It Takes Two

It Takes Two (Switch NSP/ROM/XCI) Download is a game that blends puzzle, action, and strategy to take you on one of life’s wildest adventures. Sometimes, as depicted in this game, the marriage of two hardworking and good parents, seemingly perfect on the outside but hollow on the inside, falls apart. They try to support their daughter and accept her decision. But in It Takes Two, things don’t go according to plan. Cody and May, a father and mother, face a strange challenge: their daughter (who is probably a witch) transforms them into strange dolls with her magical tears. But instead of running away, they both want to get back to her – and this begins an adventure that takes them from the cabin to the garden and back home again.

The game comes to the Switch with its own amazing co-op mode. It’s important to understand that this game cannot be played solo – it’s completely cooperative. There are no single-player levels or puzzles. Cody and I aren’t just two people who accidentally meet in one place—this entire environment is designed specifically for them. They’re helpless without each other, and that’s what gives this story meaning. Trying to play solo—apart from requiring mastery of the controls—would only highlight their loneliness and the strength of their friendship, which would be a sad thing.

Two Switch NSPs are required to play this game.

This game is like a box of donuts at a leisurely pace: it starts out exciting, then gets completely devoured, and never gets boring. Initially, Cody can create spirals by throwing arcs of nails at the walls, which I can then climb with my hammer. Later, I can spray the clay with a water gun, which Cody can spread like a spinning flower whose leaves become platforms. These tools and abilities are used to solve puzzles and defeat bosses in platforming levels: Mai’s cloning ability allows her to instantly teleport from one switch to another to activate time-delay mechanisms, and she can also teleport via a fast vine, pulling herself into an obstacle and escaping at the last moment.

It Takes Two has the power to turn ordinary moments into pure fun. In reality, my kids’ fidget toys feel like useless things, piling up dust on shelves. But in “It Takes Two,” those same things become flying roller skateboards that allow you to glide down giant air slides and perform stunning aerial acrobatics like a short Tony Hawk.

It’s a universal story of relationships. One moment, Cody and I are working together with a giant pencil in connect-the-dots drawing. The next, they’re wielding spells and talismans like a wizard and barbarian in an isometric dungeon. Then they challenge the dark, crystal-like interior of the kaleidoscope, and just when the game seems over, Cody is flying a small plane above the trees while I’m on the wings, fighting a Street Fighter-like aerial lariat against a local Squirrel Militia member. The transitions between all these clever and innovative gameplay styles are so seamless, each one with its own unique and new mechanics—and arguably nothing is used twice.