It Takes Two

Genre: 3D Platformer

Players: 2 Co-Op (Local Split-Screen, Local Wireless, Online)

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Review:

It Takes Two is a 3D Platformer released in 2021 on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2022. This game is exclusively a two-player co-op game, and cannot be played in single-player. You will need to bring a friend along to enjoy this game. As such, I have brought along someone to review this game with me!

Hello! Jenn here and I happened to be the other person Jake invited to play this game. I’ve previously played It Takes Two with someone else – and you guessed it, I played it on the PC.

I haven’t played other versions of the game, so I’m going in fresh, for the most part. Of course, I knew the general premise of the game going in. The two-player co-op focus is fairly unique, and it seems like this game tries to give players as many options as possible to play the game – with local split-screen, local wireless, and online options available to the player.

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How Does It Take Two?

Jake and I played the game on local split screen, local wireless, and online with no issues. Mind you, we were both playing on the same network. No matter which way you play it, you are still placed into a split screen display, so I’d advise you play this game on a TV and not on the Switch itself if playing in the same room.

I felt like the online performance for this game was pretty seamless, but I will note that playing online requires that players sign in using an EA account, which is a little annoying. On the bright side, players who play online or via local wireless only need one copy of the game – there is a free “friend version” that one of the players can download and use to connect to the full game. Oh, I also want to make it a point to say that no matter which way you play the game, both players will need either a pair of Joy-Cons or a Pro controller – you can’t play this game with just one Joy-Con per player.

As a game that focuses on the co-op and collaboration, It Takes Two does this tremendously well. The puzzles are brilliant and visually stunning. They’re fun, but not in a way that feels childish or obnoxiously hard. You need the split screen display because it helps with timing, and timing is an integral part of It Takes Two. I was concerned that the split screen display would feel limiting or jarring, but it is actually charming.

I agree. The level design, puzzle design, boss design, pacing… all of it is pitch-perfect. And the interesting thing is that this game doesn’t go the easy route with the co-op elements – throughout the game, it splits the gameplay up into asymmetrical gameplay that has each of the two characters doing something different, yet for both players it continues to be fun and engaging, and I didn’t ever find myself wishing I was playing the other character because my character was boring – I only wanted to swap controllers so I could enjoy both parts of the experience. Perhaps that’s a good argument that this is a game to play twice so you can see it from the perspective of both characters.

Another fun thing about It Takes Two are the added challenges, where the players/characters go up against each other. I will state that there are certain challenges that seem to favor one character over the other. One of the first challenges is a Whack A Mole type mini game and I felt like the male character, Cody, had a huge advantage over May. Still, these mini-games are supposed to be fun and light hearted.

What Jenn is neglecting to mention regarding the Whack-a-Mole minigame is that I tested her theory out by swapping characters with her. I beat her both times. Just sayin’.

Speaking of challenge, I think that the game can be challenging at times, and can even seem almost unfair in the challenges it gives you, but it does this while being very forgiving, giving players a generous amount of leeway with the timing for jumps and other tasks with a seemingly small window, as well as respawning players swiftly and painlessly after dying. The result is that completing a tough spot can seem like a real accomplishment, even if doing so isn’t torturously difficult.

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A Tale For Two

And while the gameplay can be frustrating, the personality and charm of the game kept us playing. The game starts with Cody and May meeting up at the front of the house. Their greetings quickly deteriorate into an argument. Their daughter, Rose, has been watching the argument, and she’s holding two dolls made in the image of her parents. Cody and May tell Rose that they have something to tell her. They state that they are getting a divorce and going their separate ways. Distraught, Rose asks to go play and runs to the backyard shed. There, she holds the dolls and cries, wishing that the two could become friends again.

What follows is a Liar Liar-style bit of children’s magical wish fulfillment, where the parents are apparently transformed into the aforementioned voodoo dolls by the Latin-accented and relationship-obsessed Dr. Hakim, an anthropomorphized book who seems to take sadistic glee in making Cody and May suffer… in ways that are clearly designed to force the pair to cooperate while they confront their failings throughout their relationship. Often this involves other anthropomorphized objects that all represent these relationship issues, such as a vacuum cleaner Cody carelessly broke and May promised to fix but never did.

While I like all of this game’s characters, Dr. Hakim is by far my favorite. He is so clearly manipulating Cody and May into situations where they need to rely on each other while they confront their selfish and negligent behaviors as a couple, but he does so in a gleefully mischievous way that completely ignores their suffering in such a enthusiastic way it’s hard not to love this instigator even as he makes your lives more difficult time and again.

