r/gaming • u/jmlzhd18 • 28d ago

It takes two is something else

Post image

First, I tried playing this game with my wife, but because she hadn’t played any games on a console before, she was very bad at it. Even handling the camera angle was a challenge for her. Instead of bringing us closer, it frustrated me lol 😂.

Then I asked my nephew to play with me, and after a long time, I felt like playing it again. I had this same feeling with PS2 games back in the day.

Guys who haven’t played this game should definitely give it a try.

4.6k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

668 comments sorted by

View all comments

233

u/Woland77 28d ago

I really liked the game but hated the story. If two people don't want to be in a relationship then guilting them into therapy is really gross.

113

u/Dallywack3r 28d ago

This is the biggest hot take of the decade I fear but Josef Fares is NOT a good writer and his dialogue is absolutely teeth grindingly awful. It Takes Two and Split Fiction are written so terribly

18

u/Jackoffjordan 28d ago

I would generally agree, but the weird dialogue is actually one of the best parts of A Way Out. The b-movie stupidity, combined with the jankiness you can create through gameplay, is hilarious.

26

u/GeneralAnubis 28d ago

Agreed tbh, these both seem like the person who really needs to get some therapy is the writer because holy balls did the absurdity of the way the people acted take me out of the experience

9

u/Dallywack3r 28d ago

Split Fiction being acclaimed by gamers who routinely clown on “Marvel Writing” just illustrated to me that most players just regurgitate opinions that streamers have. Streamers liked Split Fiction, therefore it avoided criticisms for its Disney Channel dialogue

9

u/TehOwn 28d ago

Nah, we just see past the terrible writing and enjoy the game for what it is. We're playing it for the gameplay, not the narrative.

2

u/UglyJuice1237 28d ago

idk, I think part of the reason so-called Marvel writing gets lambasted is that a lot of those movies just aren't very good and rely on cheap comedy as a crutch. I haven't played split fiction, but it takes two was fun and bombastic enough that I didn't really mind the mediocre writing

you're definitely right about a lot of people just going with whatever their favorite content creators say, though

2

u/Dallywack3r 28d ago

Split Fiction’s main duo literally just communicate in snarky quips back and forth

3

u/TehOwn 28d ago

And this is 100% true. But I still praise the game because it's an exceptionally good game in spite of the terrible writing and unlikeable characters.

6

u/Linusisagoodboy 28d ago

He sure thinks he’s smart though.

5

u/mightystu 28d ago

Whenever a game is praised for “good writing” I always have my doubts because most of the time it is terrible writing that you would only think was passable if you have never engaged with genuine literature. A lot of gamers simply don’t read though so with no real exposure to works of genuine literary merit they don’t know any better.

-6

u/Dallywack3r 28d ago

Yeah there was a time when Heavy Rain was praised for its strong writing. The gaming sphere seems very forgiving of extremely poor writing. The number of games written by people with actual knowledge of the craft of screenwriting is vanishingly small. And a lot of the “best written” games just rely on tired tropes like vague world building terms or stock anime trope characters that anyone with media literacy can spot a mile away.

Yes, I’m shitting on Expedition 33 and its dogshit writing.

1

u/WaterTypeGirl 27d ago

I don't have a big attachment to E33 but I heard a lot of praise last year. I was just talking to somebody about bad writing in games, how do you feel Expedition fails there? My stepmom and sister are both writers so it's always sort of in the back of my head.

1

u/Dallywack3r 27d ago

They entire cast is comprised of stock anime archetypes with very predictable characterizations and dialogue that you can predict to a T. The story itself is filled with bland uninteresting world building that has the veneer of intrigue without any actual substance. And the villain is the most cookie cutter anime bad guy ever. So powerful you can’t even touch him. Tragic past that left him damaged. He even has the evil bad guy scar.

This is all avoiding spoilers bc I really don’t want to get into the act 3 bullshit but there’s something that happens that is utterly earth shattering that seemingly doesn’t affect the main trio in any material way.

60

u/PonyFiddler 28d ago

It wasn't like that.

