Broken Sword 3 - the Sleeping Dragon (2003)

Reviewing games I played a long time ago: Ok... Broken Sword 3. Anyone who remembers when this was released knows how devisive this game was. It came out straight into the eye of the hurricane, during a time when classic adventure games were dying and developers were desperately trying to switch to 3D, direct input controls and dumbed down mechanics. This was was a gigantic disapointment, everything was subpar compared to the 2 previous games. I still dread the "push boxes puzzles". So, I reinstaled it again, after... gosh 20 years, in the hope that nostalgia might kick in and see things from a different prespective, but all the bad memories came floating in almost instantly. But not everything was a disapointment though, there's still charm, VA and writting still has some wit. But yeah... overall this was a major downgrade. Some people like it, but it's not for me.

This runs perfectly fine and with no issues for me in 2025. I'm not getting any of the problems that some other reviews are reporting. All the same, what a strange, strange beast this game is. A massive departure from the previous two games as it leaps into 3D and it doesn't do so gracefully. You wander around laughably barren spaces that only highlight the limits of the technology. There's a bare attempt at action-adventure gameplay but this really only amounts to sections where you mime your way through some Tomb Raider-ish climbing sections using only contextual button presses and some uninspired block pushing puzzles. The game also features a wacky control system I've not seen utilised literally anywhere else and you can see why. And wow, WOW do I wish you could skip dialogue in this because these people do just go on and ON... Anyway, it's fine, plays well, just don't expect the same kind of game as the previous two instalments.

Very buggy. Game froze, then loaded a save game and now keeps crashing. NOT starting over.