Two Brothers

[i]This is the [b]13th[/b] review of the Steam Redlight series, a series where I purposely seek out negatively or controversially rated games on Steam to see if they're as bad as the Internet says they are. It's accompanied by a video review that can be found [b][url=https://youtu.be/tRMcmCZBYcI]here[/url][/b].[/i] [b]In summary, I cannot recommend this game[/b], while the game has a compelling story, this game has essentially been abandoned in a poor state. I mean, yeah, it’s not available to purchase anymore, so who is this review really for anyway? None-the-less, it has a myriad of gameplay bugs that risk not only you having to restart the application, but also your whole game. In addition to the inconsistent collisions, both in combat and travel, the game for me was only playable at its native resolution of 160x144 since fullscreen functions didn’t work. Lastly, as another couple of reviewers have said, there is a plagiarized song “Demise of the Ritual” from Shadow of the Colossus. [h2]Introduction[/h2] In Two Brothers, you play as Roy Guarder, a scientist extraordinaire -- yeah, the game calls him an inventor, philosopher, and adventurer or whatever, so I’m overly simplifying him. He won’t mind, Roy’s a nice guy. Anyway, while adventuring out with his [b]Lovely Wife[/b], a wife so lovely she isn’t named for dozens of minutes after her introduction, she gets killed by a trap. Roy gets body-slammed by a fish corpse and [i]doesn’t die[/i], and that’s because Roy goes to this alternative land that’s full of color as opposed to the dull pea-soup greenscale that was seen in the Gameboy Classic era. Some presiding person decides that it’s not Roy’s time to die yet, so he sends his newly widowed self back to Earth to be a bachelor once again. Roy spends the rest of the quest wanting to prove the existence of color to his peers, but they all write him off as being insane because anything outside of the greenscale can’t [i]possibly[/i] exist. He conscripts the help of his brother, Bivare, and they do things. So if you didn’t already know, this game is essentially an revisitation, homage, or what-have-you to Gameboy games, which is why the game plays in 160x144 as its native resolution. You have a couple of buttons, one of which is an action or short-range attack, the other being your projectile attack, and then one that summons your bottomless-bag inventory when you have your companion Mark with you [cue that one scene from The Room]. There’s also a pause and select button, respectively. The game features graphics that are true-to-style with some impressive designs, and a composure that slowly evolves from FM synthesis to orchestral as you draw closer to the world of color. In addition, the game has some two-player compatibility if that’s something you value, as well as some overworlding, light-puzzling, boss battling, and weapon variety. Draws a lot of parallels to Legend of Zelda. Anyway, now that we’ve gotten the foundation out of the way, let’s move on to what I liked. [h2]The Good[/h2] My most-liked aspect of this game was the story. I was actually pretty interested to see how Roy’s journey would pan out -- it’s very different from the typical “kill goblins, then god” fantasy trope. I also enjoyed seeing the game kind of evolve with hints of color, the improving music composure and etc. All-in-all, I thought the story lined up a strong premise, and the game did its best to back it. I did find myself really enjoying the small gameplay mechanic that was added in support of the story as well - Roy doesn’t [i]die[/i], I guess. He goes to Disneyland’s World of Color, can talk to some of its inhabitants, then he gets suplexed down time-and-time again. The game autosaves at every doorway, so you don’t have to spend time retracing your steps and doing things you’ve [i]already[/i] done, which is considerate. However, that’s about all the things I was able to draw some joy from, let’s move onto the ungoodening. [h2]The Ungood[/h2] I like to start with nitpicky things then finish it off with the worst offense, so first up is the game’s native resolution. The game plays in 160x144, the native resolution of a Gameboy Classic. This is great, but it’s pretty unreasonable to expect me to play that on a 1440p monitor. The game does have some graphical options (pressing 1 - 9 to change screen sizes) but those result in the game application gray-screening without any chance of restoration. What worked for me was that I used “Window Capture” in OBS to blow it up, and just focused my inputs on the game window. Another thing that was somewhat frustrating was the combat system -- it’s a typical ‘press button, do damage’ kinda setup. However, there are times that my attacks would just [i]not[/i] connect. Maybe it’s the fact I was using this really wild bro-chuk Kickstarter exclusive weapon (code was on the community page) that mostly seemed like a gag, but there’s enough reviews that reaffirm that experience for me. There’s also some problems with collision in the game, but they were far less prevalent than combat since you [i]have[/i] to fight enemies at certain points to carry on. As some other reviews have said, there is some case of plagiarization. While it’s a little different, the song “Demise of the Ritual” from Shadow of the Colossus is present, but it’s likely only different because the developers adapted it to fit their instrumentation. That’s a [i]little[/i] more respectful than a blatant export / import, but still a pretty big problem. I would have commended this games’ music if not for that fact, but now since this is something I’ve had the chance to compare and listen to for myself, the entire composure is tainted, especially since this song is so prevalent to specific moods in the game. Lastly, the bugs are what did me in. Mostly just one in specific - the others I could kind of get through. You encounter so many bugs that require you to restart the application, but the constant autosaving of the game kind of softens the inconvenience. There were two fun ones that locked up the game so I couldn’t move and had to restart, the first one being this gentleman in a tavern who I can only guess has a need that nobody in the entire land can satisfy -- and one where I get knocked off a cliff and can’t recover. The latter, after occurring, for one reason or another caused my save to start from the very beginning of the game. It was precisely at that moment I decided I could no longer continue -- I turned in my two weeks, removed anything that wasn’t a shade of green from my closet, and spent the rest of my days twirling two dudes around on a chain. [h2]The End[/h2] Well, that was my experience in Two Brothers. I feel like this game really had something going for it with its interesting story, but there were just a whole lot of things holding it back. If you’re wondering why the game isn’t on the store anymore, the creators took it down in preparation for the re-master in Unity. Since someone had asked if I could review Two Brothers, I actually had to get this key from Green Man Gaming. The re-release in Unity, called “Chromophore” was supposed to come out in 2017, according to the website. However, since there’s been no update since March of 2016, I can’t imagine that’s happening any time soon, if at all. [i]If you’re into curator groups, [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/38757311/]we have one of those[/url]. Did you like this written review? Watch the video review which does have some different coverage not talked about here:[/i] https://youtu.be/tRMcmCZBYcI

