This isn’t our first outing with the brothers in Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Remake. In fact, we’ve built up a close bond after playing the original Xbox 360 version in 2013, on Xbox One in 2015 and more recently, the first hour in a preview of the current outing of the game – the remake. Now we’ve got our hands on the full game to do a complete playthrough – and got to spend some time again with ‘big’ and ‘little’ brothers: Naia and Naiee. But why bother?
Well, for one the game has been completely rebuilt using Unreal Engine 5 to provide the latest generation of graphics, performance and gameplay. The characters and landscapes certainly look much better than either of the previous versions and it feels like an altogether more polished affair.
For those of you who haven’t played any of the previous versions of Brothers, it’s a puzzle adventure game within a fantasy setting. The narrative is an oldy but a goody, with the brothers setting out on a quest to find and bring back the ‘water of life’ to save their dying Father. Armed only with a map and a rudimentary understanding of where they are heading, they set out on a journey across unique and at times breathtaking landscapes. Players will get to traverse mountains, explore underground mines and climb a giant’s castle. These backdrops are full of creatures, both fantastical and the more mundane, including trolls, giants, wolves and whales. And everything is brought to life by a subtle but haunting orchestral soundtrack.
In one particularly memorable section the brothers have to weave their way in and out of what appears to be the aftermath of a bloody battle between giants. With huge dead bodies strewn across the landscape, they have to cross rivers full of blood and move gigantic limbs to clear a path.
There are also several different modes of transport to experience including travelling icy waters in a rowing boat, taking to the skies in a wooden flying machine and (our particular favourite) climbing a mountain on the back of a goat.
In a mechanic that’s very unique to the game, players control the movement and actions of both brothers, often simultaneously, to manoeuvre across the terrain, solve puzzles and fight enemies. Big brother is controlled by using the left thumbstick for movement and left trigger for carrying out an action, and controls on the right side of the controller are used for little brother. Bumpers allow you to rotate the camera right and left, although we didn’t really need to use this feature very often as the camera pans quite nicely with the brothers’ movement.
We won’t lie, controlling both brothers at the same time is tricky and we didn’t seem to get much better throughout the game. Our brothers found it rather difficult to run in a straight line, with invariably each veering off the path.
Running in the correct direction is by no means the trickiest thing you’ll have to do though. Throughout Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Remake there are times when you have to move both brothers at the same time and so mixing up the controls was a frequent issue. We found jumping from one hold to another when climbing particularly difficult as it requires accurate timing. We don’t like to admit how many times our poor coordination resulted in a brother plunging to their death.
If this sounds like too much of a headache for you then the good news is that Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Remake contains a local co-op mode for the first time, which allows you to play with a friend – each controlling one of the brothers. This not only makes the controls a lot simpler but adds extra enjoyment to the game as you figure out the puzzles together and discuss how to coordinate your movement. However, many would consider this cheating and not following the true spirit of the game, which was always designed to be single player. We decided to experience both modes, completing some of the chapters with a friend and the rest solo.
To add to the whole cooperative experience, each brother has his own abilities. Big brother is able to pull levers and lift heavy objects and little brother can be given a leg up by his sibling to reach high areas and can squeeze through small gaps. The game is packed full of imaginative and exciting puzzles which utilise these skills to their full advantage and even though you can expect to be frequently challenged, there is nothing in the game that is frustratingly difficult.
It’s safe to say that more than a few heart strings will be tugged on as you play through this emotional rollercoaster of a game, which does an amazing job of portraying the brothers’ close bond despite there being no recognisable language spoken by any of the characters.
There are also lots of hidden gems to uncover, as each brother can interact with their surroundings. For example, by sitting on benches scattered throughout the world to admire the view, petting cats, and interacting with characters in different ways. To get as much as possible from the game, we suggest taking your time fully exploring the environment as you travel on your journey.
So far so good – Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Remake has an awful lot going for it. However, we are here to give a balanced opinion and there are a few things that spoiled our enjoyment of the game.
First up, we found more than one bug, which required a restart from a checkpoint. We found ourselves with a brother stuck, suspended in mid air on more than one occasion, and even stumbled into what could only be described as an alternative dimension where the brothers wandered around an empty village with no path out.
There are some parts of the game that are quite dark – both literally and metaphorically. The low lighting can make spotting where to go and what to do quite difficult, although the accessibility options allows you to switch on the ‘highlight effect’ which shows up useful items like ropes.
Our final bugbear is that it would have been nice to have an option to skip the cutscenes. During our repeated attempts at trying to do away with a particularly nasty enemy we had to watch the same cutscene many, many times, which got very boring very quickly.
But, that’s enough of the negativity. We can honestly say that yet again we enjoyed our time spent with the brothers. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Remake is a lovingly remade version of a much praised game. It may be short, at around four hours of playtime, but every second spent in this world is taken up marvelling at the well-designed puzzles, taking in the stunning vistas and enjoying the interaction between the two siblings.
If you have never played Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, or even if you have, we thoroughly recommend giving this Remake a go.
