Two Brothers

About

Two Brothers is a single player and multiplayer role playing game. It was developed by Ackk Studios and was released on December 3, 2013. It received negative reviews from players.

Two Brothers is an Action Adventure game that features a classic Gameboy aesthetic. You play the role of Roy and Bivare guarder, two scientists who are researching the origins of life. While researching, Roy is met with a terrible fate, and has a near death experience. While Roy is on the other side of death, he visits an afterlife filled with beautiful 16 bit colors. Now that he has experienced …

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32%

Audience ScoreBased on 161 reviews

story38 positive mentions

stability54 negative mentions

Unique, heartfelt story with nostalgic retro visuals and a compelling, imaginative world that evokes classic 8-bit and 16-bit games.
Interesting and deep themes, engaging plot, and memorable characters making for an immersive narrative experience.
Strong, catchy soundtrack with transitions from chip-tune to orchestral compositions that enhance the atmosphere.

Game-breaking bugs, glitches, and crashes frequently disrupt gameplay and can corrupt save files, making the game often unplayable.
Extremely limited and problematic resolution options with a very small default window size, and fullscreen mode crashes.
Cumbersome and unresponsive controls, poor collision detection, and tedious combat mechanics that reduce enjoyment.

story
86 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
44%
53%
3%
The story of "Two Brothers" is widely praised for being compelling, original, and emotionally engaging, with a unique premise centered on discovering color in a monochromatic world. Players appreciate its nostalgic, old-school RPG feel and thoughtful character development, despite some criticism of wordy writing and a fanfiction-like style. However, the story's impact is often undermined by numerous bugs and gameplay frustrations, though many find it worth enduring these issues for the narrative experience.
- “Two brothers is a broken, improperly made game, and yet it follows the one rule of game design that so many have failed to follow in recent years, a necessary rule for storytelling: 'put your heart into it.'”
- “As far as we have come we have watched games evolve into programs that captivate life, this game is a love letter to my generation and the next with a story that expands into the colors of the world as I seen it when I was young, the game itself is a little buggy but they are working on it the story and design are just fantastic this game has a lot of bad reviews but if you don't mind some bugs this is a gem that is just breaching the surface, so why not support the dev and watch it grow.”
- “Two brothers has a great story with lots of intriguing dialogue and plot twists.”
- “You have to disable the Steam overlay in order to actually see what's happening, and the story tries to be impactful and manages to fail on that front too.”
- “Because of not getting XP or levels and finding the story bland, I felt like giving up.”
- “Because of all these issues and feeling like I'm only hacking or shooting forward to hear more of the somewhat bland story, I uninstalled.”
stability
54 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game is widely reported as buggy and unstable, with frequent glitches, crashes, and issues like collision and hit detection problems that often hinder progress. While some players find the story and concept compelling enough to tolerate these flaws, many warn that the game can be frustrating or even unplayable in its current state. The developer is actively addressing these issues through updates, but players should be prepared for ongoing stability problems.
- “After about an hour of struggling with crashes and an endless barrage of glitches, I give up.”
- “The glitches are everything they're said to be: frustrating, frequent, and not at all part of the game's charm.”
- “This game isn't currently stable. I nearly completed the main game and that required me to fight both the in-game enemies and more than a few crashes, glitches, and confusing moments when I got legitimately stuck on something that was less than intuitive.”
graphics
38 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
32%
57%
11%
The game's graphics evoke strong nostalgia with a unique, retro 8-bit aesthetic reminiscent of classic Game Boy titles, praised for their charm and emotional tone. However, many users report frequent graphical glitches, bugs, and a lack of adjustable settings, which sometimes hinder gameplay and detract from the experience. Overall, while visually appealing to fans of old-school styles, the presentation is marred by technical issues.
- “The game features graphics that are true-to-style with some impressive designs, and a composure that slowly evolves from FM synthesis to orchestral as you draw closer to the world of color.”
- “And man, not to mention the aesthetics, the style this game has is so unique and perfectly crafted to its presentation.”
- “With bittersweet sentimentality, the verdict is that Two Brothers features graphics lush with fond memories and homages, a great soundtrack, and quite a treat in gameplay.”
- “Another one of the tons of RPG Maker games out there, terrible visuals and gameplay.”
