Brothers, A Tale of two sons is an adventure game in which you play as two brothers on a quest to get to the tree of life to get water from it to save their dying father.
General Gameplay
The general gameplay is that you control both brother with the same controller, but each brother is controlled by each thumb stick, so for example the older brother is controlled by the left thumb stick and the younger one is controlled by the right one. There is some light puzzle solving and some minor platforming but overall a great adventure game. The in Game Visuals are beautiful. As the game setting is more of a fantasy story, the in-game design is more focused on villages, mountain trails, and other outdoor settings that you would normally see in a Lord of the Rings movie. There is a lot of detail in the game from the setting backdrops to even the character design. Both main characters are designed with full detail and can be easily seen in the game. The colors in the game are very bright and easy to see on the screen, so for even gamers in your gaming family that have trouble seeing colors, they should be fine playing the game. In our play testing we did not see anything offensive for any gamers in your family. Audio in the game is done very well. As the game has spoken dialog, it is in a fictitious language that cannot be understood by the gamer. As with any adventure game the games background music, sound effects and general sounds come from the speakers clear and can be fully heard. Brothers, A Tale of Two Sons is in 5.1 surround sound and comes clearly both in surround sounds as well using a headset. During our play testing, we did not hear anything that would be offensive to any gamers in your family. Also in our special needs gaming testing, we did not run into any issues with any of our special needs gamers playing the game. Again, parents exercise caution when having your gamers that are using a headset for extended gaming sessions. The game Controls is where the game gets interesting. As the game is all about two brothers, you control the game with each thumb stick controlling each brother independently with the one brother being controlled by the left thumb stick and the other with the right one. The triggers are what control the actions of each brother. Other than that, there are not more buttons used for the game. In our play testing at first, we found the game to be very hard to control, however after playing the game and understanding how it works it became second nature (More on this in our family friendly section) The game is best played on the standard controller and again the default setting is ok to use.
“Brothers, A Tale of Two Sons is a beautiful tale that you have to play and experience, although short but still a gem of a game to have in your digital library”
Family Friendly
First off let’s address the elephant in the room about the controls, at first, they can seem very difficult to play and use in the game, but like how we were talking about once you get the hang of it and how each brother works in the game, then it becomes second nature. In our playtesting, almost all our gamers had some trouble with controlling the game but after a while they got used to it. I would highly encourage parents/guardians for younger children that are going to play the game that you sit with them and help them with the controls, so they can better understand the game. Believe me that as the game is a little slower paced then most, and if you fail in a section the checkpoints are very forgiving where most parts of the game you start off where you failed at. So, let yourself get used to the controls and you will do just fine. Now Brothers is a wonderful game with a great story. As the game does not have any subtitles or dialog that you can understand it is all about emotion and expression to understand the story. As the game is all about exploration and adventure the game has a lot of great points in which both the game and the story excels at. This is a great overall game for both parents and children alike as the game is not to challenging or easy but in the middle for overall fun. In our special needs gaming testing we did not have any issues with any of our special needs gamers playing the game, if anything that they better understood the controller setting better then we did, and this was a great plus for the game. The only thing that was bad about the game is that there are some violent areas in which may not be to suitable for younger gamers, but these were very far into the game. Again, nothing that would be inappropriate for your gaming family. Brothers, A Tale of Two Sons is a wonderful game that should be played by both parents and children.
Closing
Brothers, A Tale of Two Sons, is a wonderful story driven game. The controls do take to get use to but once you get the hang of the controls it is a great game for all of your gaming family
