Review of "A Pair": It's not fun, I'll compensate you 1000 yuan

Joseph Farris is a very interesting old man, and his most famous achievement is probably at the 2017 TGA "Grass Up" Oscar, which made the host Jeff Gisley feel embarrassed. A while ago, Microsoft was once again targeted, and the naming department of the Xbox next-generation console was also criticized. It is not surprising that he made a lot of comments in front of the media before the release of "Together":

"I can assure you that there is a lot of energy throughout the entire game of 'Two People in a Row'. You can quote my words as the title. If someone says from the bottom of their heart, 'This game is not very interesting,' I can give the speaker $1000."

To be honest, although this guy's first two works, "Brothers: The Legend of Gemini" and "Escape from the Sky", are both very distinctive, it is not impossible to find one or two "not fun places", and I am bound to win this $1000.

However, when I foolishly opened "A Pair" to nitpick... wait, this game is also too fun, isn't it?

Can we still play like this?

From the perspective of design logic, "A Pair" is just as abnormal as Faris.

In most cases, it is common to add seasoning around the gameplay in order to achieve a certain level of volume in the game. For example, Diablo III is based on the core monster spawning system, constantly dropping orange and green damage values that exceed the sky and stimulating adrenaline with new entries; General open world works such as Assassin's Creed Odyssey also utilize maps and side quests with similar mechanisms to fill the entire gameplay process and prolong game time.

There are very few games that dare to add up the gameplay itself as a bargaining chip, and those that dare to forcibly split the gameplay into a two person cooperation mechanism are even more angular. However, "Two People Go" does exactly that.

What is the accumulation of gameplay? Perhaps using a few scenarios to describe it more intuitively:

You may have just jumped up and down the hook like Spider Man, and in the blink of an eye, you fell into a hand cranked mining cart, following the rails in a stunning scene. Your friend drove a toy dinosaur to help you remove obstacles on the way, and then the two of them boarded a small boat and had a thrilling naval battle with a giant octopus. Before I could catch my breath, a doll appeared in front of me, inviting the protagonists to participate in a new game.

Alternatively, you may not easily rely on the reaction force of the oil gun to cross the tornado covered waters on a wooden board. You may be thrown into the arena and fight against the beetles in the mist, and then ride him through a path filled with oil barrels to reach the Mechanical Queen Bee. After a big battle on the slide, you can board a flying machine made of red heart underwear and escape the pursuit and interception of the Squirrel Legion while firing the machine gun.

These scenes are not my imagination of yesterday's dream, they are quite tightly intertwined. If we convert these two summary texts into game time, it may only be a short two hours. To be honest, the last time I saw such a high-density gameplay presentation was from Nintendo's pen.

Furthermore, there is no need to worry that the gameplay of "Two People in a Row" not only guarantees quantity but also quality. The two protagonists have different abilities in each level, and there are many combinations, which are perfectly combined with battles and puzzle solving.

In an early level, Xiaomei obtained the hammer, while Cody gained the ability to shoot and retrieve nails. Some platforms require a hammer to hit the mechanism hard in order to lift to a specific position. At this time, it is necessary to aim at the small hole between the platform and the wall and fix it with nails; There are also some partial movements that rely on the dynamic coordination of the two. For example, players can use the nails that are horizontally inserted into the wooden board as a "lever" and swing it to another platform through the hammer of the hammer.

The entire process is naturally a composite presentation of these mechanisms, and solving problems is not that simple. A better example of this is in a certain boss battle, where the player controlling Cody must first seize the opportunity to nail the leader's hand against the wall, and then use the "lever" composed of nails to pave the way for his teammates. Xiaomei picked up the hammer and swayed along the lever all the way to the leader's feet, then she could enjoy the pleasure of being hammered.

Even more valuable is that before you get tired of specific mechanisms, the game will quickly shift towards new content. We can be lonely hunters holding oil guns and cannons, master the ability to grow and decrease and control gravity, and become mages and warriors...

It seems that "Two in a Row" is not reluctant to abandon the interesting gameplay accumulated before, and even as a player, I feel "is it too regrettable?"? In the mid to late stage of the clock tower scene, nails and hammers have long been thrown out of the sky, replaced by a combination of backtracking time and teleportation mechanisms. The mechanisms and boss battles built on this basis are also impressive, so I won't mention them too much to ensure everyone's fun.

This paranoid design logic is closely related to Farris' attitude towards electronic games. In the past, as a film director, he particularly disliked repetitive tasks such as leveling up in games. Simply changing the color and number of enemies to expand the inner capacity was also a false method. No matter what the character went through, it should reflect the gameplay of the game.

In fact, a similar trend can also be seen from "Escape from the Sky". There are almost no scenes in the entire story that require players to "turn back". Although the cost is limited and the work is relatively rough, in order to avoid repetition, stage transitions are still carried out through one event after another, just like watching a movie.

Next page: More content