Obviously, the two main characters first being bitchy towards each other and then slowly getting more cooperative/communicative is a core part of the game, and it's hard to write this in a way where their concerns feel real and understandable but also eventually surmountable. But it just felt to me like a proper confrontation of what they'd done was missing in between? Because afterwards, from the Snowglobe level onwards, it 100% feels like there's been some change of heart, like the main characters are making a bit of an effort to be kinder to each other. Something super basic like 'oh no we were so focused on getting our bodies back that we went as far as destroying our daughter's favorite toy, that was stupid of us, let's genuinely try to work together now'. It seriously feels like a core discussion is missing from the game this way: After brutally murdering the Elephant Queen Cutie III, and before May and Cody start to give each other a chance again in the Snowglobe level there should 100% have been a brief scene where they both realized that they were wrong.

The scene is incredibly over the top, obviously intended to make you feel horrible for doing it but not giving you a choice to not do it, and that just. destroy it while it's screaming and begging for mercy. More concretely, this time with spoilers: what in the actual fuck was the point of that scene with the elephant? May and Cody get it into their heads that they need to make Rose cry in order to return to their bodies, so they destroy one of her toys. But the fact that they go out of their way to do something that will hurt their child without even questioning it a little along the way is something that imo needed some moment of 'whoops we fucked up' realization, and that just never comes Like yes, the fact that they have petty fights is a core part of the narrative, that's alright. Let me first put this into words without spoilers: Main characters May and Cody are annoying as fuck for quite a while in the first half of the game (like yea we get it May, you're a very rational engineer and no, none of this makes sense), and they make a plan that is so atrociously bad and obviously harmful that I kept expecting them to get some sort of reckoning/comeuppance for it which just never came at all. They deserve everything that book is doing to them and more. I started out finding the Dr Hakim character slightly annoying and ended up loving him and his entire shtick, especially as I got more annoyed with May and Cody. I don't think anything recent can even compare?

It's just rare to get such a pretty, polished and well working 3D platformer and puzzler game. It's very dense and filled with love imo. I don't play many AAA games these days because they just rarely do anything to really capture my interest, but this one just has so many lovely details and pretty environments and cute animations and little references and neat places. You have the basic platforming mechanics that stay the same along the way, but there are 7 areas completely different in style and mood, and honestly countless puzzles, with both players getting a different item/mechanic in each of the 7 chapters (and losing it again at the end of the section) And in that time, there is SO much variety. The scope of this really surprised me: While Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons was 2h long and A Way Out (which I haven't played, we started at some point and want to get back to it now) has about 6-8h of gameplay, It Takes Two kept us busy for a good 12 hours. (only one person needs to buy the 40$ game, even for playing on two PCs) I played it with my partner and can only recommend that, it's been a ton of fun. Like Hazelights' previous game A Way Out, It Takes Two is 100% a co-op game, made entirely to accommodate two players, with lots of asymmetric mechanics, helping each other, making paths for each other, timing actions right etc.

It takes two length