Game #1052: It Takes Two

  One trippy therapy session.

 I think that with It Takes Two, Josef Fares has more than earned the title of Auter, like other greats before hime like Suda 51 and Swery 65. Y'see, 'A Way Out' had a brilliant premise which carried the game beyond how generic it looked. But It Takes Two takes the brilliant co-op premise to the next level, while adorning the game with a very unique, unforgettable art-style that makes this game something truly special.

 The plot feels like something out of a family movie, even though the game is anything but, in which Cody and May are about to divorce and Rose, their daughter, is struggling to accept it. So she cries over facsimile dolls of her parent and... now her parents turn into those dolls, Cody turns into a chubby clay doll while May turns into a lithe wooden doll. The entire game is played through the eyes of these tiny doll avatars, so you'll be seeing a lot of every-day items up close. And let me insist, the visuals in the game are AMAZING. The dolls are very life-like, and the textures are incredible.  It's easily one of the best looking games I've ever played.... which is probably while loading times can get a bit lengthy. Oh, and the audio got unsynced on a few cutscenes, but it wasn't too bad.

 One you get over how pretty it looks, then comes the gameplay. Just like A Way Out, you absolutely need another person to play the game with, as getting through this adventure requires both characters cooperating the whole way through. And man, the ideas never stop coming. Most games built around puzzle-platforming give both characters a different set of abilities and that's that, but in this game what each character can do keeps changing. Very early in the game, Cody gets magical nails that he can use either to stick things in place OR to create platforms for May, while May gets a hammer that allows her to hit a few switches, balance on Cody's nails or break glass jars.... but it's not too long before this tools are replaced by a sticky-ooze gun for Cody, which lets him weigh down structures, while May gets burning matches she can operate switch with... or May can shoot an enemy that is covered in Cody's Ooze to make it explode. Later the game even has a top-down Diablo-esque scenario in which COdy gets turned into a wizard that can phase through metal grates while May gets the ability to dash over long gaps. The game never sticks with one set of tools for too long, so the game feels SO fresh.

 And sometimes it'll be a bit more mundane, like just having to cooperate by moving stuff around or pushing switches to activate something for the other player,  simple tasks that either character could do so players can just decide who'll tackle the challenge in which way. But it never stops being fun. And man, can the game get trippy sometimes, or the gameplay shifts so unpredictable, or the cutscenes so morbidly funny.... It's an incredible ride, from beginning to end. And everything is so well crafted and made, it feels like the game had a never-ending budget! And just like A Way Out before it, there are a ton of optional interactable objects, just to mess around with, as well as optional VS minigames if you look hard enough.

 It Takes Two is an absolute masterpiece. The only real complaint I have about it is that it requires another player to experience it. I understand the intent, I appreciate couch-co-op games such as this one, but finding somebody else willing to clock in all 9 hours it takes to finish the game at whatever point in time you want to play it... could be tough. I really value Josef Fare's effort to bring couch co-op back, but his games are amazing and deserve to be played by as many people as possible, so maybe looking into make some single player alternative for their next game could be a good idea.

 9.0