I loved the voice acting in this game. While there is a good amount of cheesiness in the game and characters, it’s not cringe-worthy cheesiness. Well, maybe there is. Dr. Hakim lathers on the love talk and how the two characters should work together. But the main characters sound clear and pristine, with impeccable dialogue.

I agree, the voice acting is all great, and in my opinion, Dr. Hakim stands out as the real scene-stealer here. What’s even more impressive is that he and Cody are voiced by the same voice actor, Joseph Balderrama, pulling double-duty. Both characters sound completely different and bring a completely different energy to the role they play.

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A View For Two

The sound work is also amazing. At one point Cody and May are traveling through plastic tubes. Not only are their sounds accompanying their bodies rattling through the tubes, but their voices are distorted as if they are talking within the tubes. The sound design is fun and whimsical.

That moment also really stood out to me. I agree, overall this game’s sound design is phenomenal. And the music… well, honestly, the music wasn’t nearly as noteworthy to me. It certainly wasn’t bad – it has a great cinematic feel to it that accentuates the drama of the given scene. But nothing about it struck me as memorable.

I agree, I don’t remember the music being spectacular. I was more impressed with the sound design.

When it comes to the graphics, this game has solid 3D visuals with some good detailed cartoony characters. The framerates and resolution aren’t going to be at the same high quality as other platforms, but even downgraded to 30FPS with a resolution of 1080p in docked mode and 720p in handheld mode, the game still looks pretty good. Some textures seemed a bit lacking, and there’s texture pop-in in the early cutscenes, but on the plus side, there’s some very good use of lighting and shadow, and the overall visual creativity of the game really shines through. I do see that compared to other versions of the game, there’s also a much lower level of graphical detail in the environments, but the game still looks good, and the performance seemed good too.

I felt like a lot of the details regarding the characters’ appearances were omitted on the Switch version. While it’s true that there were texture pop-ins, the actual gameplay had no issues with visuals.

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So… Does This Game Have What It Takes?

Overall, It Takes Two is an outstanding game, and I feel the transition to Nintendo Switch has been a fairly smooth one. This is a well-designed 3D Platformer with impeccable level design, superbly-crafted asymmetrical co-op gameplay, and a fun story with some delightful characters.

And as someone who generally dislikes platformers, I’ve asked consistently to play this game again with Jake.

For those of you who don’t know Jenn, I don’t think that a Platformer can get higher praise than that.

tl;dr – It Takes Two is a 3D Platformer with a co-op focus that requires two players to play. This game’s asymmetrical co-op gameplay is phenomenal, with great level design, puzzle design, and boss design. The story is pretty delightful too, with fun characters and great voice acting, along with some wonderful sound design. If you have a friend to play with, this is an absolute must-have co-op game.

Grade: A

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2022 Game Awards:

Winner

Best Voice Acting – All of the voicework in It Takes Two is excellent, but the real highlight here is Joseph Balderrama pulling double-duty as both deuteragonist Cody and antagonist Dr. Hakim, two roles that couldn’t be more different, yet are each pulled off so convincingly you’d never guess it was the same voice actor. The interplay between Cody and his wife May, voiced by Annabelle Dowler, is also frequently superb. Overall, much of this game’s charm comes from its great voice acting.

Best New Character (Dr. Hakim) – Every time Dr. Hakim shows up, you just know he’s going to make life more difficult for the game’s two protagonists. He seems to delight in throwing obstacles in their way, yet he’s so expressive and charismatic, it’s hard not to love him all the same. Also, come on, he’s an anthropomorphized relationship self-help book, that’s pretty original in and of itself. I don’t know if we’ll ever see a sequel to It Takes Two (It Takes Three?), but if so, I absolutely hope we see the return of Dr. Hakim.

Best Multiplayer – It’s a real gamble building your game around a required co-op component. Making a game that can only be played in pairs really limits your potential target audience. But not only is It Takes Two so good that people will want to pair up to play it, but the co-op is so well-crafted that I couldn’t imagine this game working any other way. However, the most impressive part of this game’s multiplayer is that it is often an asymmetrical co-op game, where each player is doing something different. And yet, the game still remains fun for both players, so neither ever feels like they’re missing out… at least no more than the other player is missing out on what they’re doing. That this game manages this seemingly effortlessly is an extremely impressive feat.

Runner-Up: Game of the Year, Best Platformer, Best Sound Design, Best Story, Best Port / Remake, Funniest Game, Most Original

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