' means, or so you can see the funny scenes like ''Ha ha, very funny you psychos!''. It doesn't have any hidden stuff though.

Overall: 8/10
This game is very overlooked, and possibly one of the best games to appear on the game boy advance. 'Nuff said.

Buy or rent:
Look at the score! Would you buy a game that scored so high? of course!

Best part: Syria

Worst part: The Game over screen

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/20/03, Updated 06/20/03