Broken Sword / YMMV

Accidental Innuendo: Plenty.
- In The Shadow of the Templars, some guys are impressed by George's sewer key.
- Old Ron likes to eat rabbits because that's where he gets his "juices" flowing.
- "I pushed my fingers into the narrow crack."
- “Hey you with the balls, you've forgotten one of your balls, hey!”
- At Montfaucon church:
  George: Boy, you've got the shine on this!
  Priest: Merci. It's on the wrist action.
- When George gives an antidote to Nico in the second game:
  George: Drink this.
  Nico: Oh, George — it's horrible!
  George: Just swallow it down.
- In The Sleeping Dragon, George tries to stop the spikes to let Nico cross the other side of the entrance. Twice as funny when you look at George's expression while hearing this line:
  George: Can't...hold it...much longer!
- One of the developer diaries in The Sleeping Dragon has this interesting commentary:
  Charles: They got the giggles for 10 minutes at one point. Although what's funny about the lines: "Hey Nico, come and hold this, whilst I shove the rod in" and her reply of: "I'm not going to stand here holding it all day" I will never know.
- In The Angel of Death, when George tries to get the key from under a potted plant:
  Brother Mark: Hey, get your hands off my shrubs!
  George: I didn’t touch your shrubs!
  Brother Mark: Well, anyone can see you want to!
- "The devil's work is always an inside job!"
- Upon examining the chest in Nico's apartment:
  George: Looks like Nico kept her most secret possessions close to her chest.
All Animation Is Disney: The cutscenes from the first and second games are mistaken as Disney-style animation by some critics and fans.
Alternate Character Interpretation:
- The goat in the first game is either a stubborn creature who protects his territory or being a Jerkass Woobie who gets mistreated by his owner.
- Duane. Is he a person who secretly works as a CIA operative and pretends to be a tourist, or simply a man who's become delusional from his experiences in the war?
- Khan. Is he just an ordinary villain who keeps threatening George throughout the story? An interesting character where his Hashashin status remains vague? A hero who defends the honor of the original Knights Templar against people who use their name for ruling the world?
- Sergeant Moue. In the second game, Nico said to George that Moue received a promotion as an inspector after he investigated the Neo-Templars case. It is speculated that Moue can be a Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass if given a chance.
- Is George trying to break out from his boring job as a lawyer? Or is he a person who doesn't mind wasting his money on his trips just to experience adventure?
And You Thought It Would Fail: Revolution tried asking Virgin Interactive to publish the first game on Playstation. Virgin refused because they thought that 3D games were more profitable. Sony wasn't enthralled with that idea either but decided to publish the game anyway. It turns out that the game was commercial and critical success, selling more than 650,000 copies.
Angst? What Angst?: In The Sleeping Dragon, Beatrice is seen crying after she found out that Vernon was killed and yet a few days later she is hanging out with André as her new boyfriend.
Animation Age Ghetto: The Shadow of the Templars and The Smoking Mirror have colorful graphics and cutscenes, so it can be safely assumed that they're kids' games, right? Nope. There's a lot of sexual innuendo, death scenes, mild swearing and mature themes. And yet, there were many small children who ended up playing them, despite the high age-ratings.
Anti-Climax Boss:
- Near the end of second game, Tezcatlipoca shows up around few minutes and the player only has to watch George, Nico and Titipoco trap that monster. Revolution realized that this was a bad idea and tried to make the last scene in the third game more challenging but...
- The fight between Nico and Petra is never seen near the end of the third game.
- In the fifth game, Nico managed to convince Shears to change sides by having a philosophical argument. When Shears finds out that Medovsky is selfish and doesn't care with anyone, Shears shoots Medovsky in an instant. Considering that Medovsky looked like Putin that was understandable.
Approval of God: Charles Cecil was very impressed about the Fan Sequel Broken Sword 2.5.
Charles: But beyond that, we see it as very flattering. Broken Sword 2.5 — I mean, great! I really admire the guys that did that. We provided them some sprites and stuff, but the rest of it they did absolutely by themselves.
Ass Pull:
- Near the end of the fourth game, it never explained how Anna-Maria, Brother Mark, Spallaci, Archie and Mevlut managed to get inside the basement in St. Peters.
- Eva, who has no interest in Gnosticism suddenly decides to become a Gnostic leader at the end of the game without any explanation.
Awesome Art: The first, second and fifth games are praised for their fantastic backgrounds and animations.
