There's a reason (err, several) why It Takes Two earned its Game of the Year accolades in 2021, and Switch owners now have the opportunity to play one of the best co-op games of late. The story remains meaningful, the puzzles innovative. The title continues to succeed in navigating interpersonal strife long after its release and the title's ending being freely available to find online. Even though I knew of some of the events that occurred before reviewing, I was often surprised by its powerful storytelling. It runs incredibly well on the Switch, to boot. Some of the typical Switch-based quirks may be coming with, but it still delivers on a compelling and emotional experience without the compromises that usually accompany a Switch port. With Friend Pass baked into the game, Switch owners are able to play with those in the same room as well as afar. I would personally recommend using a voice comms platform should you play remotely, though.
Communication is key in all relationships: Friendships, close romantic partners, and family members. Being on the same page through effective communication ensures that all parties in a communication transaction end up with the communication outcome they desire without feeling slighted, misunderstood, and/or belittled.
If you’ve read this far and thought, Gee, this sounds like an Interpersonal Communication college course, you would be hitting the nail on its proverbial head. For several years, I’ve taught Interpersonal Communication at the college level to hundreds of bright-eyed, mostly awake college students. In my courses, I’ve sought media examples of communication gone right and communication gone horribly wrong, but I’ve very rarely had examples that put folks in the driver’s seat of emphasizing and learning the necessity of effective communication. I’m happy to say that It Takes Two is a communication professor’s dream example, and I’m even happier to say that it’s now available on the Switch.
DAY 1 – The First Chapter
I had successfully managed to get my partner, who’s happened to be named Cody, to play It Takes Two with me. Neither of us knew the names of the characters, so imagine my surprise to find us unknowingly selecting characters based on our (positive) personalities…and our names. I was surprised that my choice of the blue-haired doll placed me as May, the critical engineer who is embroiled in her work to the point of shutting others out. Cody’s choice of the male doll surprised us, as the male doll ended up being _Cody_ and mirroring some of his hands-on and problem-solving personality traits, too. It was eerie. What the heck are we playing?
I took some notes (most mental, some physical) as my partner and I played It Takes Two on our couch this past week. In our nearly 12-hour playthrough, we experienced a full range of emotions: excitement, happiness, frustration, concern, sadness, relief, and laughter. Despite knowing that It Takes Two had a its narrative ups and downs, there was nothing, absolutely nothing, that prepared us for its incredible story and co-operative gameplay.
For those of you unfamiliar with the story, It Takes Two begins in the home of Cody and May, two parents who’re on the edge of divorce while figuring out how to break the news to their young daughter, Rose. Upon them breaking the news to Rose, she becomes devastated and hides in the shed where she tearfully wishes that there was some way, an inkling of a solution, to bring her parents back together. A short while later, Cody and May wake up in the shed, inhabiting the bodies of Rose’s dolls.
A short aside here: I know that I am not the first one to mention this, and I know that I will most certainly not be the last. But, heavy topics like loss and divorce are so few and far between in a video game medium. When I think of hard-hitting emotional games, I first think of Heavy Rain, The Last of Us, Horizon Zero Dawn (to an extent), Red Dead, and Life is Strange. I can attest to the power of games at bringing joy into folks’ lives, so including these topics in a video game medium should be done with caution and thoughtfulness.
It Takes Two tackles divorce in a unique fashion: It tells the story of the parties involved as being forced to work through their differences and come to a mutual understanding of how their decision is impacting their daughter. I won’t spoil the outcome of these interpersonal trials and tribulations, but the representation of the “other side” of interpersonal conflict, particularly the process rather than the result, is compelling. This representation is worth experiencing, even among those unfamiliar with the act itself.
DAY 2 – Halloween
We’ve settled into our couch to play It Takes Two on these All Hallow’s Eve. Hopefully, we’ll get some trick or treaters and get rid of all of this candy we bought. After a rough first day of figuring out the controls and the gameplay nuances of It Takes Two. I couldn’t succeed alone, nor could Cody. I’m not the best at puzzles, but Cody is. I’m more of a platformer fanatic, but that ain’t Cody’s cup of tea. Time to enter the Magic Castle and see what we find…
Remember how I said that communication is key? In It Takes Two, cooperation is key, and you can only cooperate if you’re communicating effectively. It Takes Two places Cody and May into a myriad of situations that not only individualizes their characters but encourages players to utilize these unique abilities in a cooperative fashion. Be it right from the start, where Cody is given the ability to throw and recall nails and May the power of melee slamming the ground around her with the head of a hammer. May can’t proceed through some sections without Cody’s help, and Cody can’t proceed through others without May. This is further expanded in every chapter, where the abilities change, making players (like Cody and I) talk through how to synthesize our strengths as a team rather than succumb to our individual weaknesses.
How cooperative is the Switch in facilitating effective communication and cooperation between Cody and May? Well…it’s complicated. In our earlier review of It Takes Two, Ben noted that the jumping precision is inconsistent at times. When playing on the Switch, the Joy-Cons exacerbate this wonky precision. For the case of my partner, some sections proved to be tests of patience rather than tests of precision/timing. If you’re playing on a Pro controller or a third party controller (I played on a PS4 controller that I paired with my Switch), you’ll have less of a struggle. But, be prepared for some minor frustrations (and be patient, too!) as you play.
Baked into the It Takes Two title screen is the ability to activate Friend Pass, which allows someone who doesn’t currently own It Takes Two to be invited to play the FULL title on their own Switch without needing to purchase the game. This feature is on other versions of It Takes Two, too, but the Switch has a unique burden that other platforms do not have: Voice comms are not native. Nintendo’s current voice chat options require folks to download a smartphone app to talk to friends, and even then it’s nowhere near as fully fleshed out as Discord.
