Thoughts on Brothers — A tale of two sons
“ Beautiful, charming, funny and touching. One of the best games I’ve played in years. 10/10 would recommend.” This is how I posted my review of the game on steam just after I played it, not much of a review I agree, which is par for the course in Steam reviews. So, I will now post my thoughts on the game and update my review (maybe, there is something oh-so satisfying about a 3-line Steam review).
If you haven’t played the game yet but intend to, go play it and come back afterwards, because discovery is an important part of the experience.
Let’s get to it then. Brothers is a single player co-op game running the length of around 3 hours. You are to control two characters simultaneously, the titular brothers. Although the Steam page mentions that the game should be played with a controller, I played it with a keyboard. Both characters are given individual navigation and interaction keys. While initially it is a bit jarring to control two characters, I got used to it pretty soon. It’s novel and I don’t think I have ever come across something quite like this before.
The gameplay mechanics are central to delivering the story because all the characters in the game speak in a completely fictional language. Initially this caught me off-guard and I even went online looking for a fix. Now, I am not sure if this was done for budgetary reasons or if it was intentionally planned like this, but it works out really well for the game in the end. I found this much more engaging as I found myself paying more attention to the character animations and the environments than usual. In any case, this means that the story is not spoon-fed to you by way of cringe-inducing dialog as in most video games, but the player discovers the story by actively engaging with it.
The premise is pretty simple, your father falls into a serious sickness and needs a cure which can only be found in a far-off land. You and your brother set off on a journey to find this cure and bring it back to the village medic. On this journey though one gorgeous scenery after another, you meet various characters and beasts, friendly and otherwise.
I love how the characters of the brothers are developed in the game through interactions. The older brother is a quite the serious person, really focused on the job at hand, while the younger one is much more playful. Unlike most games, Brothers doesn’t just this to you via cut-scenes, you discover these character traits gradually when you interact with various NPCs in the game through the brothers. Its amazing how a couple of controls had me chuckling like a little kid, when in most games I watch the elaborately crafted cut-scenes, sit back and appreciate the animations and the graphics tech and that’s only emotion it elicits.
On the gameplay front, the majority of the game involves travelling, climbing and puzzle solving. There are some pretty solid puzzles which strike the right balance between being dead easy and being incomprehensibly hard. The first time I figured out how to use both the brother’s to solve a puzzle was as joyous as the opening moments of Portal when you first figure out how to use the blue and orange portals to solve a puzzle. Things get even more interesting in the later half of the game, as the developers introduce this “co-op” aspect to the climbing mechanics.
Personally, I found the visuals of Brothers to be awe-inspiring. I do have a soft spot for games which go for more artsy looking visuals. The game runs on the Unreal Engine 3, and runs as smooth as it possibly can on a 2018 machine. The artists turn it up to eleven as the game nears the end with fantastic environment design and lighting. The only complaint I have is the lack of PC related options in the settings menu.
In conclusion, 10/10 would recommend :)
