I guess I just can't relate to these types of games that have no dialogue or anything. People said that they had some profound experience with Journey. I thought Journey had some great music and visuals but it didn't really speak to me. Brothers had some great visuals at times but one of the songs on the soundtrack completely ruined the sad moments. The one with the wailing vocals. It was really loud and was like knives in my ears. Games I did have a profound experience with were To the Moon and The Walking Dead. Both of those are games that told a story through writing and dialogue.

I don't think this game is as strong as Journey, but it was still pretty good. There is something to be said for being able to convey a story and emotion without words. Just look at the first half of Wall-E, not a single word is said for a massive chunk of that movie and it's all still very engaging.

Writing and dialogue are different things. Journey and Brothers are both very well written games. But they aren't for everyone.

Need to play brothers and journey !

hrmm.. how long before it "hooks" me.. i'm pretty early in and getting bored fast :(

It is pretty at least :)

This game beat you over the head a little more than something like Journey, there were also some rather poor gameplay moments, and I don't think it did a great job of endearing you to the characters as individuals. I really didn't feel like the big emotional moments the game was going for were earned by the end. I enjoy games of this genre, but this was a little obvious, at times inartful and I got far more from the Swapper, Route Zero, Papers Please and Device 6, this was thematically and emotionally a little simpler/less effective. A good game but not something to go crazy over.

I dont think it is as emotinal as Journey but if you ever read Grimm faiery tales i think it strikes that cord. I was suprised by the intuitive use of controls and that scenary is gorgeous. My favorite moment of the year is working the brothers around the castle when they are tied together.

Journey had much more subtlety, whereas Brothers is much more of a heart-on-sleeve tale, plus the latter trades in fables and fairy tales so a slightly simpler and more straight-forward approach is logical. I found both to be utterly enchanting and totally engaging - Journey was my #3 GOTY last year, and Brothers will be in my top 10 for sure - but I get why they aren't for everyone. I found the controls in Brothers to be a little unintuitive, but I give that game something of a pass because they were trying something pretty new, and although a lot of the puzzles weren't particularly challenging, they were at least visually engaging. Goddamn, that's a beautiful game.

I suppose in a way Journey and Brothers try a new way to solve a common problem with games - most games don't have good writing. Even games that have good writing by video game standards (The Walking Dead) don't have particularly good writing. That these two are able to tell a narrative almost entirely without verbal communication and dialogue (Journey does have cutscenes with monologues, let's not forget) is quite a feat, and it saves us all from the corny, ham-fisted dialogue, predictable turns of phrase, and cliches that I associate with video game narrative.

The OP is right about one thing, though: Journey does have fucking fantastic music. Best video game score in recent memory, for me.

I went into Brothers expecting to love it, I usually love games like this, but I sort of came away with this sense of 'eh'. Maybe I had set my expectations too high. Good game - just nothing that grabbed me.

Mhmm, such profound dialogue: