It Takes Two Review (Larendell)
To start off, I have to say that It Takes Two was a super polished and of high quality, with extremely few notable flaws. I played the game with my brother, and neither of us had any knowledge about the game prior to starting it. Who you're playing with will obviously have a major impact on your experience with the game, so grab a trusty pardner and jump on in!
The gameplay is pretty casual and very forgiving: you only get thrown a tiny bit backwards if both of you perish at the same time – and even then it's a very teeny tiny setback. This does help in avoiding frustrating situations and greatly lessens the likelihood of stabbing or getting stabbed by your partner. Play it with your grandma, nephew or filthy casual partner; they should all be able to handle it.
The gameplay is also very varied from start to finish, which you can look at either as scrapping mechanics before you get used to them and before all of their potential is exhausted, or as a way of constantly trying out something fun and different. Personally, I really liked the continually changing gameplay elements, even if wouldn't have minded if some sections were a little longer. All in all, the pacing of the gameplay was good and there weren't really any dull moments.
The relaxed gameplay also effectively gave you a lot of freedom to roam and explore all of the areas at your own pace. I can only think of one place where we skipped an optional explorable area (Helltower) and accidentally went forward, which locked us out from completing it even though we could return to the place. I loved how It Takes Two handled achievements, as it very much promoted exploration instead of grinding. The only nasty surprise was that apparently you can't get any achievements if you're playing on a Friend's Pass copy of the game, so I ended up still buying my own copy after already playing ~55 % of the way towards the end. :D
The story was quite good and heartwarming (except for THAT one part...), with plenty of cut scenes and excellent voice acting. We clocked in at around 16 hours, and a total of 19 hours including the hunt for the last achievements that I had originally missed, which is a very decent length, especially if you got the game on sale. The various mini-games were mostly okay, and added a bit of flavour to the story as well – even though it felt like most of them consistently went 3-0 to one of the players.
I purchased a PS5-controller two months ago, and this was the first game that I played from start to finish with it after an almost 15 year long break from my previous stint with the PS2. The gameplay seemed to be pretty similar whether you're using a controller or mouse and keyboard. Both had some benefits, e.g. the occasionally required aiming wasn't as clunky with a mouse. Playing with a controller combined with some of the featured gameplay elements gave a strong nostalgic throwback to the good ol' Ratchet & Clank -series back on PS2.
9,5 / 10