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dkirschner's Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (PC)
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| [January 21, 2014 12:44:46 PM]
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Continuing my MLK Day extravaganza...
Straight off the bat, Brothers was something amazing. So the premise of the game is simple. You play as two brothers simultaneously. Your mom is dead. Your dad is ill and you have to take him to the town doctor. The controls! God, the controls. So you use the left stick and left trigger to control the big brother and the right stick and right trigger to control the little brother. Sticks move and triggers are for actions. Your dad is in a cart to be transported. So move one brother to the front of the cart and one to the back, then hold both triggers. The boys lift the cart and then you can move the boys simultaneously with both sticks. When they're moving a cart or other object, it's almost like controlling a ship. But once they get their dad to the town doctor's house, they set off on their own on an adventure to find a cure.
Controlling the boys separately is a little harder and more fun. They run through the rest of the rural town on their way, following a map that the doctor gave them. They can interact with a lot of the residents of the town and sometimes other objects. Most of the time, each boy will interact a little differently toward people and objects. These nonverbal (again, like Papo & Yo, no English speech) interactions give the brothers personalities. The younger one likes to dance and play. The older one will, but is generally more serious, leading the two onward. I played basketball with another kid, spit down a well, sat on a bench for a splendid view, danced with an old woman, and ding-dong-ditched in the town. These interactions are neat because they are nothing major by themselves, just quick little things that put a smile on my face, but by the end add up to be quite meaningful in describing the world and the brothers.
Other characters that you meet play central roles in the adventure, like the lovesick troll, the mysteriously strong and agile girl and the young gryphon. Interactions with these characters tend to be very emotional based on the circumstances and whoever the hell directed the scenes in the game. They must have been in movies before this. With still other characters, who are not central to the game, you can sort of do quests, but they aren't quests, nor are they required. They're just something you can do, like save baby turtles and bring them to their mother, or sing to some killer whales. I got achievements for these two, and there are more achievements that I didn't get. It's worth exploring where you can and interacting with animals or whatever you think you can interact with! The playfulness that the boys exhibit on their adventure is contagious while playing the game. The more you make them explore and play, the more you want to do it yourself (in the game).
Then there's the relationship between the brothers themselves that grows and gets expanded upon throughout the game. Quite wonderful to see.
So the gist of the adventuring is sort of puzzle platforming, where the two brothers must help each other overcome obstacles. Maybe there's a drawn drawbridge and its lever is on a cliff. There's a broken ladder down from the cliff but you can't get up there. So the big brother will boost the little one up. He will pull the lever, and then they can cross the bridge. There are all kinds of puzzles like this throughout the varied environments of the game. Speaking of which, my god, the environments, the scenery. It's beautiful. One part in particular was my favorite. It involves giants. The puzzles are not very hard, easy on the spectrum, though there were a few times I had to stop and think. Using the brothers to solve puzzles together really wraps you up in their relationship, how they need one another on this adventure and as a family.
Really amazing game, emotional, touching, exciting, fantastical. It's short (~3 hrs), give it a play through!
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dkirschner's Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (PC)
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Current Status: Finished playing
GameLog started on: Monday 20 January, 2014
GameLog closed on: Monday 20 January, 2014 |
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