(Cross-posted at Across Moon River)
Brothers – A Tale of Two Sons (Brothers) is one of the most powerful games I’ve played in recent memory. It’s hard to describe a game that is not quite a game, yet it is very much a game. The lack of a UI gives a constant cinematic feel. The lack of an actual language makes you focus on characters’ gestures. All the while, the narrative is simple yet there are strong themes of familial ties as evidenced in the title. Although it took me over a month of on-and-off play, Brothers is only 3 hours of gameplay from start to finish and packs an emotional story with interesting game mechanics. A definite must-play.

I’ve played multiplayer games, often with my sister. But one of the earliest games I played with my sister was on the PC, possibly an Amiga but I don’t recall the game’s title, and it was a fighting game with mechs. The controls were so difficult (especially for a little kid) that both of us played on one keyboard controlling one character. Brothers is the opposite.

You control two characters, the brothers, on one keyboard. How well can you coordinate your left and right hands? I’m not too shabby, but while my WASD game is on-point from my MMO days, my arrow keys could use some work. It wasn’t too bad, though, nor was it frustrating as there weren’t any tightly timed finger-dancing choreography that I had to do, but I did have to slow down to make sure I had the right buttons pressed down and then making sure the next buttons I needed to press or release wouldn’t plunge the brothers to their deaths.

The controls are actually quite simple. WASD and spacebar to move and perform actions with the Older Brother (whom I have named “Aya” or more formally “N’aya” based on Younger Brother’s vocalizations) and the arrow keys and right-Ctrl to move and perform actions with the Younger Brother. There are some semi-tricky moves you have to do to coordinate their movements, like making sure the action buttons are depressed otherwise they fall to oblivion, but I didn’t find it too bad.

One of the design choices I was disappointed with was being unable to take screenshots. Otherwise this post would be littered with them. The graphics in Brothers are absolutely beautiful. There are benches strategically placed in the game to give you a grander view of the world you are moving through, sometimes to view goals and objectives and other times just to give you a glimpse into their world. I was hoping for a bench during the aurora scene, but I either ran past it or there just wasn’t one. Though, there were some gory scenes like the giants’ battlefield and what you have to do to proceed. I was quite surprised by the gore, actually, and the brothers’ reactions to the things you have them do is pretty on-par with what was going through my mind.

The narrative is the strongest point of the game. In the title scene, Younger Brother is kneeling in front of his mother’s grave. The backstory tells us that she died in stormy seas, giving Younger Brother a fear of swimming. The brothers’ father becomes sick, which sets them off on this grand adventure through a fantasy world that covers typical villager antics (the town bully who tries to thwart the brothers’ progress through town), interaction with real-world animals (mountain goats, rabbits, and dogs), interaction with fantastical races and animals (rock trolls, giants, orca-stingrays (not sure what they are called but their design is pretty neat), ice turtles, and owl-gryphons). I’ll try not to spoil the story, but everything comes back full circle.

I did enjoy interacting with the various NPCs because Younger Brother and Older Brother had different animations that reflected their character. Younger Brother was, of course, the cheeky brat that got along with animals quite well and enjoyed splashing in fountains. Older Brother was more refined, hesitant around animals and generally neater, patting his neck with water from the fountain rather than splashing around.

The gameplay elements rely on the brothers cooperating with each other to maneuver around obstacles. The “puzzles” are fairly simple and are mostly coordination-based (again, how good are you at coordinating your left and right hands?). Some things only Older Brother can do and some things only Little Brother can do. It’s a good thing they get along well.

I did run into a couple of bugs, but nothing completely halting as checkpoints/auto-saves are frequent and at spots that make sense, i.e., not in the middle of performing actions that require clinging to cliffs. Otherwise, a very solid port to PC. A very solid game. Definitely play it.