I don't think that the name "It Takes Two" is any stranger to anyone who is into the gaming world. I recently played through it with my girlfriend here are my impressions.
The game is about a year old and I knew it from the start but for some reason, I wasn't too into this game to actually play it. At some point my friend said man, you need to play it with your GF, it really is a good time trust me. Yeah, okay if he insisted so heavily it has to be good so I decided to give it a go.
Starting the game wasn't without some struggles. You can only play it with two people, you cant solo so I had to involve my girlfriend who is no gamer at all. At first, I wanted to play it from my monitor and give my other monitor to my girlfriend so she can connect her laptop to it. Sadly, her laptop is total garbage and when I launched the game the menu already lagged hard, so it was a failed attempt.
There is another way, the good old split-screen, so we can both play on my PC. I was not a fan of this idea but it was actually good, more on this later.
The Story
To put it shortly. Basically, there is a family and the parents are on the verge of divorce. The young daughter is absolutely devastated by this news and decides to take action. Somehow magically the parents wake up as wooden dolls and they are really tiny compared to the real humans.
Now parents are confused and they want to turn back to their real selves but they don't know how to do it at first.
Shortly after a book of love characters appears whose main mission is to make the parents fall in love again, it's not an easy task. The journey starts from there.
All the pictures are taken in-game.
Gameplay
The wooden parents are tiny guys and everything around them is large. You have to complete the objectives the book of love gives you because he has all the information how finally turn you back to your real selves. Fight with wasps, moles, you name it. This book also equips you with weapons and abilities you didn't imagine.
This is crazy how far the imagination has gone in this game. The challenges you have to complete are really something that the developers had totally nailed. I don't know how they came upon all this insane creativity. In the middle of the game, you think that what else new there is possible to throw at you but you'll be amazed.
Since you play in co-op you always need to work together with your other half to progress in a challenge.
A couple of examples of the creativity
Steer a battleship together.
Ride a ghost-like fish
Escape on the ant's back
+so much more.
There are also many mini-games you can compete with your co-op partner, these are so much fun.
Split-Screen fears
I remember the old times when there were small tv-s and the screen was split in half, I really wasn't a fan of it, not then, not now.
I got proven wrong though. Since we moved on my 55" 4k tv, the split-screen wasn't that small. Moreover, the screenplay was done exceptionally well. Cutscenes are still on fullscreen and the split-screen is adaptive. When one of you has more going on, your screen side gets larger during that time. At some parts, you even play in 2D view and the split-screen is horizontal.
After over an hour of play time and getting used to it, I wasn't bothered at all by the split-screen.
Graphics
The graphics are beautiful, as I played on max settings and in 4K resolution. Overall the game has their own kind of cartoonish overlook that works really well. The world is detailed, well crafted and exceptionally colorful.
Of course, the game has a happy ending. This is not much of a spoiler that they fall in love again in the end but I won't spoil how they appear as ordinary humans again.
To summarize it up. We both really enjoyed the game, even my non-gamer girlfriend. We had loads of fun playing through the game, completing the challenges, and mini-games to compete with each other. It took us 17 hours to complete the game but can be done faster than this. We like to take our time to look around and do everything the game offers us.
Is it worth 40EUR on steam? Yeah, it totally is in my opinion. This money was worth the experience we got out of it.
If you love the play story-rich games and have anyone willing to accompany you on this journey, you definitely should give this title a go!
Right now we are also playing a game from the same developers that is a bit older, A Way Out. I will review it too sometime after we have finished playing through it.
