Brothers

We sit down and review Brothers: A Tale Of Two Sons Remake. A new way to experience this dark & deep story. Here is our review of this remake for Brothers

In an era of remakes and remasters, it is always nice when we see some of the under-appreciated titles show back up as we did with the Brothers: A Tale Of Two Sons Remake. A title that caught my attention a while back when I enjoyed the original version and now we have Avantgarden coming back in to bring us the same story and fun but with all of the other upgrades that we have had over the last decade. It has been a while since we were able to join these brothers, so that is why we were glad to jump and take it for a spin one more time. Get ready to have something deep come up into your heart and something to work out those fingers. Here is our review of one more remake that we have out there now on the PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.

Story

Things are not going so well for our titular brothers as the story starts out with them remembering their lost mother and now their father is dying. Not a great place to be in. Thankfully, the local healer knows of something that could potentially save their father's life, and the two brothers set out on a quest to collect this MacGuffin. All while needing to climb, swing, and run past all manner of enemies. Enemies like trolls, giants, and dogs that are overly angry and aggressive for no reason. Will they both be able to make it back and save their father? It is time to see as they work together to do just that.

Hated

To kick things off, I will have to dig into one of the same issues I had with the first version of Brothers: A Tale Of Two Sons that this remake carries on over. The lack of dialogue in the game. While I understand the choice to tell everything through emotional clues and beats, it would have been nice to have some of these emotional points impacted with some good voice work too. Instead, it is the same level of things we had before with the brothers talking gibberish with each other and all of the other creatures in the world. Why even bother with any of that if you are going to focus on the context of things to tell the story? It is an odd choice and with the full remake here, it would have been nice to get that extra emotional gut punch with some true vocal work.

Building from that, some of the reworked puzzles and locations in Brothers could have used some of the aforementioned dialog to help explain what needs to be done in certain instances. There were a few puzzles that have been updated and would lead to an instant death if not done as the two describe through the basic ways. Sure, this is all about the puzzles, but a few were so convoluted that they felt like they needed more than context clues to understand. One requires the brothers to stand on each other's shoulders and none of the events before then showed that this was something that could happen or needed to happen. It left me frustrated to the point I almost stopped playing and this was near the end of the game. I get no hand-holding but something that shows an action could be done in general would have helped and not spoiled the puzzle. Something that happened quite often in the game.

Loved

Even though it is not told in a traditional sense, the story of Brothers: A Tale Of Two Sons is a solid one and still lives. More so when you get a better look at the monsters and other obstacles in the way of the two brother's quest. I am not going to spoil it, but even having played through it before, it hit all of the proper heartstrings along the way and showed that I was not a terrible monster on the inside. Even the upgraded cutscenes felt like they added more to everything for the brothers here and worked. Even when turning the sound completely off for the game, everything was conveyed well. This, I know, runs contradictive to the above gripe, but that was more on why even have them make noise when they could have been silent to whole time and played into the emotional beats just with looks and basic animations. That came out strong which is why it is here in this section of the review.

While not the hardest puzzles in any game out there, everything that the Brothers: A Tale Of Two Sons Remake offered up again worked well and was overly engaging. You could see things flow more smoothly in this version which helped out with many of the puzzles in the game. Given that we are controlling each brother with a different joystick and context button press, having that all flow made the progress and success of each that much more enjoyable out there. At least once it was made clear what was needed to be done. Other modern games have been bogged down by the basics of climbing and swinging, but in Brothers it was never the case. Even after the times I fell to my doom, it was more on my coordination than it was any issue with the physics of the game. Another great place where the newer technology of the game engines helped this title shine just a bit brighter than it had before.

Overview

Plain and simple, even with the faults mentioned for Brothers: A Tale Of Two Sons Remake, it was an overly enjoyable experience. One that I did not want to end. Not because of how I knew it was going to end, but because I was pulled into the world and the story so well with the better visuals to it all. I wish there would have been some true vocal work done for the game, but even without it, I still had a great time reliving a story I already knew. I would say it would be worth your time if you have played it, and doubly so if you have not. It is a nice little story that may or may not end the way you think and at the very least, has some fun puzzles and platforming to enjoy. It is a short one, but something fully worth breaking up the longer titles that are all grime as of right now.

I give Brothers: A Tale Of Two Sons Remake 1 Massive Spider Monster on the Massive Spider Monster scale.

Brothers: A Tale Of Two Sons Remake was developed by Avantgarden and published by 505 Games for the PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC on February 28^th, 2024. A PlayStation copy of the game was provided by the publisher for reviewing purposes.