i paid 3$ for this just to make a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ knockoff alex yiik tshirt please do not buy this not even from any other third party sites

yiik

Can't believe I'm finally playing this a decade after backing it on kickstarter. Not much point in reviewing it now. It's such a strange game that it's often difficult to separate the legitimate bugs from the overall glitch aesthetic. There are real puzzles, and there's the puzzle of trying to complete the game without ruining your save file. A couple boss fights, I'm not sure if I was having the intended experience, or if I just cheesed my way through something barely functional. I love it. It's unique and weird; the characters are likeable and human and the story is interesting. I've had to grow a new organ dedicated to patience to keep playing, but it's been worth it. And for a story about a Gameboy world discovering colors that shouldn't exist, it really looks the part. Feels like a dusty bootleg cartridge of a game that was never released...

Два Братана — донельзя кривая игрушка косящая под стиль Геймбоя. До этого дня (на момент обзора), последний раз я её запускал аж в 2016 году, и то не смог осилить, спасибо весьма злоеб€чему управлению, от которого можно пальцы сломать. Ибо раз имитировать Геймбой, то и управление имитировать под него на клавиатуре, пущай игрок страдает. Причем занятно что разраб смог собрать деньги на Кикстартере на этот проект (аж 16 килобаксов), но не смог ни допилить его до нормального состояния, ни сделать портирование на другие платформы, что анонсировалось. Хотя казалось бы тут дата релиза 2013 год, это не нынешние времена когда весь Стим забит инди-трэшем. Ну до ладно. Начнем с плюсов: ✓ оно косит под Зельду на Геймбое. ✓ сюжет более\менее. Но вот все остальное это лютый минус: − играть можно с другом, но это такая боль, что игру оно не спасает. − управление кривое даже на геймпаде. На геймпаде, Карл! Про клавиатуру можно даже не говорить. − карты огроменные и полупустые. − багов темень. − разрешение экрана как у Геймбоя. Ну может это хорошо для аутентичности, но это плохо для очкарика за монитором. − тексты нельзя скипнуть. − да тут почти всё плохо, недаром я еще лет 6 назад её забросил в дальний ящик. Как итог: годная задумка, норм сюжет, очень плохая техническая реализация из-за которой нельзя насладиться первыми двумя пунктами. Печаль. Ну хотя бы убрали этот трэш из Стима. 2 брата из 10 небратьев P.s: как оно выглядело, можно глянуть к примеру здесь: https://youtu.be/tayRDKKXd9s https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1276836226 [i]P.s: если этот обзор был для Вас полезен ставьте лайк, а также добавляйтесь в друзья и подписывайтесь на меня как куратора - [url=http://store.steampowered.com/curator/28776273/] Обзоры онлайн [/url][/i]