Playing through It Takes Two is best served among folks who are in close proximity, or at least in a position to consistently communicate by voice. Having the Friend Pass alone is great for two Switch owners to play together assuming one owns the game beforehand, but Nintendo’s lack of onboard native comms hinders the It Takes Two experience for those who don’t happen to be in the same room. If you’re going to play with someone else who is not in the same room, be prepared to utilize a third party comms platform to get some semblance of the co-op experience that It Takes Two creates so well.
DAY 3 – November has Come
Dear God, what have we done? We’ve managed to fix the cuckoo clock, we’re well past _that_ moment (you’ll know of what I speak when you encounter it), and we’re both regretting our choices. Dr. Hakim, the magic relationship book, is sending us on an adventure to a snowy mountain. Oh, how I miss the cold. Why is it still in the 70s here in Chicago? Why am I taking relationship advice from a talking book; is my PhD not enough? Why do I sound like May as I write this out…?
It Takes Two toys with players’ emotions, almost maliciously, through the guise of telling a tale of a broken relationship needing to be mended through communication. In the first few hours, May and Cody are sent through a mainly charming stroll of their shed, yard, and home. These environments span from cutesy and charming talking fauna to sinister hardware hellbent on revenge. At first, these emotional shifts are jarring, and they surprised me with how quick a scene went from adorable to horrifying with a drop of a hat.
Every chapter has a lesson for Cody and May to learn about themselves as well as their relationship, and each environment connects with that overarching lesson. As you travel through the world of their daughter Rose’s imagination, much of the environments are full of life and wonder. The cuckoo clock I alluded to above flows from earthy-Victorian to a pristine heavenly palace that some may assume would come from the Final Fantasy universe. My personal favorite environment was the Kaleidoscope, where the lesson learned involved you being mindful of illusions and mind tricks. Even on the Switch, I was stunned to see these environments brought to life.
It looks like Hazelight and Turn Me Up Studios took extra steps to port It Takes Two‘s environments over to the Switch. In some cases, the environments themselves look to be rebuilt and redesigned with the Switch in mind by removing some textures and bending the ambiance to feel more like a Mario Game. For Switch players unfamiliar with cross-platform graphical differences, you won’t notice a thing. But for others, you’ll notice a slight jankiness and “wetness” (for lack of a better word) covering human figures. I didn’t notice this in my review of Life is Strange: Arcadia Bay Collection, but I do now: Human likeness being represented on the Switch results in an eerie wetness that emerges as shimmers on characters, and this emerges in several of the human-specific cutscenes in It Takes Two. This isn’t a knock on Hazelight, and you shouldn’t step back from playing this game because of the Switchified graphics. It’s just disappointing that the Switch struggles with graphics.
Sure, you may experience some light flickering in the environments and cutscenes. Even more, the game chugs along at a consistent framerate despite the sheer number of objects being rendered at once with some rare exceptions. When Cody and I were navigating the Magic Castle, rotating the camera too quickly resulted in some frame skips. Explosions during a boss sequence in the clocktower also resulted in some frameskips, too. These skips did not impact our ability to make quick decisions, solve puzzles, or miss out on the story in the cutscenes. I am pretty confident that most of you who read this won’t even notice or encounter these graphics.
I like exploring, and I know my Cody does, too. But, we also love being rewarded for going off the beaten path. It Takes Two gives you some rewards and easter eggs in the form of minigames that are conveniently tucked away just out of sight. We had some fun playing them, even if they didn’t offer more than a fleeting moment of brevity of a distraction. On other platforms, completionists are rewarded with achievements on their social profiles. Nintendo has yet to implement a solid achievement system on the Switch. As it relates to this port, I would have liked for some of these achievements to have been ported over in some capacity to an in-game trophy case, or even a space where accomplishing the same tasks in game resulted in unlocking behind-the-scenes or concept art.
Despite my personal quibbles outlined above, I have to say that It Takes Two has one of the better ports for the Nintendo Switch. I’m thrilled to say that our playthrough was nearly flawless. We only had to restart from a checkpoint once, but part of it was from our getting stuck in an area we shouldn’t have been in. Compared to other ports, I would put It Takes Two close to the top of the ladder for how well it does in bringing the emotional rollercoaster of 2021 to Switch owners without compromising graphical quality, gameplay features, and gameplay mechanics. Just be mindful of playing co-op in handheld mode: The Switch’s small screen is not the most accommodating for couch co-op adventures.
I’ll conclude this review in a similar note as Ben’s review earlier by including my co-pilot who played along on the couch next to me. Here’s Cody with his thoughts:
I had a good time playing It Takes Two–it’s cute, it’s cringey (again, you’ll know when you see it). The gameplay is fun overall with how unique two players are tasked with cooperating to solve puzzles. Sure, I personally encountered monotony in some sections, but that doesn’t take away from how much fun I had. I don’t really like how precise some of the sections are when playing with the Joy-Cons, but they’re manageable. The graphics aren’t the best, either, but it’s the Nintendo Switch and the developers did the best with what they had.
There’s a reason (err, several) why It Takes Two earned its Game of the Year accolades in 2021, and Switch owners now have the opportunity to play one of the best co-op games of late. The story remains meaningful, the puzzles innovative. The title continues to succeed in navigating interpersonal strife long after its release and the title’s ending being freely available to find online. Even though I knew of some of the events that occurred before reviewing, I was often surprised by its powerful storytelling. It runs incredibly well on the Switch, to boot. Some of the typical Switch-based quirks may be coming with, but it still delivers on a compelling and emotional experience without the compromises that usually accompany a Switch port. With Friend Pass baked into the game, Switch owners are able to play with those in the same room as well as afar. I would personally recommend using a voice comms platform should you play remotely, though.
