Seems these days that games I’m interested in playing end up free somewhere if I just wait a while. It Takes Two is one of those titles, as there it is, on PS+++++ (I forget how many +).

It’s a two player co-op title, with players each taking control of a heading-for-divorce couple who, because of magic or something prompted by their young child being upset with Mummy and Daddy arguing, have been turned into toys. You know, standard stuff. Each level they’re individually given different abilities, and you use these together to navigate a very Honey I Shrunk The Kids world, from a garden shed to a greenhouse and a tree.

Guiding you (and, clearly, hindering your progress) is a sentient Book of Love who explains that the obstacles and challenges you face are allegories for the relationship issues you’re having and overcoming them will bring you closer together again. There’s platforming, puzzling, spider-riding, shooting, and a wide variety of situations to deal with along the way, and none of the gimmicks last long enough to become stale. Despite the happy colours and generally upbeat and humorous events, there are some pretty dark places the game goes to, with a level where your “mission” is to set out and “kill” your daughter’s favourite stuffed toy (trigger warning: you cut off a limb and horribly maim a cute elephant who is screaming pleas for you to stop) just to make your girl cry. Horrible.

It’s a very pretty game, but I did find some issues in with the audio. Cut scenes suffered from silence (but only the voices), or sound and video went out of sync. Reading up, some others with the same problems suggested changing the PS5’s audio format from (or to) PCM or other possible options, but no matter the setting it made no difference. Seems it affects other platforms too. Jarring, but I have subtitles on so that helped a bit.

Other than that, it was a great, varied, and sometimes clever game, which works really well as a co-op title.

After finishing Xenoblade Chronicles X, I was at a loss as to what to play next. I didn’t fancy another 125+ hour epic, so had a flick through what I had installed, and came across Night in the Woods. I’d looked at it before but hadn’t realised I owned it (well, PS+ rented it anyway), and I found it was only a few hours long, so here we are.

It starts with you, an anthropomorphic cat coming back to her home town after dropped out of “school”. I say “school” because it’s a university, and it irks me when people refer to university as school. Anyhoo, Mae turns up at her parents’ house and the first few days involve her reintegrating back into her family and the friends she’d left behind, rejoining her band and hanging out and doing things she used to do as a young teen even though she’s now 20 years old.

Soon it is clear there’s something very wrong with her. She gets headaches, but she’s also constantly tired, has bad dreams, doesn’t want to talk about her reasons for ditching uni and for some reason is happy to jump on rooftops and balance on power lines. Because of course. At the same time, you get to know more about Possum Springs, her run-down town which used to be a thriving and prosperous mining town but now all the work as dried up, the shops are closed or closing, some folk have gone missing, and there’s just nothing to do and everyone is a bit miserable. Oh, and sinkholes keep opening up.

Then Mae sees a ghost kidnap a child.

Or did she? Or is she just going a bit mad and it’s a symptom of everything else she’s struggling with? Things aren’t clear until they are and even then it isn’t entirely.

As a sort of platforming puzzle visual novel, Night in the Woods somehow manages to feel laid back but full of existential dread at the same time. Light hearted banter belies the truly horrific things happening in the town, and the feeling that summat just int right. It’s a great story with some great characters. And a Guitar Hero mini game because why not?