Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

I finished Brothers this afternoon.  I went into the game expecting a serious but rewarding experiment with an unusual control scheme I had heard about, wherein you control each brother with the same controller, using the two joysticks simultaneously.  I was expecting a short game with OK graphics, and a strong story to make up for middling technical specs. 

In other words, I was completely unprepared for the experience of playing through this game.

Technically, the game is exactly what it needs to be, at all times.  It is at times as sunny and upbeat as Disney, as dark and tragic as one of Grimm's fairy tales, loud and intense, quiet and subtle... the presentation is masterfully executed.  It's never excessive. This finesse with its presentation only makes the rest of the game feel more credible.  The control mechanic which I have heard so much about works very well, and even if the puzzles are often fairly straightforward, they still feel inventive and fun to solve.

This kind of technical credibility is certainly a staple of a top-notch game. However, what Brothers achieves, which I have seen very few games achieve before, is an effective cashing-in of that credibility.  It opens the way to tie you so closely to the story of the two brothers, through directly helping them to overcome each challenge, that you feel a personal connection with what happens. I knew it would be an emotional game, but roughly halfway through I realized that it was punching way above its weight, in unexpected ways, and at the end would probably leave me an emotional wreck. I was not wrong.  It takes an awful lot of credibility with the player to pull this kind of story off correctly.  That is what makes this game such a gem.

This is the kind of game I would recommend very carefully, without mentioning many details, because the sanctity of the experience -- the gradual ascent, aesthetically, mechanically, and emotionally -- is something that requires a little bit of mystery to have the impact that it is capable of having. 

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is a beautiful and sometimes painful experience, and one that I think is worth having for anyone with the means to do so.  It is what I think of as the best kind of story: one that tempers its beauty with tragedy, and its despair with hope.  Go and play it, if you get the chance.