Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

The art style is great, and the game is technically super solid, but if it's aim was to make me emotional or invested in the two boys it sadly failed. This could just be me but I've become very desensitized to this whole *indie* genre of pretty, artfully done platformers that are deliberately easy and made for the "experience."

Every one of these games, such as this, Never Alone, Ori and the Blind Forest, etc, are all to a certain extent trying to replicate ICO, but none have mastered the perfect combination of artistic presentation, creepy weirdness, and fun platforming that Fumito Ueda's classic contained.

Easy, but a moving experience that engages my fingers in unexpected ways. I wish it were longer and harder. The ending got to me.

The core idea (and twist) behind "Brothers" is probably one of the best in all History of games.
Problem is, you have to play an ugly, terribly generic platformer to experience it. It's not worth it.

"Brothers: A Tale Of Two Sons" is a 3D puzzle platformer where you control two characters at the same time. The big brother is controlled using the Left Stick and his action button is the Left Trigger, whereas the little brother is controlled using the Right Stick and his action button in the Right Trigger.

Big brother is stronger so can pull the tougher levers and can swim. Little brother can fit through small spaces. For the most part, you will move them both at the same time, but there are sections that require one brother to move on ahead, then perform some kind of action which will help the other brother progress.

The majority of the puzzles are very simplistic but the challenge comes from the co-ordination of the brothers. I'd imagine some people will struggle more than others with the control scheme but I think this kind of challenge is very entertaining.

There are many random items and people that you can interact with for humorous results, and it's cool that the different brothers give different results. There's a guy with a harp, and the big brother has no musical talent, whereas the little brother seems musically talented much to the surprise of the musician. Big brother will simply peer down the well, whereas little brother will spit in it. It was good to look out for objects to potentially interact with.

I think the game does well at mixing up the environments and giving you different kinds of puzzles to keep things interesting. You will visit villages, mountain areas, forests, caves, castles and more.

The dialog in the game is in gibberish but there's not many cutscenes to deliver the story. I think the game's content was surprisingly dark. It does start by explaining the little brother's fear or water because he saw his Mother drown. You are currently on a quest to find a cure for your ill Father. Along the way you do find a guy about to commit suicide, there's a cult about to sacrifice a woman who you end up rescuing, and there's the death of certain characters (one of which is a surprise death shortly after you rescue them).

The game only takes a few hours to complete and is enjoyable, but maybe not as revolutionary as some critics made out at the time of release.

Great, emotional storytelling, but the gameplay is mediocre at best.

Puzzles aren't that great/challenging and the controls are too wonky for my taste. If not for the storytelling, I probably wouldn't have seen this one through to the end (despite it being so short).

I like the fact that Brothers uses its mechanics for narrative purposes, but the game lacks good puzzle design and polish. And also controls awkwardly. And its setting and story are really boring imo.