Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Critic Reviews

Brothers is nothing short of a triumph, glowing brightly in the embers of the dying fire of this console generation and reminding us all why we started playing games in the first place.

It's rare for a game to forge a connection so strong, and even rarer for you to become the connective tissue.

Enigmatic, deep, poetic, imaginative, intense. Brothers is an emotional masterpiece.

Games capable of forging such a connection with a player aren't legion, and those who literally transform the player himself into that very same connection, even more. Brothers manages to do both, and without ever doing too much, is able in a very short playtime to evoke the sadness of grief, the joy of the discovery of the outside world, the transmission between the generations, the coming of adulthood, and much more, all brilliantly weaved into the gameplay itself. Quite an accomplishment.

If you’ve grown tired of the same old stuff filling store shelves and hard drive space, then you should really consider Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons for a more unique, emotional ride than you’re likely to see all year.

The resulting journey is so singularly devoted to creating a specific tone and atmosphere that you won't likely be able to stop thinking about it until long after you've seen it through to the end.

Brothers is a wonderful piece of storytelling and a fantastic puzzle game that’ll make you want to hug a loved one. Highly recommended.

Short but immensely satisfying, it's Ico meets Limbo in Fable's world. In a word: spellbinding.

Despite some slight technical let downs, and a few underwhelming aesthetics, Brothers is a rather beautiful tale of love and loss, of fables and fairy tales, and of family most of all.

A extremely pleasant surprise that deserves a break from all those action games to be enjoyed. The innocence of these two brothers is one of the best downloadable games of the year.

The game as a whole is lacking in substance and rough around the edges, but Brothers' fantastic ending makes it a triumph all the same.

It’s the rare game that gets better the more you play. The three or four hours it will likely take you to run through it from beginning to end will pass almost before you know it and, as the credits roll, one of your first thoughts will probably be that it’s not too soon to experience it all again, if only a couple of times more.

Brothers tests the limits of what games are capable of communicating and, in doing so, strengthens the medium as a whole, if only a little. The game's final moments moved me to tears in the act of pressing a button. Not because it triggered some heart-wrenching dialogue or sorrowful music, but by the implications of the mechanic itself.

A stunning adventure, a powerful trip blessed by an incredible art direction and the first "single player cooperative game". It's not perfect and it's short, but it's worth a ride.

Oddly enough, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is more about the journey than the destination. It’s sobering, funny, heartfelt, and inspirational all at once, sprinkled with some real life lessons in between. If this is what Starbreeze Studios is truly capable of, then we’re ready to see plenty more — especially if it means more interesting experimental mechanics like the ones exhibited here.

Between the clever level design, the game's gentle way of teaching you the mechanics and the simple, heart-felt story with it's phenomenal finale, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons should be played by pretty much everyone.

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is short. I finished it in a single three hour Sunday afternoon session...But it’s also immensely gratifying.

An an usual game, with a mature and touching plot in a fantastic and dangerous world. You'll need some time to get used to the unique double-character control system, but that's a tiny gem you shouldn't miss.

It does something no other medium could accomplish, and while it suffers the occasional misstep along the way, what comes before is an endearing and wholly accomplished adventure that makes Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons a powerful experience recommended to all.

You know that feeling when you pull away from the last page and feel as though you've experienced something nobody else has? If you're paying attention, that will happen with Brothers. Sure, it doesn't take long to complete the whole experience and see everything there is to see, but the story is told in such a way that it takes just as long as it needs, taken directly out of Portal's script-writing playbook. On that same note, this too is an experience people should be touting as a beautiful demonstration of video games as art.