I didn't realize I only had an hour and a half left with the game. If I'd known, I would probably have waited to write my previous post. I guess it's a convenient excuse to separate out my spoilery observations, though.
So, about Broken Age's story. Act one is much better than act two. I think it has something to do with the big twist - the monster, MOG Chothra, is actually Shay's ship, and the "creatures" he was "rescuing" were actually the girls sacrificed at the various Maidens Feasts. That was the very best kind of plot twist, because it immediately changed the whole context of the story, but made perfect sense in retrospect (so much so that I don't think this counts as too huge a spoiler - if I'd played Vella's story before Shay's, I'm certain I would have picked up on it).
However, the way act one ended set up some problems for act two that it was never quite able to overcome. The biggest issue being that while Vella getting trapped on the ship, and Shay in the unfamiliar outside world has the potential to reveal a lot of interesting stuff about both characters, it also means that the best part of act one - the game's sense of inventiveness, and the excitement of discovering new, fantastic locations or zany, sci-fi conceits - is no longer viable. Act two introduces no new locations and only a single new character (who only appears over a viewscreen, at that). It was a little disappointing.
It didn't help that the plot itself was very (maybe excessively) simple. You basically have two different variations on spaceship repair. Shay's half had the advantage of being out in the open, and having a greater diversity of characters. Vella's, by contrast, felt claustrophobic, though you did learn more about the motives and identity of the villains (they're not important - basically a boilerplate "poorly thought-out bad-guy plan" involving eugenics of dubious utility).
I don't mean to be so down on act two, though. It was fun seeing the characters in each others' worlds, and the way that their new perspectives caused those worlds to behave differently, and, except perhaps for the very end and a couple of tense points in Vella's storyline, Broken Age never lost its breezy pace and easy humor.
I think the most controversial part of act two is the revelation that "Mom" and "Dad" are not, in fact, AIs, but Shay's actual parents. Act one was very misleading about this, and I'm not entirely sure this twist is earned. It's a change that makes Shay into kind of a jerk (when he was already almost too bristly to the cheerful and friendly robots), and pushes Mom into the realm of delusional insanity (the way she treated Shay made perfect sense for a poorly programmed AI, but I'm not at all convinced that a human woman, who presumably lived through adolescence herself, would make the sort of mistakes that Mom makes). I'm going to reserve judgement on this, though, until I replay act one and see how well it's foreshadowed (though I'm pretty sure there are at least a couple of lines that don't track with the characterization of Shay as a sullen teenager who treats his parents like computers, but nonetheless has full knowledge of their true nature).
For now, I am going to start the game over and try to get as many of the achievements as possible. Looking over the list, it looks like a lot of these are for poking your nose into the corners of the game and triggering optional lines, which is fine by me. I really enjoy the little jokes you hear this way. I'm not sure whether this will take another eight and a half hours
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