Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Review

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is a unique adventure game developed by Starbreeze Studios and published by 505 Games. It follows the story of two brothers going on an epic adventure to find the Water of Life to cure their ill father.

In order to find the Water of Life, our brothers are given a map of a tree that holds this cure. The brothers must find the tree by questioning the locals about its whereabouts. Not all locals can be directly questioned though. Some of them require you to complete little puzzles in order to extract the information. For example earlier in the game the path is closed and the person to open this gate is asleep so you need to find a way to wake him up first. Unfortunately the game doesn't give you enough room to get lost though for there is only one path.

On our journey we travel to some stunning looking places and meet some magical creatures that will either help us or try to hunt us down. The artwork is stunning and I absolutely adored the level design. The graphics are simply beautiful!

I called the game unique in the opening paragraph because it has a very distinctive control scheme. You can play as both of the brothers at the same time using the analog sticks on your controller. The left analog stick controls the older brother while the right analog stick controls the younger one. You must get used to these controls to overcome the puzzles because they require flawless coordination. For example as the older brother, you must carry the younger brother while you swim because the younger brother can't. 

This control scheme can get pretty confusing especially for controller beginners like yours truly. I first tried to play the game with a keyboard but believe me, it's impossible to do it as a single player so I made it my goal to replay the game after I recently obtained a controller. As a controller newbie I must admit that it took me a bit of getting used to. Good news; though, is that the game doesn't let the brothers fall off cliffs; if that wasn't the case, I'd have easily had hundreds of deaths.

My main problem with Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is how short and easy it was. It is a fantastic game but unfortunately its journey comes to a brutal and emotional end in merely 2-3 hours. Achievements are on the way and there aren't many locations to discover so even if you are hunting for achievements like I did, you'll easily finish the game after 3.5 hours max! 

The puzzles that you will come across are fairly easy and you won't have any problems figuring them out in a short amount of time. "Boss" battles are not challenging at all but they all require perfect coordination from the two brothers.

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is an emotional game. Especially towards the end you start to feel such a heavy burden. The game does a great job of making the player feel for the main characters. Despite the shortcomings I mentioned above, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is a game everyone should experience. It could be short and easy but the emotional ride it takes the players on is something that really is worth experiencing.