Two Brothers (2013) Man where to start with this one. Start the game, the screen is as small as a Gameboy screen on startup. Make the screen fullscreen, the game crashes. Ok so Gameboy mode it is. Oh look, it says "remote compatible" ok lets try the Xbox remote. Oh it doesn't work... Fine lets just start the game - ah... it keeps going back to the main menu. After about an hour of struggling and crashes and an endless barrage of glitches I give up. This game is not in a playable state to be called worthy of your money. The 8-bit graphics is cool but i'm sure you can find much better games on Steam then this. The Brothers need to go back to crushing bugs and ensure a stable game before they sell their product. 2/10

I recommend this game for when an update or remake/remaster fixes the engine issues it has. Game could use a bit of polish but overall impresses for its time, showing genuinely interesting boss designs and inventive scenarios. And man not to mention the Aesthetics, the style this game has is so unique and perfectly crafted to it's presentation. To talk slightly about the story it's something akin to Drakengard meets Classic Zelda with the main characters being like Walter White? Roy is a self absorbed ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, who does ♥♥♥♥♥♥ things "For the good of others". And the world he lives in is filled with Fantasy world tropes that are "Just a bit ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up" This results in something that isn't wholly unique but is charming and interesting nonetheless. (Fun fact: includes the FIRST appearance of Shovel Knight (Before his own game even))

