


What’s most impressive is how much thought has gone into creating a co-op game that actually cares about both players. There’s never a point where it feels like player one got the “cool” item and their partner is a sidekick. The mechanics and utility of each item are completely different and give each player their own unique experience. In the opening chapter, Cody gets a set of nails that can be shot into wooden walls while May gets a hammerhead that she can use to swing on those nails. May and Cody get completely different tools to play with in each level. As soon as players could find themselves bored with a traditional platforming puzzle, it swaps over to a mini-dungeon crawler that’s completely different and just as enjoyable.

The levels themselves offer a constant barrage of fun ideas that never overstay their welcome. The puzzles are rarely challenging, but the solutions are ingenious enough to inspire satisfying eureka moments. As a platformer, the running and jumping feels as good as a Mario game. It’s a high-concept idea that is delivered with finesse. Players learn to communicate and build their trust in one another alongside May and Cody. The game can only be played with another human partner, so it requires actual unity to complete. Lots of romance stories tell audiences how important teamwork is, but It Takes Two puts physicality to those life lessons. Co-llab-o-ration!ĭespite the cinematic comparisons, the game works as well as it does because of its interactivity. Fortunately, every new mechanic is so pleasurable that it hardly matters how effective the game is as a therapy session. Plot threads seem to come out of left field to justify moving the game to a snow-themed level or an elaborate musical set-piece. There are a lot of rapid-fire gameplay ideas happening at every level that don’t always sync up to a relationship parallel. The story can get narratively scattershot at times.
THE COIN GAME STEAM TV TROPES FULL
The game takes full advantage of its magical realist premise to playfully transform domestic squabbles into clever video game tropes. When they break the news to their daughter, she does what any confused child would do in the situation: Accidentally traps her parents in the body of two tiny dolls with the help of a magical book. Cody and May are a bickering married couple who decide to call it quits. Instead, it opens with a couple on the verge of divorce. It Takes Two doesn’t begin with a traditional meet-cute. Even the most hardened gamers may find themselves falling for the most inventive co-op game since Portal 2.
THE COIN GAME STEAM TV TROPES MOVIE
It Takes Two is a labor of love that has the heart of a Pixar movie and the soul of a Nintendo platformer. Imagine a 12-hour couples therapy session by way of Astro’s Playroom. Rather than dishing out grim sci-fi or high fantasy, It Takes Two is an unabashed rom-com about the restorative power of communication and teamwork. The EA-published adventure is the latest project by multiplayer studio Hazelight and director Josef Fares, the eclectic director behind A Way Out. Co-op platformer It Takes Two shows just how much we’ve been missing out on thanks to the gaming industry’s fear of cooties. While video games can cover a broad range of genres, there’s one frontier that remains mostly uncharted: The romantic comedy.