Awesome Music: One of the things that fans love about this series is the music. The most memorable of them all is the opening in The Shadow of the Templars. It's so fantastic that The Serpent's Curse reused that theme for nostalgia.
- All of the music from the first game certainly qualify courtesy of Barrington Pheloung including Hotel Ubu's theme and Ireland's theme.
- The Smoking Mirror has Marseilles Docks music, Quaramontean music and the ending theme
- The soundtracks in The Sleeping Dragon has "Into the Power Site", "Rooftops of Prague", and even this cool ending theme.
- Even though the reception of The Angel of Death is a mixed bag, not many fans complain about its soundtracks. The main theme, "New York" and the PDA hacking music are some of the examples.
- Some of the additional music from Director's Cut are also great like "Stars", "Watching", and "Someday".
- "Jasmine" in The Serpent's Curse, which is also an ear worm.
Base-Breaking Character:
- The goat. Some people hated it because of the infamous puzzle in the first game while there are others who liked it because it's one of the reasons why the series is popular.
- Some characters from the first two games returning in The Serpent's Curse, especially Lady Piermont. Some people complained that those characters felt different and they just appeared for fanservice. Other people, especially some fans who backed in the Kickstarter wanted those characters to show up.
- Shears, some liked him but others think he isn't great due to his anti-climatic battle with Medovsky.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
- The Angel of Death has the talking metal box in Black Cat Massage Parlor. Nobody knows how it ended there and George doesn't mention about it to anyone after he escaped.
- The dancing segment between George (disguised as Henri) and Bijou in The Serpent's Curse.
Broken Base: The fanbase is split regarding the release of The Sleeping Dragon. There are fans who love the series in 2D graphics (the first two games, in particular) over The Sleeping Dragon and The Angel of Death, the fans who enjoyed the games except The Angel of Death, the fans who like the games that have point-and-click interface and a minority group of fans who only like the games in 3D. Then, there are fans who don't mind the 3D graphics and embrace the series as a whole. Twice as funny due to the fandom pun present on this trope. The only thing that the fandom does seem to agree is that The Angel of Death is the weakest entry in the series (see Contested Sequel below).
- There are also some fans who think that the first game is great, but believed that the series is getting worse after that.
- The series' timeline has also met with some debates, despite that Word of God confirmed it doesn't have one.
Common Knowledge: Flamina Cinque is often cited as Nico's voice actress in the second game. Actually, Word of God stated on his Twitter account that Jenny Caron Hall is the one who voiced Nico.
- The same thing happened to Nico's voice actress in the first game. Some fans thought it was Rachel Atkins as Nico's first voice actress, but Rolf Saxon stated in an interview that Hazel Ellerby played Nico in the first game.
Complete Monster:
- Shadow of the Templars & The Sleeping Dragon: The Grand Master is the ruthless leader of the Neo-Templars who seeks to use Baphomet's power to manipulate the minds of humanity to serve his organization. To aid him in his quest for conquest, the Grand Master would use his members to manipulate governments, causing strife and discord to weaken them. Apathetic to the death of his own followers, the Grand Master would also have his followers executed if they were shown to be liabilities. Returning after his supposed demise, the Grand Master abandons any ideologies of the Templars, firstly trying to burn one of his old followers alive in a barn. Using his newfound powers, the Grand Master horrifically murders multiple of Susarro's soldiers before killing Susarro himself. The Grand Master's final plan was to use the dragon energy for himself, aware yet uncaring of the destruction it would bring upon the planet.
- The Smoking Mirror:
  - Karzac is a Cuban drug lord who is contacted by the imprisoned and ancient god of death, Tezcatlipoca, and, making a deal with the evil god, Karzac begins making plans to release the god from his prison. Requiring the assistance of renowned scientist Professor Bertrand Oubier, Karzac murders the man's wife, forcibly addicts him to drugs, then later executes him when he outlives his usefulness, something his own troops are not exempt from either. Along with regularly attempting to murder George Stobbart and his girlfriend, photojournalist Nicole "Nico" Collard, at various times, Karzac leads an assault on a small village George is hiding in, burning it down and attempting to kill every villager residing there. Karzac then hopes to sacrifice George to open the door for Tezcatlipoca to come to Earth and cause untold amounts of chaos and destruction, something Karzac is fully aware yet uncaring of, hoping for unlimited power in return for dooming humanity.
