Game: Brothers – A Tale of Two Sons

Brothers: A Tale of Two SonsFinished Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons last weekend.

Nice. It’s actually a platformer. You jump and run. You move your character around a very nice drawn world which *is* an eye catcher. This is really beautiful and a must see. Also you have one action button to click, whenever you feel your character might interact with something. That’s not a challenge, is it?

… but you control two characters: the brothers. Concurrently. In parallel. On one screen. Simultaneously. Both moving independently. And it is here you should get an idea about this game. Rather sooner than later you find yourself moving the character on the left with the controls on your right and the character on the right which you control with your left hand. Yey!

This makes your brain jump like driving backwards with a trailer only by looking into the rear mirrors left and right. And it is this the game draws its major points from, since this gameplay surely sets it apart.

For the story: what starts of as a day-to-day fairy tale suitable for children of the age of 6 turns slowly into a very adult dark fantasy. Well, without too much spoiler: you succeed in the quest (there is just 1 to solve; no sidequests). Somehow. But this ending does not suit all players. For the record: me. I got sort of angry and annoyed by the game designers since they tried to build an emotional connection with the main characters and failed at that in the end. Maybe I’m coldhearted but the final minutes in the game did not bother me. Instead I got angry on such story telling. It’s only for the graphics I would go for a second run, but than … nahhh … there is this save point system and when you want to replay some older chapters of the game you lose your previous saves.

On the plus: there are some nice ideas in the chapters of the story telling, e.g. the invisible opponent in the city and the battle field of the giants. But all in all it does not live up to the rather irritating resolution of the story’s main line.

I award this game 6 out of 10 stars, thanks to the very nice graphics, (some) story ideas and the unique gameplay experience.

6/10: 6 out of 10