- “The game does have some graphical options (pressing 1 - 9 to change screen sizes) but those result in the game application gray-screening without any chance of restoration.”
- “Every time I load it up there is some sort of graphics glitch, and when I have to reload a game 3 times before I get the game working enough to play through it on the 4th, only to have it crash at the next screen that loads, I don't think that's a good game at all.”
music
37 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
43%
49%
8%
The music is widely praised for its nostalgic, emotive, and well-composed soundtrack that enhances the game's atmosphere, often described as one of its best features. However, some reviewers criticize the inclusion of a plagiarized track from Shadow of the Colossus, which negatively impacts their perception of the overall score. Despite occasional issues with volume control and bugs affecting audio playback, the soundtrack remains a strong, memorable aspect of the game.
- “The soundtrack is great.”
- “I found myself humming a lot of the tunes and went ahead and bought the soundtrack on Bandcamp so I could listen in the car.”
- “The music is catchy and simple while chiptune-like, and then when the game gets intense it switches to full orchestration while upping the complexity.”
- “There's the aforementioned bugs, but also the godawful music - some of which is outright plagiarized from Shadow of the Colossus - and the fact that almost nothing in this game works.”
- “The music track in the museum is horrendously screwed up and is just a loud high-pitched screech that made me want to throw my headphones against the wall.”
- “The music is really too loud and you can't even change the volume, and mostly weird are the bugs in this game; it just ruins the feeling of the maybe good game.”
gameplay
32 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
44%
43%
13%
The gameplay is generally fun and engaging, drawing strong inspiration from classic JRPGs and action-adventure titles like Zelda, with some fresh mechanics and nostalgic design elements. However, it is frequently marred by bugs, clunky controls, and occasionally frustrating level design, which can disrupt the experience and cause save issues. Despite these flaws, many appreciate its charm, story integration, and evolving polish across updates.
- “Two brothers - successful Kickstarter, interesting story, beautiful retro visuals, fun little things (like interaction with NPCs) + good gameplay.”
- “The game's unusual game over mechanic is only one of the ways the designers have used old video game mechanics to pull the player into Roy Gardner's fragile and rapidly disintegrating reality.”
- “Two Brothers took that notion and completely deconstructed it and shaped into a robust mechanism that changes everything we've known about death in gameplay.”
- “None-the-less, it has a myriad of gameplay bugs that risk not only you having to restart the application, but also your whole game.”
- “Unfortunately, the gameplay is so lacking that I can't be bothered to play very far in it.”
- “Other design issues, such as unfair or pointless traps, make the gameplay boring.”
humor
6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
67%
33%
The humor in the game is a mix of meta jokes and playful references to other adventure games, which some players found clever and enjoyable, especially those familiar with similar titles. However, others felt the jokes were annoying or not funny enough to elevate the experience. Overall, the humor adds some charm but is somewhat uneven in impact.
- “The humor in the game made it worth the time. Finding 'Link' dead on the island made my day, and the jabs at other adventure games, like the real hearts and zipped locations reminiscent of Zelda, were epic. The NPC dialogue was stellar.”
- “It hits differently if you've played Y2K beforehand, but it's funny seeing parallels between the two.”
- “In a better game, I'd find that funny but a little annoying.”
- “Some NPCs also openly acknowledge being in a game, making jokes about that (it's not funny though).”
- “However, two brothers is not funny or interesting enough to earn my good will.”
emotional
6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game evokes a nostalgic and emotional connection through its aesthetic and story, successfully capturing the tone of classic 8- and 16-bit games with a thoughtful and touching narrative. However, some users also experienced negative feelings related to technical issues and visual confusion. Overall, it delivers a heartfelt, if occasionally frustrating, emotional experience.
- “What drew me to back this game was the aesthetic really nailed the tone of Final Fantasy Adventures in a really compelling, emotional way.”
- “The story is thought-provoking and touching.”
- “This game is a heartfelt love letter to the 8- and 16-bit games of the 1990's.”
grinding
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game is praised for its lack of grinding, allowing for substantial playtime without repetitive, tedious tasks typically associated with RPGs.
optimization
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game's optimization is notably poor, particularly affecting hit detection, combat, and dialogue systems, which detracts from the otherwise captivating story and world.
- “Really poor optimization around hit detection, combat, dialogue... it's a shame because the story and world are pretty captivating.”