  - Tezcatlipoca himself is the sadistic Mayan god that Karzac seeks to release. Many centuries ago, Tezcatlipoca deceived Quetzalcoatl and stole his powers to enact a new reign on Mayan civilization, with countless blood sacrifices in his name. Sealed away by Quetzalcoatl's priests, Tezcatlipoca spoke to Karzac in his dreams and conspired to release him from his prison, starting off by having Karzac get Professor Oubier hooked onto drugs and killing his wife. When released, Tezcatlipoca lets out a wave of energy that reduces anyone surrounding his pyramid to skeletons before impaling Karzac on his spear, dissolving his flesh. Tezcatlipoca's ultimate sadistic goal is to gleefully unleash a new reign of horror on civilization.
Contested Sequel:
- A lot of fans despised The Sleeping Dragon, mostly because of stuff like 3D graphics, too much crate puzzles, and clunky keyboard controls. Others find it pretty decent but not on par with the first two games. Still, there are some fans who enjoyed the game and found its story and characters more interesting than The Smoking Mirror's.
- The Angel of Death is regarded by many as the weakest game in the series due to have awkward controls, many illogical puzzles, less interesting plot, Nico being Demoted to Extra, some continuity errors and the worst ending. Despite the hate, there are some fans who think that the controls, graphics and puzzles are better than the third game.
- While many fans agreed that The Serpent's Curse made a lot of improvement over The Sleeping Dragon and The Angel of Death, there are some fans who were disappointed to it due to the pacing of the plot, easy puzzles and reliance in fanservice. Others think it's good but not up to standards of the first two games. Most fans agree that it's not a good idea to split the game into two episodes, though.
Critical Dissonance:
- The Sleeping Dragon received a lot of positive reviews from critics and some nominations. Fans, on the other hand had mixed opinions because of the graphics and the use of direct controls.
- Despite The Serpent's Curse received mixed reviews from critics, many fans liked it and considered as a true return to the series' 2D roots.
Crosses the Line Twice: The ending in The Serpent's Curse.Turning Donna into a suicide bomber by attaching a sausage dynamite on her body? Hilarious. Wait until you find out that Shears butchered that goat and turned her into doner kebab.
Die for Our Ship: Anna-Maria. She sacrifices her life at the end to let George stop the ceremony and save Nico.
Disappointing Last Level:
- The Mayan wheel puzzle room in The Smoking Mirror. Fortunately, there's a secret solution to solve that puzzle quickly.
- The final challenge in The Sleeping Dragon, where it involves George must charge towards the dragon. Before that, there's another crate puzzle...
- The last puzzle in The Serpent's Curse certainly does a mention, too.
Draco in Leather Pants: Khan, even on this wiki. Some people tend to forget that, even if his victims are mostly of the Asshole category, he set his bomb to murder Plantard while knowing that George and especially the waitress could have been killed as well.
Ensemble Dark Horse: The goat in Ireland, to the point where it becomes an Easter Egg in the sequels as well as a recurring character in The Serpent's Curse.
- Khan, due to how badass he is, has guts in wearing wacky costumes and his sense of honor. He is even chosen as one of the best assassins in video games in ''The Telegraph''.
- Lady Piermont is considerably popular thanks to her quirks and being helpful to George. However in The Serpent's Curse, she becomes a Base-Breaking Character due to her new voice and her role being unnecesarry to the plot.
- Some side characters are fairly popular as well: Sergeant Moue, the Hendersons, Maguire, Nejo, Ultar, the Ketch sisters, Rio, Titipoco, Eamon O' Mara, Archie and even Trevor. Moue and the Hendersons returned for The Serpent's Curse because of this.
- On the antagonist side, Petra is well-liked and has quite a following.
- Brother Mark. His Ambiguously Gay status and Ho Yay hints with George do help. Even many detractors in The Angel of Death say he was one of the few highlights on the game.
- Shears, mainly because of his hilarious interest in philosophy.
Fandom Rivalry: With Gabriel Knight. While most fans of the former like Broken Sword as well, and vice versa, some dislike the latter for its absurdity and similarities both games have. Gabriel Knight has been compared to the works of Stephen King due to its mystery elements, whereas Broken Sword has more escapist adventure elements akin to Indiana Jones.
Fan Nickname: Some fans called the stealth segments in The Sleeping Dragon and The Angel of Death as Metal Gear Stobbart.
