Kickstarter projects have a habit of baiting nostalgia. It seems like every other big Kickstarter success involves a developer trying to rekindle the glory days. However, if it can produce games like Broken Sword 5: The Serpent’s Curse, I’ll happily keep on my rose-tinted glasses.

Broken Sword is an acclaimed point-and-click adventure series that I loved as a child. Unfortunately, like many adventure series’, it became irrelevant in the naughties. The Serpent’s Curse is less of a breakthrough for the genre, and more a re-creation of everything that made the original games so appealing.

When intrepid ‘insurance accessor’ George Stobbart witnesses a robbery/murder at an art exhibition, he is reunited with his old flame Nico as they attempt to catch the thief, thus saving George’s employer a lot of money.

However, what first appears to be a straight-forward murder-mystery soon snowballs into a complex religious conspiracy that takes the pair from snooping down alley ways in Paris to discovering lost chapels in Catalonia and beyond.

The story is incredibly well-paced, revealing just enough of itself with every inch of progress to tantalise the player into continuing through to the end. The story revolves around a painting named ‘La Maledeccio’, a strangely satanic work of art which seems to bring misfortune to everybody who gets their hands on it.

To say any more would be to spoil, but the story told in The Serpent’s Curse is certainly ‘Da Vinci Code’esque. It’s supremely interesting if you find yourself fascinated with the strange myths surrounding Christianity, but it does have it’s flaws.

At first, the game feels completely grounded in the real world. There is talk of supernatural elements, but at its heart it’s a tale of greed and theft; that is until around seventy-five percent of the way through.

The last quarter of the game is somewhat of a downward spiral of religious drama which anti-climaxes with a damp squib of an ending. It’s a bitter pill to swallow for a game that is so good for twelve hours of its runtime.

In terms of its mechanics, it’s a case of ‘if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it’. The player has to solve a number of puzzles using a variety of inventory items amassed through-out the game.

For the most part the puzzles are simple and satisfying to complete. Aside from the odd misstep of logic (of course you can’t get to that drawer… there’s a huge, impassable cockroach in the way) they generally make sense and make you feel suitably clever for solving them. If you ever find yourself too stuck, there’s also a handy hint system to guide you along.

Rather than perpetually playing as George, the player has a few opportunities to play as Nico through-out The Serpent’s Curse. At first it appears as if the gameplay might be split 50/50 between the two protagonists, but as the game wares on, Nico’s contributions are whittled down to having the odd token puzzle every few hours.

Unfortunately, as is the case with the story, the gameplay also takes a hit in the last quarter of the game. It was the point where George and Nico had to create a faux-supernatural religious scene using objects around a building sight that my patience was first tested.

The issue with the particular puzzle in question, aside from the fact that it turns out to be completely unnecessary, is that it’s lengthy, obscure and highlights a particular problem with the game’s visuals.

The hand-drawn background art is delightfully rich in colour and detail, but it means that it’s often hard to tell what is a click-able object and what’s simple set-dressing. In this aforementioned puzzle, it turned out I had to place an object in a recess in a wall that was impossible to distinguish unless the player mindlessly dragged the cursor along the wall.

Another problem with the hand-drawn background art, as lovely as it is, is that it completely clashes with the characters. The cell-shaded characters just seem completely out of place against the lush backdrops, as if they belong in two different games.

Revolution Software probably should have invested a little more of that Kickstarter cash into the character animation as well. Calling them wooden would be an insult to wood. Their gestures have no relation to the actions the player has ordered them to perform, and there’s an odd delay in dialogue that leads to some unintentionally hilarious moments.

George Stobbart: “Do you want a cookie?”

(Awkward five second pause)

NPC: “No”.

As well the accidental funny moments, the game is filled with enough of it’s own jokes to make the player chuckle on occasion. There’s something wonderfully amusing about being able to brake up a serious conversation about a murder by offering the person in question the chance to pet your cockroach in a matchbox.

The characters are also consistently funny in their own ways. Dip-shit double-act Navet and Moue, Detective Inspector and Police Sergeant respectably, are always worth a laugh, but it was Shears, the cockney geezer gardener with a passion for philosophy that stood out among the crowd.

For the most part I was enamoured with The Serpent’s Curse. If the game was twelve hours long, it’d be near-perfect. However, it does decline in quality towards the end and overstays its welcome by a few gruelling hours.

Despite it’s obvious flaws, what’s surprising about this game is just how good it is. After the series had floundered for the past couple of entries, The Serpent’s Curse marks a tremendous comeback, and it hopefully signals good things to come from Revolution Software in the future.

Broken Sword 5: The Serpent’s Curse was originally released on PC and mobile devices last year, and was recently released on PS4 and Xbox One. PS4 copy reviewed.

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