If you don't already know about this game, here's some background. You play a pair of young brothers, guiding them through a very fairy tale world. It was designed by Starbreeze Studios and published by 505 Games. It is the award-winning creation of acclaimed Swedish director Josef Fares, and allows a single player to experience a co-op game alone.
This setup is nothing I have ever experienced before. One player controlling two characters? It's a whole new challenge - and it's incredibly cool!
Here's the thing - this is a PC game that was specifically designed to be played with a controller. Since my laptop won't recognize my USB Xbox controller (still), I will have to use the keyboard to play. You can do this, but let me just warn you, it is not an easy feat. Let me explain: you use the WASD keys and spacebar to control the older brother, and the arrow keys and right Ctrl button to control the younger brother. I'm assuming, with a controller, the left side of it will correspond to the older brother and the right side will correspond to the younger brother. Either way, you must be able to make them work together in certain situations but also independently at other times. It can get confusing, you will stumble for awhile, but finding the right groove is part of the fun, I think.
As much as I am blown away by the controls and gameplay mechanics, and as beautiful and detailed as the graphics are, I am having trouble getting into the story. It has been very difficult so far to understand what is going on. There are several reasons for this.
First: the characters do not speak English. Aside from basic Spanish and some Japanese phrases, English is the only language I speak fluently, so this is a problem. I'm not even sure they are speaking Swedish, but I could be wrong. Either way, there are no subtitles so you never know what people are saying and you must take clues from the scenario and their body language and tone of voice to even guess at what's happening.
Second: the only thing you know about the two brothers going in is that their mother is dead. That happens in the opening scene (she drowned, so now the younger brother is afraid of water btw). Apparently they are living with a man that I am not sure is their father after that. Maybe an uncle? He is hurt or sick and the reason for their journey is to find a magic cure (the town doctor gave them a map of a large tree growing around the world, very reminiscent of Yggdrasil but not very self-explanatory). After this you are thrown into the game with no other knowledge, no world map, no hints except a few keyboard command reminders.
Third: this is more of a technical problem, but here it is. It is never entirely clear where you are meant to be going or what you can and cannot interact with. No items or areas stand out and there are no markers. Also, each brother interacts with things differently so you usually have to try one or the other, or both simultaneously, until you find a solution to the current problem. It is a bit frustrating.
All in all, I am extremely excited for this game. I just hope I can get my controller working so I can try playing that way too. I've never seen gameplay like this and it is very appealing to me for so many reasons. I encourage you all to check it out.
For next week's review I'm really hoping to do an anime or movie instead of a game but we'll see what I get done over the week. Also, if you have suggestions, I'd love to hear them. Just shoot me an email, or tweet, or comment - whatever.
Also, thank you all for your continued support. Did I tell you? Thar day I was eyeing my stats we hit 120 individual readers! So thank you all for reading, I hope you come back again soon! And bring your friends! We'll have a party!
Have a great day, guys, and I'll see you all in the next post.