Fanon Discontinuity: There are some fans who like to pretend that The Sleeping Dragon and The Angel of Death never happened because of their 3D graphics. Others choose to ignore the latter for some reasons.
First Installment Wins: Majority of Broken Sword fans and game critics will agree that the original Shadow of the Templars is the greatest among the series.
- In terms of voice actors, Hazel Ellerby is remembered by many fans as Nico's original voice actress than her successors.
Franchise Original Sin: The Smoking Mirror was the start of cliches of future Broken Sword sequels, including modern crime that involves an ancient artifact, villains with ambition to gain godlike powers, supernatural elements, and the climax happens at the secret temple.
Fridge Logic: Anna-Maria and Brother Mark are familiar with the Vatican since they studied about it for their profession. The former being an ex-member of the Order while the latter was more likely studied the map of St. Peters before.
Game-Breaker: In DS version of Director's Cut, you can bypass the sliding block puzzles in Ile de la Cité by sliding the lower screen from upper left to lower right corner.
Harsher in Hindsight:
- In the first game, George wonders if Pearl's choice of her attire is deliberate or accidental to the customs in Middle Eastern countries like Syria. In the third game, Nico wears shorts in Egypt then the fifth game, she's walking in an Iraqi desert while wearing skirt and black leggings.
- Khan's terrible actions like bombing a cafe reflect to terrorist attacks happening these days. Unfortunately, Paris was attacked by terrorists twice in 2015.
- An incident about a suspect dressed as a clown in Paris becomes more terrifying when there are reports of clown-related violence in France.
- In the second game, Father Hubert tells George that he's stranded in the jungle for 11 years and how he refuses to talk about the tribesmen in the jungle. It gets worse when you remember that he's a priest and he left his children in the village.
- The last line Henri said before his death is actually a line from his band's popular song "Jasmine".
- In the fifth game, George's statement about Iraq not being a tourist spot gets worse when you remember the current situation of that country.
- In Shadow of the Templars, George goes to Syria and gets chased by an angry man wielding a massive knife. Later on, he is almost executed. At the time of the games release (1996), Syria was a popular tourist destination and considered safe to visit, but now..
- In the third game, George discovers books about sex and comments that he's not afraid of learning new tricks. Cue in the fourth game, George is having sex with Anna-Maria.
He Panned It, Now He Sucks!: Adventure Gamer's review about The Smoking Mirror received backlash from some people who enjoyed the game.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- In the first game, after Flap is thrown out of the train:
  George: I hope he returns with travelling ticket.
- Also in the first game, when George and Nico sneak through the enemy's hideout. "It wouldn't surprise me if they're holding some kind of satanic sex ritual."
  - An American man and a French woman met in the middle of murder investigation and then discovered an Ancient Conspiracy involving the Knights Templar? Why does that ring a bell? Not only that the series is often compared with that book these days, but also Cecil was the puzzle designer of the video game version of that novel.
  - Furthermore, a more famous game franchise took the Templars vs Assassins background story of the first game and ran with it.
- "Good luck, George. Watch out for the walking dead!"
- The Smoking Mirror has a lot of crates in Condor Transglobal warehouse (George even pushed a couple of these). Cue The Sleeping Dragon, George encounters more crates in the whole game.
- In the second game, Flash tells the director that the movie they're filming should be in 3D. He's referring to 3D animated movies, but nowadays...
- At the start of the third game, Vernon managed to decode the Voynich manuscript. Around ten years later, someone successfully deciphered some of the manuscript's contents.
- In the third game, George asks Nico if she brought her cloak of invisibility.
- In Director's Cut, Nico discovers a broken drainpipe and comments that "Some idiot had tried to climb it.". The Sleeping Dragon had quite a contrary when she attempted to climb one.
- Nico and Petra being enemies at each other becomes funnier when Nico's German voice actress in The Serpent's Curse is named Petra Konradi.
- In the first game, George tells Nico that they have to keep the manuscript safe because it's too fragile. However in the fourth game, George opens a safe using the grinding machine without worrying about the damage of Anna-Maria's manuscript inside.
- According to this interview, Word of God said that he regretted of not using direct controls for the console version of the first two games. Looks like he forgot about it when Revolution ported The Serpent's Curse in consoles, though...
Ho Yay: George and Brother Mark has few of these moments until Brother Mark reveals that he is straight in the final confrontation in Vatican. Even Nico notices that there's something going on between them.
