“Say hello to your editor that I’m ending up with you because of this game,” says my girlfriend. She hates video games but because It takes two requires two players I have forced her to help me for this review. There are somewhat dubious conditions for a game about a couple who are enchanted into dolls and must learn to cooperate.
It takes two to say the least our ability to communicate during high stress levels. It has been a trial, but around the time of the militant killer whales we found a common enemy.
We’ve played like the married couple Cody and May. A couple who constantly nibbles, nag and whine at each other. The divorce is approaching and they tell their little daughter Rose. Somehow it starts an enchantment that shifts the parents’ consciousness to a pair of rag dolls.
Together, Cody and May then survive in a magical version of their home and garden. They fight against live toolboxes, vacuum cleaners and high-tech killer wasps to find their way back to their human bodies.
A guide appears in the form of the anthropomorphic book “Book of love”, which teaches the couple to get over their injustices and move on in the game. “If you stare at a locked door, you miss it as open,” says the book, which should serve as inspiration for Cody and May’s crisis relationship. A quick divorce otherwise seemed to be the healthiest idea.
It takes two is a hybrid between platform-playing and puzzle-solving and flows smoothly with a kind of childlike playability. Each new level presents new concepts, modes of transport, weapons, tools, attacks and enemies. Each new landscape is surprising and the adventurous sense of adventure of working together is also unusual in a game world where many titles focus on competing and winning.
The same applies to Josef Fare’s co-op concept. Playing two on the same screen is like a nostalgic look back to the time before online games and can attract an older audience. Still, the game’s intended target audience is vague.
The aesthetics are aimed at children but the subject is grown. And for an adult audience, the light-hearted relationship drama can feel frustratingly useful on the verge of silly. They can take comfort in the fact that all action is competent and well-crafted fun.
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