It is such a journey to play all three games directed by Josef Fares. Even more so to play them in reverse order. Funnily enough, I think I spotted some recycled animations here, or they may be just very similar.

Anyway, this is a very basic experience, akin to the cinematic platformers boom around its time, except there is no platforming here. This is an adventure first and foremost, with very basic puzzles and almost no dexterity required. No puzzle will take any time at all to be solved.

There are, however, many hidden interactions all over the story progression, which is something that has prevailed in Josef's games, and it may be because of the shorter duration, but said aspect felt more prominent here. It is a lovely touch, though it is unfortunately a shallow one as it provides zero depth to the gameplay. The interactions consist on aproaching an object or an NPC with a brother, then pressing their button to interact, then you can have a different interaction with the other brother.

The story was unexpectedly graphic at some points. I did not bother to read the rating of the game though, it was just surprising to me. Nothing too bad, of course. The story is okay, and that's it. Some twists came from left field and were genuinely shocking. It is still, however, a very simple premise.

It is impressive to see just how far the ideals of Josef and his team have come when compared to these very humble beginnings.

I was able to play this game in co-op, even though co-op is exclusive to the Nintendo Switch version, thanks to the Copilot function available on Xbox. We could have played it by sharing a single controller at the same time, Copilot just made it more comfortable.

Played for I don't know how long, for some reason there is no playtime shown in this game for me, through Xbox Game Pass on an Xbox Series S.

While I ultimately liked A Tale of Two Sons, it sadly falls into the common "Games Are Art" indie game trap where the great graphics, artistry and atmosphere are all directly in service of a narrative and gameplay that is nowhere near as impressive. The battlefield filled with the fresh corpses of giants and the man with the music box are definitely going to tickle my brain for years to come. The narrative that feels like one of those dreary coming-of-age Newbery Medal winning books you had to read in grade school as the two boys operate levers and shuffle along narrow ledges? Decidedly less so.

The downside for me is that, once I took a step back and ruminated on the game after beating it, I find the story a relatively weak progression of the two boys - one confident older brother, one wimpy younger brother - running into random events that may or may not be sad and may or may not feel a bit contrived while the puzzle part of the puzzle-platformer peters out in complexity after the troll mines. Once the environments and their masterful use of negative space and forced camera angles stopped dazzling me, the cracks began to show.

One part that bothered me in particular was the whole gryphon plotline. So the two boys save an abused, bloodied gryphon from a giant's home out of the goodness of their souls. They ride on the back of the gryphon, only for the gryphon to seemingly perish from its injuries, causing the two boys to have a moment of silence, a funeral, and a flashback to their dying father. This same gryphon - Sike, it wasn't dead! It just needed to curl up and lay on the ground like it was dead to heal its injuries! - then shows up at the end of the game to explain how they got back to the sick father in a way that feels less "narrative payoff" and more "wrote the characters into a corner and needed a method of fast travel" and doing this made the previous sad death scene feel cheap.

When the sad plot beats land, they really land. Unfortunately, not every weepy part feels necessary and there's a small amount of bloat.

I guess I can't complain too much since it's a three hour game and, at the end of the day, I did like it. The music in particular, which makes heavy use of Swedish kulning, does a lot of heavy lifting to make some of the sadder moments feel like a real gut punch. I just expected something a little...better. Especially from a game with such a high Word of Mouth pedigree.

Also this might be the only game I've played where the spear-waving, bone-wearing death cultists chanting and dancing in a river of blood and preparing a death sacrifice on a stone altar were actually the good guys. I owe you an apology, cultists. I wasn't really familiar with your game.

The control scheme is very new and unique, and definitely the greatest strength of the game. However, most of the sections are boringly straightforward and don't require you to control both characters at the same time. There are two sections where the controls shine, though, and those are the rope section, and the last one. I wish the game was more like that and less like pulling a lever with one character so that the other character can pass.
Another quality of the game is the way the story is told, allowing you to understand the whole story without a single word being said.
Overall, a comfy game, but not much more than that.

Первое игровое творение Юсефа Фареса. И тут неприменима пословица "первый блин — комом". История вышла запоминающейся, механики и их реализация необычайны, а сам визуальный стиль игры приятный. Некоторые даже умудрялись проходить игру в кооперативе, хотя изначально она была рассчитана на одного игрока.

Хороший дебют для индустрии, но мне всё же чего-то не хватило. А вот объяснить, чего именно, сложно. Могу сказать с уверенностью, что игра врезается в память и стоит потраченного времени. Впрочем, как и A Way Out, It Takes Two

Preciosa y cortita historia cooperativa para un solo jugador ¿Qué cojones? donde seguimos a dos hermanos en busca de la cura a la enfermedad de su padre.
El juego basa su jugabilidad en la cooperación entre hermanos pero que por desgracia no termina de sacar todo su potencial por lo fáciles y cortitos que son los puzzles.
Lo que menos me ha gustado es que los personajes hablen como los sims. Le quitan mucha potencia y seriedad a la historia.

Nota final: 8