I don't know why people cannot, or refuse to, admit that the games of this studio aren't all that interesting. "A way out" was, of course, a very unique game, and the true co-op was felt fresh. But that was about it. The gameplay mechanics however, don't feel as well thought, since you are mostly just spamming or holding a single button in order to complete tasks. Apart from this the acting performances were awkward, with animations not managing to maintain any sort of illusion of the characters being human, and the story was mostly lackluster.
"It takes two" built upon the framework laid down by the co-op in a way out, and in my opinion did a great job of refining it. It was a great successor in the genre, with much more engaging mechanics for cooperation, cool areas to explore and fun easter eggs. All displays amazing creativity. The acting being far better, although with a still not so impressive character roster.
It saddens me to say that I this new game is a step backwards in from "It takes two", in every way really. The story is also so boring and nonsensical that I stopped listening about halfway through, with the characters being worse than ever. Mio has a dad, Zoe has a sister and Rader has a company. The animation of dialogue (again) doesn't either really help keeping the illusion of the characters being human.
As for the actual gameplay, most mechanics are usually only utilised in one way, and not explored further than "heres a thing that does this; now do it please and let the puzzle be over with". Also many of the mechanics are back to being holding or spamming a button. That being said, there is some bits of gold to be found, the captcha being one of them). The level design is extremely linear, with almost nothing to interact with. Except for the mole village, there are almost no places where you can find these little fun easter eggs and interactables, which is a shame since the last title did it so well. Lastly, the difficulty is almost non-existent; neither puzzles nor gameplay-wise. This is of course not objectively bad, but some sort of challenge would have been nice, even if it were optional.
All in all, I don't think this game is horrible, but not particularly good either. Should you play it? If you liked the previous ones, I'd say give it a go, but you're really not missing out by not playing.
