While back in the day the point-and-click adventure genre practically ruled the home gaming world, for a decade or two they really fell off substantially. Now in this generation, with so many indie developers being willing to tackle the genre once more, and much more diverse gamer demographics, that classic style has returned feeling refreshed. That’s certainly the case with this edition of the Broken Sword series, which has been given a pretty substantial freshening up from its original release, but the visual polish can’t quite address some small elements that weren’t able to be revitalized.

In the game you’ll play the part of George, an American tourist who gets pulled into some foreign intrigue when he witnesses a cafe bombing in Paris. Unable to merely leave the case to the very unusual officers who arrive on the scene, he ends up being paired with a photojournalist named Nico, going off on an puzzle-solving adventure that will take them to a number of exotic locales as they try to uncover the conspiracy that’s afoot.

If you’re familiar with typical old-school adventure titles, most everything here will be old hat. You’ll be able to move between environments, scanning each location for clues, some potential inventory items, and looking to chat up pretty well everyone you’ll encounter. Progress will sometimes work out in a common sense way, but there will likely also be times when it feels like you’ll need to go out on a limb to figure out how to proceed, and with the underlying structure being from yesteryear there aren’t really provisions for getting help. Aside from those periodic potential frustrations if you find yourself stuck, while the game’s look is quite nice, unfortunately its speech can be on the quiet and dodgy side, though it’s at least delivered well enough overall.

While the Broken Sword series plays out as much more of a straight affair when compared to contemporaries like the LucasArts titles, it still has some amusing quirks and well-written dialogue on the whole. Mechanically, the means of checking out each area and finding the elements you’re able to interact with is handled quite well, certainly more sensibly than some peers which can make even simple tasks like that feel like more of a chore. While not everything here feels quite perfect, for genre fans it's still a pretty solid adventure to undertake.