- George and André, according to some fans.
Inferred Holocaust: The effects of Dragon Energy to the world like the massive flood in Glastonbury are horrible.
It's Easy, So It Sucks!: The puzzles in The Sleeping Dragon and The Serpent's Curse get a fair share of this.
It's Short, So It Sucks!:
- This is one of the complaints of some fans who never enjoyed The Smoking Mirror due to its rushed development.
- Some fans felt that The Serpent's Curse is short, most likely because of its puzzles.
Love to Hate: Khan and Petra.
Memetic Mutation:
- "That fucking goat!"
- Broken Sword Time!
- Comparing Broken Sword (especially the first game) to The Da Vinci Code or Dan Brown's novels in general.
- "Il 'akl kalb" ^Explanation
Moment of Awesome: In the fourth game, George attempts to defuse the bomb inside Anna-Maria's apartment while in hungover. Where and how did he learned that trick? By hacking information from the military website!
- This also has Hilarious in Hindsight moment to the first game: If George drinks too much beer, Maguire will tell George that he's drunk, but George claims that he's not and still capable to solve some puzzles.
Most Wonderful Sound: Happens when you solve puzzles, explore new areas or discover important clues.
Moral Event Horizon:
- Susarro makes a surprise attack to the members of St. Stefan Chapter of Knights Templar and kills them in the third game.
- In the fifth game, Langham crosses this line when he kills Tiago right in front of Eva. Worse, even if George gives the Tabula, Langham will still break the condition.
Narm:
- Near the end of the first game, the picture of George and Nico's legs◊ while standing on the cliff are rather amusing, in contrast to their serious situation.
- In the second game, the "Certain Death" label appears downstairs before Tezcatlipoca's chamber. It looks more amusing than serious.
- The lyrics to the song during the credits of the second game are hilarious. A sample: "Happiness is an inside job. Whether your name is Mary. Whether your name is Bob."
- The third game has Nico's idle animations. She's doing that even in the middle of some life-threatening situations and discussing about the end of the world. Here is an example◊.
- The way André walks in The Sleeping Dragon is so weird, it's pretty funny.
- In the third game, if George fails to avoid the bomb in the Armillary, his death scream sounds hilarious.
  George: BOMB! GET DOWN! AIEEEEEE!
- The remake of the first game. While still quite enjoyable with its amount of expansion, it can become quite jarring even for first-time players, for several reasons. First off, the voice clips were re-used from the original game and were not rerecorded for the remake — meaning Nico's voice noticeably changes when it goes in between them. The artstyle is also obviously different. It almost feels alien, given the amount of re-used assets.
Narm Charm: The voice acting in general. Some say that the accents are terrible and over the top but they were highly praised nevertheless.
Never Live It Down:
- Fans who played the original Shadow of the Templars will never forget their terrible experiences in solving the Goat Puzzle.
- When it comes to The Sleeping Dragon, many fans tend to remember the crate puzzles.
Nostalgia Filter: Fans agree that the first two games are disputed classics. Most of the current adult fans were probably children when those games are first released.
Older Than They Think:
- The Da Vinci Code isn't the first story where an American man and French woman are solving a Templar-related mystery in Europe while an assassin is hunting at them.
- The idea of having crate puzzles and stealth segments were used in The Smoking Mirror, six years before The Sleeping Dragon came out.
- Several critics cited that the diaries as hints were the new features in Director's Cut and Remastered, even though The Sleeping Dragon and The Angel of Death used them six years before.
Once Original, Now Common: The Shadow of the Templars introduced the mixture of The Knights Templar, Ancient Conspiracy quests and globetrotting in Europe into the story. Nowadays, it has been overshadowed by The Da Vinci Code and Assassin's Creed - both works were released nearly a decade later. Word of God and the fanbase speculated that the game is one of Dan Brown's influence in writing The Da Vinci Code in the first place, as the novel has a lot of similarities to the game.
One True Threesome: George/Nico/André. Duane lampshades about them in the second game if you show him the panties.
Only the Writer Does It Right: There are quite few number of fans who felt that the series has never been the same after The Smoking Mirror. This is due to the writer Dave Cummins left Revolution.
Pandering to the Base: The entire point of The Serpent's Curse, which features the return of 2D graphics, some fan-favorite characters, and point-and-click gameplay.
