Video Game Review: It Takes Two
“It Takes Two” is a co-op game that requires teamwork and communication between players.
The game focuses on the crumbing marriage of Cody and May and their daughter’s struggle with it. Their daughter, Rose, buys a love book in hopes to fix her parent’s marriage. The book comes to life and shrinks Cody and May into two adorable dolls that Rose had previously made. The book sends Cody and May on various adventures that force the two to work together through different obstacles to essentially fix their marriage. Each level of the game is a completely different theme, which keeps the game entertaining because you are constantly encountering different puzzles, monsters and scenery. Along with the different themes of each level, the characters are given different tools to help them with every level.
The animation style of the game is interesting because there are very realistic parts that border on the uncanny valley, which is seen through the characters in their real bodies and a 3-D cartoon style. Backgrounds through certain levels also have a hyper-realistic feel to them, but in others, you get the wacky cartoon style. Overall, the game has beautiful scenery and animation.
The length of this game ranges from about 10-15 hours depending on how quickly you play through, but each level has many interactive things to explore that are not necessary to the overall mission. Along with the main challenge of each level, the game is scattered with mini-games. The mini-games are a fun touch to each level that adds a competitive touch between players. These mini-games include different target shooting ranges, races, puzzles and so much more. All the mini-games are themed around what level you are currently working through.
The story of this game is very beautiful. Cody and May start their adventures with a lot of hatred and animosity toward each other, but as they progress through challenges the dislike towards each other slowly fades. This is done very subtly through the character’s dialogue toward each other. Instead of blaming each other for everything that goes wrong and stating that they cannot wait to be divorced, they start to check up on each other, reminisce about their life together and joke around. This game shows how important communication and teamwork with your partner is.
I absolutely love this game. As someone who has been in a long-term relationship with a gamer, we are constantly trying to find games that we can both enjoy playing to spend quality time with one another. This is the first game that we have attempted that is fun for me, easy enough to where I do not get frustrated, challenging enough to keep me interested and requires a lot of communication and working together to finish. I also really enjoyed how different each level was, along with the creativity that obviously went into the game. The fun and cute animation style also helped keep my overall attention. I really enjoyed the story of the game, the challenges, the themes, the unique tools we used and game play. I highly recommend this game to any couples who want something fun and challenging to do together or friends who want a game they can play together.
