Game Review: Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
I picked up a lot of games toward the end of 2013 thanks to Steam, and I was particularly excited about Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. I played the demo of the game on the Xbox 360 before, and it immediately got me curious.

The demo told me next to nothing about the game’s story – it just started off with two brothers passing through a village. Aside from the simple yet stunning visuals, what interested me most about the demo was the gameplay. You use the left joystick and trigger buttons to control the older brother, and the right joystick to control the younger brother. You could have the two brothers interact with objects and other people, and help each other solve puzzles and pass through obstacles.
When the game went up on Steam sale during the holidays, I bought it the moment I saw it. My initial impression of the game left me completely unprepared for the emotions I would feel because of the game’s story and the brothers’ interactions with each other.
Warning: This review contains some spoilers. I kept them as vague as possible, but tread carefully if you haven’t played the game!

The story’s main idea is simple: two brothers go on a quest to save their father’s life by bringing him healing water from a magical tree. How the story plays out is what makes it memorable.

The brothers travel from ordinary villages with ordinary people and animals to ogre-infested mines, a giant castle, and grisly battlefields. Some of their experiences are pretty fun, but others are gut-wrenching tearjerkers…

…or are just plain disturbing.

Throughout their journey, they have to work together navigate through different terrains, get past obstacles, fend off attacks, and generally just survive. And really – the brothers literally can’t survive without one another. If you keep them too far apart, they’ll stop following your commands and just stand there hollering at each other.

It becomes painfully obvious throughout the story that Little Brother is more dependent on Big Brother than the other way around, but Big Brother never seemed to mind.

Even though there was one scene where Little Brother was starting to think Big Brother blamed him for what happened to their parents, Big Brother always had his back.

…except when a girl came along. I won’t go into detail about what happened, but let’s just say that the notion of “bros before hoes” would have really helped the brothers out.

I don’t want to spoil the last part of the game – you really, REALLY have to play it to fully appreciate how beautiful and meaningful it is.
Final Thoughts
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is a short, sweet, and absolutely brilliant game. Its gorgeous storybook-like visuals, unique gameplay, lovely music, and a thoughtful storyline come together to create a beautiful, emotionally-charged experience that will leave a lasting impression on anyone’s heart.
I really don’t mean to sound like such an sentimental sap about the whole thing, but seriously; play it, and you’ll understand.

El Santos is a marketing & advertising professional by day and gamer/bookworm/tarot reader by night. She’s prone to sudden fits of fangirling over her varied interests: video games, fiction, art, folkore, anime, and tarot. She currently lives with her husband and 2 rescue cats.