Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is a downloadable story-driven puzzle-platformer adventure video game developed by Starbreeze Studios and published by 505 Games released on August 7, 2013 for the Xbox Live Arcade and on September 3 2013 for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation Network.
Plot: (FULL Spoilers)
The story begins with a boy named Naiee paying his respects at the tombstone of his mother, who drowned at sea while he remained unable to save her. His elder brother, Naia, calls him to help their ill father reach the village's doctor, who in turn tells them the only way to save him is by collecting the waters from the Tree of Life. The brothers embark on their journey through the village, hills and mountains, while facing challenges like the local bully, a farmer's aggressive dog, and deadly wolves. They also help others along the way – reuniting a friendly pair of trolls, saving a man attempting suicide, and aiding an inventor.
Eventually they reach a giants' castle and free a badly injured griffin who helps them before succumbing to its injuries. The brothers press on through a valley of dead giants that went to war and save a girl from being sacrificed by tribesmen. The girl in turn helps them travel icy waters, avoiding deadly orca-like fish. They arrive at an old town that was in the middle of a battle before everyone suddenly froze to death in-place, and the trio have to escape from an invisible giant that stalks the ruins of the town. After successfully defeating the monster, the girl begins seducing Naia, and soon tricks the brothers to enter a cave, much to Naiee's dismay. Once inside she reveals herself as a monstrous spider and while trying to eat Naia, the brothers manage to thwart and kill her by pulling off her legs – but not before she mortally wounds Naia.
Nearing the end of their journey, the brothers at last reach the Tree of Life; Naia insists that Naiee ventures on to reach the top of the tree. He collects the Water of Life, but as he returns to the bottom, he finds that Naia has already died from his injuries. Unable to revive him using the water, Naiee buries and grieves for his older brother before returning to the village aided once again by a griffin.
Upon reaching the shoreline, Naiee must face his fear of swimming in order to get the waters to his dying father. His mother's spirit appears to comfort and motivate him, and with Naia's spiritual guidance – in-game, the use of Naia's interaction key – Naiee is able to force himself to swim to the village. He is finally able to give the doctor the water, and the father recovers from his illness overnight. A short time afterwards, Naiee and his father mourn at the tombstones of both the mother and Naia while the griffin flies on into the mountains.
The Verdict:
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| If I was completely honest, these peaceful moments like this were my absolutely favorite parts of this game. |
This going to be one of my shortest game reviews to date, but in my defense, there's not much to talk about this game.
The game has a VERY linear story without any branching off, unless you're an achievement/trophy hunter, but this game was easily a Game of the Year candidate back in 2013. I can humbly agree for the most part, but I personally found the obvious ending made the game lose a few points from me.
Speaking of the ending, you must have a heart of stone or ice if you don't feel the brothers' bond throughout the game. This significant focus on family and working together made the ending hit pretty for most players, but from the halfway point of the game, I found it to be the predictable outcome for this game to end on. To say the game was stressing the two brothers working together so much, I knew there had to be something that would just shatter players' emotions to end with. In a gaming industry among hits such as The Walking Dead (The Video Game) and The Last of Us, you know developers aren't going to shy away from death.
The dual analog stick control scheme (each analog stick controls each brother individually) takes a little getting used to, but works beautifully for the most part. I personally found it easy to lose track of whose who out of the two brothers while navigating the world. The game forces players to implement clever usage of teamwork to complete most puzzles and the FEW enemy encounters in this game. I wish that Starbreeze Studios took the time to add more of these puzzles and enemy encounters as this game would have benefited with another 2-4 hours of gameplay.
That being said, this game can be completed in one sitting. It's not long at all. I would estimate it's less than 4 hours if you don't get stuck on any of the puzzles nor experience any glitches. To be honest, this is one of the rare occasions where I can't hold the game's length against it as the game paces itself like a movie. There's no filler nor bullshit - it's straight-forward and to the point. A few glitches prevent me from giving this game a perfect score, since they made particular puzzles impossible to complete without restarting the game or starting the ENTIRE chapter/level over and losing all of your progress. Glitches like this should have been caught during development, especially for a game that was as short as this.
At the end of the day, Brothers is one of those of games where you're either going to absolutely love it or hate it. Unique controls, a touching narrative, and breath-taking visuals were crammed into this compact, downloadable adventure, I'm giving Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons a 9.5 out of 10.
Keep a box of tissues on standby. You've been warned.
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