Paranoia Fuel: In the first game, you'll be worried about running to Khan in some places until you face him in Bull's Head Hill.
Player Punch:
- Towards the end of The Sleeping Dragon, Bruno sacrifices himself to let George and Nico leave the temple. As Bruno dies, George breaks down and Nico has no choice but to hug him.
- The Angel of Death. George heard Nico's voice and the sound of gunshots from Spallaci's radio. Upon learning that Nico has been killed by the mafia, George decides to have a drink and attempts suicide.
Polished Port: The Serpent's Curse on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox ONE versions comes with some new features like adding people in the streets of Paris, more character animations, built-in speaker in DualShock controller, and a Gallery Mode where it shows off the character's profiles.
Porting Disaster:
- The Playstation version in the first two games were saddled from using Point-and-Click interface and frequent loading times. Word of God regretted that he should have thought of using direct controls.
- The Sleeping Dragon in PS2 and Xbox version suffered from ridiculously long loading times, slow framerates and some graphical glitches. It's a shame that the control scheme in those versions are more suited than in the PC version.
- The Game Boy Advance version of The Shadow of the Templars has some bugs that forces players to restart the game. It also has no voice acting, the visuals and animations are heavily compressed, and due to the lack of buttons on the GBA, George is directly controlled.
Rewatch Bonus: Replaying the second game, you'll realize that there are some foreshadowing regarding Emily as a ghost.
Ron the Death Eater: Some fans treated Khan as a villain due to his threatening behavior towards George.
The Scrappy: Inspector Navet from The Serpent's Curse is hated by some fans for being pompous and arrogant detective. The fact that he insults George for being an amateur investigator and blames Moue for mistakes makes him underwhelming.
Scrappy Mechanic: The action event segments and the notorious crate puzzles in The Sleeping Dragon. You can't save during the middle of stealth sections, action events, and escape sequences, either.
- Many players, especially adventure game purists hate the stealth sections in The Sleeping Dragon and The Angel of Death. You have no clue when you're going to move and hide, and the games don't have an option to control camera angles.
- Some fans are not impressed about hacking puzzles in The Angel of Death as well.
Sequel Difficulty Drop: The Smoking Mirror is significantly easier than The Shadows of the Templars, mostly thanks to limiting the number of location screens the characters are allowed to visit to three or four as well as significantly downplaying the risk of death factor; while you can still die every once in a while, it's always obvious that you're in danger and you're given so much time to react accordingly than an overwhelming majority of gamers have never even realized it is possible to die in the very first scene of the second game if you wait long enough. The third game played this trope again, this time in relation to the second, flirting with It's Easy, So It Sucks! in the process (at least as far as puzzles go because the action and stealth sequences can be challenging at times), and while Angel of Death upped the difficulty again, The Serpent's Curse was casualized all over again (though it is still significantly harder than The Sleeping Dragon).
Sequelitis: The first game is usually regarded as the best by critics and players. The followups enter Contested Sequel territory.
Shocking Moments: Admit it, you were surprised that Emily is actually a ghost.
Signature Scene: The opening in the Shadow of the Templars is by far the most memorable scene in the series.
- The Marseilles Docks section in The Smoking Mirror.
- Bruno's Heroic Sacrifice in the third game.
Squick: In the first game, when George warns Lady Piermont about Flap and Guido, Lady Piermont tells him that she'll hide her credit cards in her underwear.
- At the same game, the toilet brush from Club Alamut is used by Arto to baste kebabs. What's more disgusting is that the kebabs are made out of dog meat.
Strangled by the Red String: The romance between George and Nico can across as this.
Surprisingly Improved Sequel: The general consensus among fans who never enjoyed The Sleeping Dragon and The Angel of Death think that The Serpent's Curse is better than those games.
Suspiciously Similar Song: The music in The Serpent's Curse episode one trailer is similar to this documentary's opening theme.
Tainted by the Preview: The Serpent's Curse trailer receives mixed responses from fans. Mainly because they want the character models return to 2D instead of 3D.
That One Level:
- To many fans, the Escape Sequence level in Paris is the hardest in the third game. George has to run away from Petra until he reaches the elevator. When George dies in that part, you have to endure watching an unskippable cut scene over again and if you have PS2 or XBox version, the loading times to complete.
- The Stealth-Based Missions in Prague and Templar headquarters also count.
That One Puzzle: The Goat Puzzle in the first game still haunts people to this day. Lampshaded by George in Director's Cut.
