YMMV / Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars

• Complete Monster: 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.
• First Installment Wins: Although many will argue the sequels have their own merits, both fans and critics agree this is the best installment in the series. The Shadow of the Templars was acclaimed for memorable side characters, dialogues full of witty British humor, and an enthralling conspiracy plot created from real-life history. The sequels tried to replicate the magic in this game, but they weren't met with the same praise for missing the charm of at least one of these, in addition to embedding some issues criticized in this game (see Franchise Original Sin) without fixing them.
• Franchise Original Sin: The later games (especially The Angel of Death) are often criticized for their rushed climax, but the very first game had some seeds. The last section of this game has rather abrupt Relationship Upgrade between George and Nico (though Director’s Cut tries to address this by expanding the latter's backstory), and the showdown against your nemesis merely consists of a few simple puzzles, a trait that sequels would adopt or turn into something even worse.
• Magnificent Bastard: Khan is a member of the Hashashin and is an assassin who is hellbent on stopping the Templars from utilising the power of Baphomet and ruling world. Khan murders several of the Templars, each time disguising himself in various costumes and using multiple false identities to avoid detection by the media and the police. Aware that one of their members had a manuscript, Khan steals it from him blows the Neo-Templar up in a cafe. Khan also follows the trail that George Stobbart does to Ireland to find the Lochmann gem, kidnapping the person who had the gem with them. In Syria, Khan questions George and deduces that Baphomet is in Britain. Khan means to travel to Baphomet's church, equipped with explosives to destroy both Baphomet and the Templars. Even when faced with death, Khan goes to defend him and Nico from two Templars, showing Stobbart respect and remains one of the duo's only foes to earn it back.
• Porting Disaster: The Game Boy Advance version 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.
• That One Puzzle: The Goat Puzzle is so notorious in its difficulty it has its own Wikipedia page. George must allow the goat to butt him, then click on the machinery as the goat returns to its position to move it, then let the goat charge again and get tangled in the machinery. However simple the solution may seem, this puzzle runs counter to every other puzzle in the game and has Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay to boot, and its legacy lives on in the minds of gamers.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The changes made in Director's Cut were contentious, to put it lightly. Some additions were welcomed, like the new Nico's section and the ability to skip many of the slower animation, while others...not so much. Due to loss of the original source code, the developer had to build upon what they could recover from finished product, and as such, the new assets tend to heavily clash with the old ones, from the quality of voice acting (like Nico's new actor) to the highly acclaimed graphics. The deaths scenes are also censored, making it impossible for George to die. Thankfully, the digital version available on Steam and GOG.com includes the original DOS release.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: One of the better received additions in 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.