Brothers A Tale Of Two Sons is an interesting and beautiful title that follows a similar style of Journey/Limbo/Fable ilk, fans that have played any of those titles would most certainly enjoy this addition. Brothers Is a game that revolves around an ‘older brother’ and ‘younger brother’ as they try to find help for their father. The game however doesn’t make the plot clear and just leaves it to the player to assume what the story is. However, it’s easy to follow but suffers from being very vague with no dialogue and little exposition. The game tackles a lot of emotional situations that try and entice the player to feel these emotions. It does just that.
The game will offer a lot of moments where you may feel a bit tear jerky. Its powerful and it manages to do it with out any dialogue, what dialogue we do have is a made up language.
Now with the vague plot aside the game is a beautifully designed, from the get go it will draw you into the magical universe that the brothers are involved in. The animation is superb, the locations are polished and it looks fantastic for a downloadable title. The music also provides a solid score with many well-constructed pieces that set the atmosphere perfectly.
As beautiful as Brothers A Tale Of Two Sons is, the learning curve may be a bit difficult for some. Even though the game is heavily co-op based and relies on working with the brothers simultaneously, you would have expected the game to be an online co-op title. Nope. You actually have to control two characters at the same time; the left analogue stick is the big brother and the right analogue stick is the little brother. Admittedly it took me over 45 minutes to get used to the controls as it was really difficult to get my brain to go along with the idea. Surprisingly it actually works very well once you pick it up and it adds a bit of a challenge through some of the segments in the game.
Throughout the campaign you will travel on a short adventure that will take you roughly 3 hours to complete, maybe longer if you miss some achievements along the way. Even though the experience is a lot shorter than I would of hoped, the game has various environmental puzzles to solve in order to continue your journey. The puzzles are very well created and make you actually think logically. There was no point where I was frustrated with not being able to move on. If I wasn’t progressing it was my own fault, not the game itself.
The game offers a brilliant experience and also an experience where no combat is involved. It’s just a short beautiful adventure that offers some gratifying characters with a few surprising interactions. This is certainly a game that shouldn’t be rushed and even though it is very short, the developers clearly want you to enjoy the beauty of the game.
In conclusion, Brothers A Tale Of Two Sons is easily one of the best adventure titles I have played and I think that is because of the brave use of the controls. It offers an unforgettable experience along with the beautiful design and music. However the one thing that lets the game down is the length. It’s far too short and the lack of an elaborated plot shoots the game down a little bit. At the price of 1200 I feel that sadly it’s too expensive no matter how good those 3 hours are, I feel that you’re not getting the full package. If the game was a few hours longer and included a better plot I would have been even happier with the result, but sadly it just isn’t. I recommend picking up the title if you want a beautiful but short adventure, because it is certainly worth it and is extremely enjoyable to play.