- In the second game, there's a maze in Zombie Island. If George didn't grab the branch immediately after he shot the boar, then good luck navigating your way to the hilltop. This problem has been fixed in Remastered version.
- In The Angel of Death, some of the puzzles that uses the manuscript as clues certainly qualifies. Particularly the one where you must rotate the crosses in Vatican to open the secret passage.
- At the same game, George has to solve a hacking puzzle in Anna-Maria's apartment to gather information about defusing a bomb. The puzzle only gives you ten minutes but most of its time is consumed from solving a puzzle. When you successfully hacked the military website, you have to read long instructions which is also time consuming.
- The Tabula Veritatis in The Serpent's Curse can be tough to solve without using hints.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: One of the common complaints in The Sleeping Dragon and The Angel of Death, mostly because of their graphics.
- When The Sleeping Dragon was released initially, some fans complained about George's buffness.
- Fans who played the first game criticize Director's Cut for changing the Opening Narration, mixed voice quality, adding character portraits, eliminating death scenes and some unimportant descriptions that were humorous.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
- The waiter from The Serpent's Curse would have another role, as he's always listening to his customer's conversations.
- Eva fits the bill as well. She has a fair amount of backstory and is supposed to join with George and Nico to solve mysteries and protect them from henchmen. Instead, she only appears around few times and has less dialogues. To top it off, she becomes a Damsel in Distress and then experiences an epiphany at the end.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
- One of the better received additions in The Shadow of the Templars Director's Cut is the ability to play as Nico and explore the plot from her point of view. However, Nico's sections are limited to Paris, and once the story moves to Ireland, the player is stuck with George for the rest of the game. As such there are plenty of locales where Nico could have served as a protagonist and helped flesh out the plot more.
- There are some events from The Sleeping Dragon that aren't mentioned in The Angel of Death, such as George being a member of the Knights Templar. He could have seek help from his fellow members to find the Ark especially that treasure has involvement with that holy order.
- Some fans suggested that The Angel of Death should have an epilogue where George and Nico visit Anna-Maria's grave and talk about their future plans.
- The plot in The Serpent's Curse could have had Langham and Medovsky teaming up, as both of them wanted the painting and capture George and Nico.
Tough Act to Follow: The Shadow of the Templars is generally considered as one of the best adventure games. Four sequels were made and none of them surpassed the brilliance of the original. While The Smoking Mirror received popularity over the next few years, it's still suffered from the comparison in the first game.
- Then there's Barrington Pheloung, the composer of the first two Broken Sword games. When fans talk about the series' music, most of them remember his work. This is the reason why he returned in The Serpent's Curse.
Ugly Cute: Trevor, in The Serpent's Curse.
Vindicated by History:
- The Smoking Mirror, originally. It did receive positive reviews initially, but it was subject to Hype Backlash. When the Director's Cut was released, reception was much much more positive.
- The Sleeping Dragon gets this to a certain degree. While being inferior to the previous installments due to the change of graphics and gameplay, over the years it's gotten more favorable response compare to the next game.
Values Dissonance: In the first game, Fitzgerald's uncle goes to the pub for a drink instead of searching his nephew after the accident. The scene is later edited in Director's Cut.
Visual Effects of Awesome: The Anubis hologram in The Sleeping Dragon.
What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Despite having chilling death sequences, plenty of sexual innuendos, and a scene where Fitzgerald's blood is shown, it was strange why the first game on the PC was given a KA rating then. The Playstation version, Game Boy Advance version and its sequels avoid this by having a "Teen" or "12+" rating.
What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?: The butchery of Donna at the end of The Serpent's Curse has something to do with the animal sacrifices in the Old Testament.
Win Back the Crowd: After the poor reception of The Sleeping Dragon and The Angel of Death, The Serpent's Curse has been trying to recapture the magic of the first two games. Receptions are mixed after the release of the second episode, but the game seems less divisive than its two predecessors.
The Woobie: When Nico tells her story in the first game especially in Director's Cut, it's not hard to feel sorry for her (see the game's Tear Jerker page).
- Imelda Carchon in Director's Cut.
- Renee Croquet in the first game. Despite his odd behavior, he doesn't have any visitors and feels like being abandoned by the rest of the world.
- Bruno Ostvald in The Sleeping Dragon especially when he sacrifices his life.

YMMV / Broken Sword

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