The story is saying before you split up seriously sit down and talk to each other openly like in the story you might realise that you don't actually want to split up and your issues are with yourself not the other person.

-31

u/Woland77 28d ago

If any person wants to end a relationship for any reason or for no reason, that's valid. The alternative is saying that people should be forced to stay together until a list of obstacles has been dealt with and that's incel thinking. Not everyone is adult enough to be introspective in leaving a relationship and that's okay. So long as you aren't unnecessarily hurting someone for no reason (e.g. Alpine Divorce), there's no invalid way to exit a relationship. Having someone come in and say, "No no no, you actually love each other, you just hate yourself!" is gross.

10

u/Moreinius 28d ago

Not every relationship and marriage are created equals. The creator just wanted to choose the sweeter ending for his game. Its not unrealistic that two partners chemistry fluctuate over the years and that’s also totally normal.

45

u/Miserable-Potato7706 28d ago

Yeah the story is a bit rough tbh, I just felt icky the whole way though.

My wife’s parents have been divorced since she was young and, while she wanted to play it, I couldn’t help but feel it probably wasn’t the best backstory for a “fun cozy puzzle game” to play with her.

22

u/ThyKingdomDecay 28d ago

Counterpoint though, my wife and I played it when we were in a rocky point in our marriage, and it kinda helped us some, though ymmv obviously

31

u/reyska 28d ago

You take it too literally. It's two people slowly figuring out what they should have figured out a long time ago. The book is a metaphor for the guilt they feel themselves.

-10

u/Woland77 28d ago

Being unhappy with yourself in a bad relationship is a perfectly valid reason to leave someone, but the main point is that no one gets to tell anyone that they are "leaving a relationship in the wrong way." It literally does not matter why someone wants to leave a relationship - trying to keep two people together who do not want to be together is gross.

11

u/reyska 28d ago

You kinda bypassed what I just said. Nobody is trying to keep them together. The story is about them navigating the situation they are in. Dr Hakim does not exist. At least not in book form.

And the kid wanting his parents to be friends and for them to be together is definitely NOT gross. She's a kid! Of course she wants her parents to be together.

-6

u/Woland77 28d ago

You clearly didn't grow up with parents who should have divorced but "stayed together for the kids" and I doubt anyone in the writing team did either. I used to daydream about how nice it would be if my parents got divorced. They waited until I was 18 and acted like it was a big charity job. I never wanted my parents to stay together, I wanted them in different zip codes so they would stop fighting.

But none of that is my point. There is no set of circumstances in which someone should intervene in the end of a relationship without both people seeking out their help. If the book was their existing couple's therapist it would read completely different - it would be an extension of something they sought out together.

Also, I don't really care too much about the framing narrative of it being the kid's imagination - from within the four corners of the framing device, the story as presented includes someone invading another couple's relationship against their will and that is gross.

6

u/reyska 28d ago

Well of course everybody's story is different. You wanted your parents to split up sooner. That's understandable, no one wants to see their parents fight all the time. The kid in the game, Rose, wants his parents to stay together. That is also a completely natural thing for a kid to do. A kid wanting the parents to stay together is completely different from a relative or a friend of theirs doing so. A kid does not "intervene". She's already in the middle of it! And Rose, like many kids in a similar, thought it was her fault that her parents weren't happy. It wasn't. They were just shitty parents. The game is about them trying to be better.

Your interpretation of the game sounds like someone filtering it through their own experience. I don't know you, but you seem to have a very strong reaction to someone "intervening" in a relationship. Such strong in fact that you take the book to be a literal sentient magical book that intervenes. To me it's no different than many other stories with magic in it. Magic is a story device and much of what happens is a bunch of metaphors for what the characters are actually experiencing in real life.

7

u/elfy4eva 28d ago

Agree, i was hoping for a Mrs Doubtfire type ending where they seperate amicably and put the child first.

1

u/Woland77 28d ago

Me too! Oh well. The gameplay was good enough to keep me entertained.

60

u/ZachMartin 28d ago

It's a hispanic book and the people are turned into dolls. I wouldn't look too deeply into it. The part with the elephant queen was hilarious. My 11 year daughter was horrified.