I bought a steam key for Two Brothers as a joke, after playing some of YIIK. I didn't get too far into it (Softlocked talking to an npc and couldn't be bothered). But I will proudly add a cannot recommend this game. I heard that Two Brothers was actually good, and I did want to try it. I wanted to see what Ackk Studios were at their best. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, dude. I didn't expect it to be worse. I'll take listening to 5hrs of Alex Yiik Monologues over this. This isn't comprehensive as my YIIK review, it's mostly me ranting. But my walkaway after trying this game is this is terrible, I cannot believe it was priced at 15 dollars originally, and that this is a half-hearted love letter to RPGs written in Alex Yiik's piss. By the way, don't buy a steam key for this game unless you want it as a joke. I'll never get my 3 dollars back lol. As for the story the opening bit is this: "HI I'm roy. There's an old legend where there were fish people, and now theres a fish king protecting their old home. I'm going to find proof of this" and he goes with his wife. (She's not given a name in the beginning sequence, rather her name is "Loving Wife". However her name is revealed later in a diff cutscene two seconds later and I forgot it instantly) So he goes and finds a dead fish king, then his wife dies immediately to like a trap and there's no build up at all so it just happens. Then a random guy appears and is like "Hello boy... I can bring the thing you want most back from the dead..." I said no but the game proceeds as if I said yes pretty much. The guy then revives the fish king thing?? and it kills roy lol lmao. When you die you don't actually die but instead go to this like other 'plane' of existence where theres more colors and the pixel art is worse. The main character acknowledges this and decides that's his lifes work now. (But you're only there for five seconds of confusing exploration that's also inconsistent in it's environment don't worry.) Then we get thrown into another cut scene and it's not even worth discussing because it doesn't ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ matter. Also there's like two typos in it. Apparently, the story does get better. However the first ten minutes of a game should have me interested. I was not, even a little bit. Anyway this game is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ fighting you trying to play it. You can easily get stuck after speaking to NPCs. Like the game freed me and my sibling from it's boringness by soft locking me inside a random fish person playing the sax. God bless. A 'feature' of the game is that: Instead of a text box appearing at the bottom of ur screen when you talk to npcs, it's ALWAYS THERE. You get new dialogue/descriptive lines by walking INTO NPCs/Items to display there at the bottom, and they remain there until you go look at something else. Which is like ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stupid because it causes a problem. You can cut off one-time dialogue early by walking into something. It's not even done well anyway- like the dialogue is BORING. Some NPCs also openly acknowledge being in a game, making jokes about that (it's not funny tho). You can walk into NPC rooms in inns, but they go ">:( why are you in here" which adds to the general feeling that Two Brothers is pretentious and thinks it's so cool for subverting tropes. Like they make fun of everything. Even things so small such as chests. "Roy found a chest, but he can't open it from the side" 🙄 In a better game, I'd find that funny but a little annoying. However Two Brothers is not funny or interesting enough to earn my good will. (I genuinely give Garfield Kart some good will, my standards are low dude.) Don't get me on the controls, man. Apparently later there's supposed to be a point where you play as two characters (The Two Brothers). However the controls are so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ dumb, and you CAN'T CHANGE THEM in a meaningful way. The controls are: Player one: Arrow Keys, ZXC to do things. Player two: WASD, IOP(I think, it might be UIO) to do things. Get a friend, or a brother even, and put your hands on WASD. Then have them put their fingers on the ZXC keys. It's STUPID. When I'm playing a game I don't want to be fondling my sibling/friend's hand. At least Fire Boy and Water Girl understood to keep controls separate for two players. This could of course be fixed if you could actually change the controls, but you can't. Your only options are to swap around who has what, or use a Gamepad. Which I don't know if a gamepad is a specific controller, since when we plugged ours in it didn't work. Another solution to this would be to get a second USB keyboard but I shouldn't need outside materials to play the game as intended. Now this is especially mean: But I don't think the people at Ackk studios understood RPG tropes enough to break them. This game feels like in it's first 30 minutes that it's begging to be different, unique, and quirky. It's just not. Because it doesn't understand how and why these things are done, it doesn't get why doing the opposite is a bad thing. YIIK gives me a similar feeling, but you know what, at least I want to see that one through. It's frustrating and terrible enough to keep me engaged, and I can see the POTENTIAL! In the first 30 minutes of Two Brothers, I could care less. I don't see any real potential here. The opening cutscenes felt like a first draft, and rushed into things head-first. I would've rather slogged through Twisted Pair (2018) again. Was this game really, REALLY worth referencing at every turn, including at KEY STORY POINTS of YIIK? I don't want to hate on the guys at Ackk studios, but they desperately need to go learn the fundamentals of making a video game before trying to go against the grain. Instead of wasting everyone's time. I am glad they made it so people can't buy this game normally at least. ETA: I just remembered. The game gives you the option to full screen but it BREAKS in multiple different ways depending on when you do it. So for me to play this game, I had to open OBS and live-capture it, to get a bigger screen. The game is so visibly tiny!! Also on the main screen before I even had any files, this game was using as much memory as Firefox does. What?? Insane.

Two brothers is a broken, improperly made game, and yet it follows the one rule of game design that so many have failed to follow in recent years, a necessary rule for storytelling: "put your heart into it". This game has more heart than most games out there, but still it's the type to crash after a few minutes of play, softlock you randomly, and various other issues. You are welcome to hate it for these reasons, and as I said, it's a broken game. The devs of this game get way too much hate. I respect their visions and plans in games, even though they generally aren't fun games. Why play a game that isn't fun? Same reason I read books such as The Giver in middle school; sometimes, you gotta hurt yourself to experience something new, different, and that will forever impact you for better or worse. Games made by this studio are that sort of game. They are bitter sensations that wake you in the same way as coffee. Maybe you need some. Maybe you don't. But even if you don't, it's free.