Teaming up with another player to finish a game is hardly a new concept, and this year alone saw Nintendo roll out WarioWare: Get It Together! as well as Mario Party Superstars, filling the “party game” niche nicely. It is a simple concept, perfectly executed, and deserves recognition as one of this year’s best games to play with a partner.īut It Takes Two offers something different than short minigames or direct competition: a full-blown narrative adventure that can only be completed by two players working in sync. It Takes Two shares some of the design philosophy that made 2018’s A Way Out stand out, though instead of relying on the tropes of prison escape films, it draws from romantic comedies at every turn. Their daughter, Rose, is crushed and turns to a mysterious relationship advice book for help.Ĭody and May are a couple on the brink of divorce. But rather than read passages out loud to her parents, she wishes with all her might that things might change, and Cody and May experience a little bit of magic that will change their lives. Specifically, their souls are zapped into dolls.

Soon enough, Rose’s book animates into a lusty, hip-thrusting therapist who tells the couple the only way to return to their bodies is through collaboration.

The fairy-tale nature of the narrative is the perfect justification for every mechanic introduced in the game. Anything can happen, and as players move through every chapter together, they’ll experience a vast swath of different mechanics exploring different ways to achieve their goals. On the surface, It Takes Two is about a couple doing everything they can to escape their fate. But on a meta level, the game brings players together in surprising and delightful ways. Rather than gradually building up an ever-expanding set of skills over course of It Takes Two’s nine chapters, players have pretty much everything they need from the beginning. Cody and May can double-jump, wall jump, grind on rails, and swing off ropes from almost the first hour of gameplay. It is a robust set of movement options, but It Takes Two doesn’t stop there. Seemingly every few minutes, a new multiplayer mechanic is introduced, depending on the level’s theme. One particularly memorable chapter sees players controlling time, making copies of themselves, flying on the backs of clockwork birds, and tossing bombs from said birds to blow up a protective shield blocking an objective. The variety on display is surprisingly vast and never fails to delight.īeyond the story-based progression, chapters are sprinkled with over two dozen minigames.

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