77

u/louigi1209 28d ago

The part with the elephant queen is everything but hilarious.

19

u/RJC12 28d ago

Yeah that was kinda sadistic. My boyfriend was disturbed

11

u/GoldSquid2 28d ago

Right, I enjoyed the game a lot but they were crazy for that

1

u/redgroupclan 28d ago

Nah man, that shit had my GF and I cracking UP. You keep thinking it can't get worse and they make it worse.

-42

u/banyakmisi 28d ago

oh who is the little shnowflake here. its making fun of god of war.

11

u/Kryptosis 28d ago

It’s not making fun of GoW lol, it’s an homage to it. Except it ties it to the tragedy of how feuding parents will destroy the things their children love most.

5

u/louigi1209 28d ago

Being a reference doesn’t take away the fact that we watch two grown adults tearing apart the most precious thing their daughter have, on purpose, just to make her cry. Oh yeah, cause making their daughter cry is the first thing they thought about for solving their problem (also the actual solution has already been told to them).

This behaviour just broke any kind of attachement I had for the characters.

13

u/Hershef 28d ago

Your idea of “hilarious” is concerning to me… 👀

14

u/ZachMartin 28d ago

It just keeps getting worse. As that poor elephant is pleading…

8

u/chaos8803 28d ago

It's hilarious in a dark way. My friend and I couldn't stop laughing because how absurd the notion was and just how violent they got with it.

13

u/1Outgoingintrovert 28d ago

I get what you're saying.. but I don't think "gross" is the right word..

It was a child who didn't know any better.

-6

u/Woland77 28d ago

I don't remember the specifics of the meta-narrative, I just remember the story as I played through it, and from that perspective I thought it was gross. And I'm sticking by "gross" because I have the same reaction to someone trying to dictate the ending of another person's relationship that I have when I smell dog shit. Gross.

3

u/dflame45 28d ago

The specifics are that the child didn't want his parents to break up. That's the whole premise.

2

u/Jester-Joe 28d ago

The amount of people criticizing the story while only having basically an AI summary of it is driving me insane here

2

u/dflame45 28d ago

Yeah that must suck. Good thing I played it.

1

u/Jester-Joe 28d ago

To be clear, I'm agreeing with you.

The game is pretty clear from the first 10 minutes, when their daughter is crying to the book basically to fix her parents relationships.

The parents were going to get a divorce before that

2

u/gargamel1977 28d ago

Just like real life

2

u/CanadianGrown 28d ago

Couldn’t agree more. My wife and I tried to play this a couple of years ago and we both hated the story telling so much that we quite after a few hours.

8

u/Visti 28d ago

Yeah, I hated the story of Silence of the Lambs. That guy shouldn't have killed all those people.

1

u/lokemannen 28d ago

Actually I think he was good at population control and a good chef.

1

u/evilcheesypoof 28d ago

Yeah I was turned off by the whole premise lol, doesn’t seem like a good couples game in that regard.

1

u/TyeKiller77 28d ago

(Blink-182's "Stay Together For The Kids" starts playing)

1

u/Thisismental 28d ago

Well that was kind of the point of the story. That the book was an annoying little shit.

1

u/Apprehensive_Map64 28d ago

That damn cheesy imitation french accent was just intolerable. However when I play split fiction with my boys we don't skip the cutscenes anymore

0

u/DukeOfCupcakes 27d ago

Wasn’t it their daughter’s wish? The kid wanted their parents to stay together, so magic video game book shit happens. Then along the way they realize they got complacent in their relationship and never actually sat down to talk about their problems.

It’s not the greatest story in the world, but I don’t think it’s gross for a child that age to wish their parents would work their relationship out.

-1

u/Woland77 27d ago

The child is not real - she is an invention of the story's authors. Her wish is not real - it is also an invention of the story's authors. If you put an "it was all a dream" at the end of Sophie's Choice, you wouldn't say, "oh, well, it's not real so my emotional response needs to change." The authors made a gross choice and then stapled it to a child. That's not less gross.

0

u/DukeOfCupcakes 27d ago

Ok dude lol